Bidvest Foodservice chooses Fujitsu to overhaul and manage its IT infrastructure

Bidvest Foodservice, a leading food service wholesale distributor across the UK, has chosen Fujitsu to host and manage its IT infrastructure and provide an IT service desk for Bidvest Foodservice employees.

Fujitsu initially won a five year contract with the company in 2010 and has just signed a three-year contract extension to support the business as it adapts to a more digitally led world. The contract will help Bidvest Foodservice create an agile platform for future business needs, whilst also continually improving the user experience.

As part of the contract extension, Fujitsu is undertaking a transformation of the datacentre infrastructure. The transformation programme will make the organisation more flexible in its ability to adapt to the changing needs of its customers, and improve the end user experience by allowing Bidvest Foodservice’s employees to work more efficiently.

In addition, Fujitsu is also refreshing the Citrix infrastructure to improve user log-on time, systems performance and mobile access to infrastructure, thereby ensuring employees have the necessary tools to deliver a quality service to end-users. The work completed to date is already showing significant improvement.

Abigail Brierley, CIO at Bidvest Foodservice, said: “Fujitsu is a partner to us, not just a supplier. The new contract is a reflection of the work we have achieved together over the last few years; of the close relationship we have with the account team and the understanding the team have of the issues we face and how to solve them. From the beginning the team has provided us with a bespoke service – a key factor for us in our decision. We are looking forward to continuing to work with the team and ensure our infrastructure benefits our business goals.”

Fujitsu, in partnership with Bidvest Foodservice, has recently designed and delivered a hosted private cloud platform, which has replaced the vast majority of Bidvest Foodservice’s outdated physical server environment. This platform modernises the datacentre infrastructure, improves the availability and speed of Bidvest Foodservice’s applications to meet the needs of the business, whilst also providing increased agility at a reduced operating cost and lower carbon footprint. The modernisation programme is on track to deliver a 45% reduction in power consumption.

“Working with Bidvest Foodservice over the last five years has been like an extension of our team,” said Rupal Karia, Managing Director of Retail and Hospitality at Fujitsu UK & Ireland. “Our relationship with Bidvest Foodservice has been core to our success and our ongoing activity on its service desk support and infrastructure management. We are excited to continue our work in modernising its IT infrastructure to allow Bidvest Foodservice to continue to provide an exceptional service to its customers.”