(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Information technology provider Unisys Corporation (www.unisys.com) has been awarded a two-year contract to provide data center outsourcing services to coffee giant Starbucks (www.starbucks.com) to support its continued expansion in China.
According to Unisys’ Thursday announcement, Unisys is under contract to provide systems management, network management, asset tracking, and software image and voice systems management services to Starbucks from the Unisys Global Services Center in Shanghai. This latest agreement expands upon an existing relationship with Starbucks in China since 2007, when it began providing end-user support services including service desk and nationwide infrastructure support for Starbucks retail stores, support centers and manufacturing facilities in China.
The new deal enables Starbucks to simplify its IT management by working with one vendor for both service desk and data center support.
“As we expand our presence in China, it is important for us to continue to prove a high level of customer service and manage our brand in a way that makes it relevant to a wide variety of Chinese consumers,” Starbucks China IT director Bill Lum said in a statement. “By outsourcing IT infrastructure management to Unisys — first for service desk and infrastructure support services and now for data center services — we are able to better focus our resources on our core business and growth plans.”
The Unisys data center services delivery model is aligned to the internationally recognized Information Technology Infrastructure Library set of practices and policies for IT service management, which are designed to improve both service delivery efficiency and quality.
Unisys received a five-year global contract in 2006 for a range of data center support, network and server monitoring, and security services to support Starbucks’ expansion into international markets.
