Fujitsu UK CEO positive about the road ahead

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Duncan Tait took the helm at Fujitsu at the height of the economic slowdown and all the upheavalit triggered, nevertheless revenues and orders are on the rise again.

In the UK it has maintained its position on the desktop services top table, in spite of setbacks,and has begun to build a strong cloud business.

It recently won a megadealwith the Post Office to act as service integrator on its telephone and broadband service. Underthe deal, which is worth an estimated £500m over five years, Fujitsu will oversee the entiremigration process, both of the network and of the applications. TalkTalk provides the networkservice, Capita the customer services, and MDS the billing, with Fujitsu managing and completingthe integration.

Tait says last year Fujitsu UK registered a 3.6% increase in revenue and a 40% increase in ordervolume. Tait is positive about the immediate future and says afterwards three years of IT budgetlockdown, businesses are beginning to spend more, with the retail and financial services sectorsits most active clients.

He has been in his role as Fujitsu UK CEO for about 15 months, while which time he has overseena rebalancing of its business to move forward with more focus on the private sector and cloudcomputing.

The recent economic turmoil has changed business

He says the recent economic turmoil has changed business. Fujitsu is one of the government'sbiggest IT suppliers, so when it started to cut costs Fujitsu was at risk of losing significantturnover.

The company has moved from having about 70% of its sales in the public sector a few years ago,to having 55% public and 45% private. He says the company aims to furthermore redress this balance. "Weare trying to ensure we are going forward with our private sector [business], because in the pastwe were mainly public sector," says Tait.

He says Fujitsu is rebalancing through more business in existing private sector customers as wellas new clients. All of these deals, says Tait, have a major cloud component. 

For example, in 2011 security company G4S outsourcedits IT infrastructure and services to Fujitsu for £32.9m over seven years. Fujitsu'scloud-based infrastructure-as-a-service architecture will deliver applications, withworkers migrated to Windows 7 and a virtual Citrix desktop. This will serve 3,500 desktops andlaptops, and 10,500 e-mail customers.

Last year as well saw home credit provider International PersonalFinance reduce costs and improve business agility by moving its IT infrastructureinto a private cloud built by Fujitsu. Pursuant to this agreement the £10mthree-year contract, Fujitsu will host IPF's applications and data, and charge on a pay-per-usemodel.

Tait says now that budgets are unlocked, companies don't just want services to reduce costs, butalso to grow their businesses. A recent study commissioned by Fujitsu revealed that two-thirds ofexecutives don't believe their business can respond quickly to business changes just as customerdemand and new competitive threats. The Fit for Change study revealed that nearly 60% believetechnology is the barrier to quick change.

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