ARMONK, N.Y. and EHNINGEN,
Germany, Nov. 18, 2014
/PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it has
signed a seven-year 1 billion Euro
outsourcing contract to deliver IT infrastructure services for the
Deutsche Lufthansa AG and its Group companies. According to the
agreement, which is subject in particular to the approval of the
Lufthansa Supervisory Board and antitrust authorities, IBM will
first optimize the airline's IT processes to increase efficiency,
which is expected to generate an estimated cost savings by an
average of approximately 70 million
Euro annually for the Lufthansa Group. This agreement is in
line with the terms and conditions as published already in
October.
Over the life of the contract, IBM will bring new solutions that
incorporate business analytics with mobile computing and social
business to enable Lufthansa to offer new services to customers at
the same time making partners and employees more productive.
"Outsourcing the IT infrastructure to IBM will strengthen the
competitiveness of the Lufthansa Group as a whole. The
transformation plan will directly improve our cost base. Together
with IBM we will have access to the latest IT technologies not only
to lower our IT cost but also to continue digitalizing our business
processes in order to increase efficiency and customer focus," said
Simone Menne, Member of the
Executive Board and CFO at Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Chairperson of
the Supervisory Board of Lufthansa Systems AG.
In order to strengthen its competitiveness, the Lufthansa Group,
with its quality airline brands and its logistics, aircraft
maintenance and catering businesses, is realigning the Group's IT
activities. By partnering with Lufthansa AG in this transformation,
IBM will first optimize the Lufthansa IT infrastructure for maximum
efficiency, make it ready for the innovation of cloud computing and
then bring in leading technologies such as business analytics,
mobile computing and social business to help Lufthansa meet its
business objectives.
"By partnering with IBM in its digital transformation, Lufthansa
Group has decided to accelerate the move to new technologies such
as cloud computing to optimize efficiency," said Martina Koederitz, General Manager, IBM Germany.
"The agreement provides Lufthansa constant access to IBM research
and development. This will enable Lufthansa to incorporate the
latest technology and innovation into the Lufthansa IT
infrastructure including strategic areas such as cloud computing,
big data analytics or cognitive computing systems like Watson."
IBM has been a leader in strategic outsourcing for more than 25
years. IBM partners with some of the world's largest enterprises –
partnerships that span years. Half of the Fortune 100 outsources to
IBM based on its ability to work with clients in their
transformation, marrying understanding of each client's industry
and business model with leading edge technologies such as cloud,
analytics and mobile computing.
IBM will begin the multi-stage transformation of the Lufthansa
IT landscape by implementing leading edge collaboration and
messaging tools for social business, new network and voice
services, an optimized electronic workplace solution and
IBM's security framework with its leading edge security
solutions and monitoring.
With IBM's MobileFirst device management framework, Lufthansa
Group will also benefit from a global and secure mobile
infrastructure allowing Lufthansa to provision, secure and manage
mobile devices and apps easily, giving Lufthansa customers and
employees simplified access and new capabilities for its
reservation systems and business processes.
As part of the outsourcing agreement, IBM will manage Lufthansa
Systems' entire data center operations, help desk and printer
services along with individual infrastructure services.
Around 1,400 Lufthansa Systems employees will transfer to IBM.
Infrastructure services are scheduled to begin from IBM on
April 1, 2015.
The contract was signed November 15,
2014.
For more information about IBM, visit: ibm.com/services
Media
contacts:
|
|
Leslie
Monreal-Feil
|
Media Relations, IBM
U.S.
|
Phone: +1 720 430
8902
|
Email:
lmonreal@us.ibm.com
|
|
Dagmar
Domke
|
Media Relations, IBM
Germany
|
Phone: +49 (0)170 480
8228
|
Email:
dagmar.domke@de.ibm.com
|
|
Dr. Marie-Ann
Maushart
|
Communications
Leader, IBM Germany
|
Phone: +49 172 732 56
62
|
Email:
Maushart@de.ibm.com
|
|
Sandra
Hammer
|
Media Relations,
Deutsche Lufthansa AG
|
Phone: +49 69 /
696-7002 / -2999
|
Email:
Sandra.hammer@lhsystems.com
|
http://lhsystems.com/media
|
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SOURCE IBM