Essex County Council Agrees Seven Year, £16.6m IT Deal With Fujitsu

Fujitsu has agreed a £16.6 million deal with the Essex County Council to overhaul its IT infrastructure, allowing it to be more cost effective and use extra capacity to offer shared services to other public organisations in the UK.

The contract will last seven years and will see the Japanese firm install “fully managed services” comprising of Oracle E-Business Suite, Hyperion, OBIEE and Taleo. Fujitsu has promised the new systems will work with the existing applications that the council has chosen to retain.

“By providing easy to use, Oracle-based self-service facilities, Essex County Council employees will experience an enhanced ability to excel in their work while saving money that can be invested in other areas,” says Fujitsu’s Sandy Vann.

Fujitsu Essex deal

The council believes the new system will help it achieve the target of saving £235 million over the next three years and could allow it to offer shared services to schools, libraries and other publicly-funded institutions outside the county.

“Awarding this contract is the culmination of two years’ hard work to replace more than 30 old and disjointed IT systems,” explains councilor Derrick Louis, Essex County Council’s cabinet member for corporate services and transformation. “These new, highly efficient, systems, which we aim to have up and running within the next financial year, will remove frustrating and unnecessary administration, duplication and repetition.

“Not only will there be significant savings over the coming years, this investment shows our commitment to making lasting changes to the way we deliver top quality services for the benefit of our residents and businesses. For example, it will soon be much easier for companies to do business with us as we streamline our online financial processes.”

Last year, Fujitsu withdrew from the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) procurement process, paving the way for BT to secure all of the government funding available under the initiative.

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