Specsavers outsources key IT services to Accenture

news Global optical chain Specsavers has partnered with professional services company Accenture to help manage its IT services as it focuses on increasing the digital side of its business.

The two firms have inked a five year agreement, under which Accenture will support Specsavers’ applications and event monitoring to manage the performance of all of Specsavers’ business transactions.

The agreement is designed to help Specsavers reduce operating costs, improve speed to market, and increase the quality of its products and services, Accenture said in a statement.

“We want to deliver a superior service and make it easy for people to interact with us. By delivering cost savings and efficiencies, Accenture will help us provide our customers with an enhanced experience,” said Phil Pavitt, Global chief information officer of Specsavers.

Accenture will provide Specsavers with application maintenance, development, testing and infrastructure monitoring services across its IT landscape in 10 countries: Australia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Matt Prebble, managing director of Accenture’s retail practice in the United Kingdom and Ireland, said: “Consumers expect to be able to buy seamlessly from a retailer across any channel and at any time. We look forward to helping Specsavers reduce application and technology deployment times by providing continuous service improvement and enabling them to accelerate their move to digitize their business.”

Emma McGuigan, senior managing director in Accenture Technology in the United Kingdom and Ireland said, “A strong IT infrastructure is critical to becoming digital, and businesses can no longer rely on all of the applications they once did. To compete based on agility and speed, companies need to take these important steps towards faster, flexible and more-liquid applications to support dynamic business needs.”