Getronics moves Alpha to the cloud

Getronics has announced a £10m deal with Alpha LSG, a UK in-flight caterer. This is a new logo win for Getronics. The project, which has now been completed, saw Getronics integrate all of Alpha’s systems on to the Getronics cloud platform. Alpha has 75 airline customers including Thomson, Thomas Cook and Monarch, and serves 16 airports across the UK. It is a £300m business with 3,600 staff.

Getronics took three months to move Alpha’s systems onto the platform, which provides IaaS, SaaS (e.g. email and CRM) and WaaS (WorkSpace-as-a-Service). As part of the deal, Getronics:

• transitioned all business data and c750 employees to a cloud services model. The on-demand model will give Alpha the ability to scale up to tackle seasonal peaks
• migrated all business applications to the cloud
• replaced more than 500 desktops with thin client devices and virtual desktops to enable mobile working. This is expected to reduce the annual energy bill by c£50k.

Getronics has operated in the UK for c70 years, but one can trace its roots back to the 19th century. More recently (1999) Getronics acquired Wang Global, which itself had acquired Olivetti. In 2005, Getronics acquired fellow Dutch player, PinkRoccade, and then two years later KPN acquired Getronics. Getronics is now owned by investment firm, Aurelius (see KPN sells non-Dutch bits of Getronics).

In the UK, the Getronics brand has been synonymous with low margin infrastructure services - i.e. break/fix and IT support. In recent years, however, those types of services have reduced as a portion and now account for c10% of total revenues. Other infrastructure services include data centre services, LAN/WAN and consultancy. We estimate that in FY12, the UK registered flat IT services revenues of c£140m – the lion’s share of which is infrastructure services. At that level, it does not make it into the Top 20 ranking for infrastructure services firms, but is still a fairly significant provider of support services in the UK market (see "Make or Break": How will the IT support services firms outside the top tier fare in 2013?).

Under current UK CEO, Mark Cook, Getronics is aiming to return to growth this year. The company is mainly focused on the commercial sectors such as retail, travel, manufacturing and financial services. Recent deals include winning new client Gatwick Airport, and a £10m renewal with long-time client, Clarks. We think the above deal with Alpha is interesting on a couple fronts. Firstly, it’s a good reference customer for other potential buyers – and references are particularly important when firms are about to make significant changes to the infrastructure services model. Secondly, it shows that Getronics can deliver more than the break/fix-type services it has historically been known for.

Our insight into the pipeline would suggest Getronics UK could be about to ink more such deals. Furthermore, opportunities for mid-sized cloud platform deals are going to remain strong. This is a ‘busy’ area from the suppliers’ perspective. Players from various backgrounds (e.g. reseller, hosting focused, traditional IT services) are all converging on this fragmented market, which for many is proving to be a very good hunting ground indeed (see ControlCircle: Invest to grow, Pulsant completes strong FY12).

Posted by Kate Hanaghan at '09:40' - Tagged: contract   cloud   infrastructure