Japanese IT giant joins the best-known burger chain in the world...

In a day that has brought news of a major new IT contract between Tesco and Microsoft, another large corporation has decided to gather its disparate IT outsourcing needs into one supplier. IT out-sourcers Fujitsu have committed to a five-year contract with the UK arm of global food retailer McDonald's. The restaurant chain's British operation will be using Fujitsu's expertise and systems for POS systems as well as back-office architecture, and will be extended to franchise as well as corporate branches.

The criteria for the success of the contract is said to be whether or not the new procedures simplify IT support for outlet staff, diminish call-outs for on-site engineering and lower the TCO for the company's IT hardware in the long term.

Fujitsu business director Jon Wolfe said: "The role, moving forward, is as much about the customer experience and supporting new technologies that ensure agility in meeting customer demands, such as touch-screen ordering and contact-less payments – both areas that McDonald’s is already deploying."

McDonalds announced in January the company's migration to the Visa contactless payments infrastructure. The new contract will find Fujitsu deploying 'user-serviceable' technology that opens up the possibility of in-situ staff solving more IT issues without engineer call-outs.

Fujitsu employs 185,000 employees globally, McDonalds 400,000 (as of January 2010).

Outsourcing IT support, the key to bringing creativity back to a company's IT department (wanstor.com)