IBM Research will play a strong role in yet another significant IBM Global Services outsourcing contract.
IGS, which late last week announced an outsourcing contract with London-based Invensys plc. potentially worth $1 billion, will work with researchers from IBMs Watson Laboratory in helping to transform Invensys use of information technology.
The contract, which calls for spending about $100 million per year for up to 10 years, is part of the international production technology and energy management companys sweeping restructuring plan.
The goal is to not only save Invensys millions of dollars in more efficient IT operations, but to identify new ways of advancing the new Invensys business strategy.
IBM Research, in conjunction with IGS consultants and Invensys IT strategists and architects, will form an Innovation Team that will collaborate on proposals for the transformation work, according to Dr. Larry Lieberman, program manager at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, N.Y.
“IBM Researchs role is to inject the latest thinking on information technology as it applies to e-business or applications-oriented research,” said Lieberman. “We bring that to the table, take leading-edge things hot off the press in the lab and get that as a proposal into the stream of things the iTeam is considering. If a prototype project is nominated, our researchers can get involved in building it.”
IBM Global Services has worked with IBM Research over the last two years on a growing number of outsourcing deals to create such iTeams for its clients.
Although its too early to tell what the opportunities are with Invensys, Lieberman said the focus now is on operational efficiencies and pervasive computing.
IGS for its part will take over management of Invensys computing infrastructure in over a dozen countries. IGS will manage Invensys applications and technology, and it will provide help desk and support services for some 35,000 desktops. Invensys would not say how many of its IT employees will transition to IBM Global Services.