Unisys wins IT outsourcing deal with Merck KGaA

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news Global IT firm Unisys has announced that it has won a new five-year contract to provide Merck KGaA with end-user IT services for its 48,000 employees in 90 countries worldwide, including Australia.

Under the new deal, Unisys will provide the multinational pharmaceutical firm with international service desk, unified end-point management and on-site services.

To maintain its growth following a decade of acquisitions and divestitures totalling US$42 billion (A$55.3 billion), Merck said it requires scalability and flexibility in its end-user IT services in order to maximise employee productivity.

“With its strong knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry, its wealth of experience in delivering global transformation projects and its service delivery capabilities, Unisys is an obvious partner for us,” said Dr David Revish, Global Head of Vendor Management, End-User Services and Service Integration at Merck KGaA.

“Unisys’ approach will allow us to significantly reduce the number of service providers and gain a much better overview of our end-user IT infrastructure, services and performance. Ultimately Unisys will support us in becoming a more efficient, productive, end-user-centered service organization,” Revish added.

Unisys will provide the firm with with a service desk covering the 90 countries, with its staff managing all service requests and incidents in 11 languages.

According to a Unisys statement, the IT giant will also deliver on-site services across all countries, handling requests that cannot be resolved remotely, assisting in technology rollouts, and providing additional services and support to Merck’s leadership team.

Unisys said its approach is designed to be user-friendly, “providing client’s employees with the tools they need to be successful in their jobs”.

As part of this “People Computing” approach, Unisys explained it will deliver personalised end-user services tailored to an individual Merck employee’s ”persona” – a profile linked to a staff member’s specific role within the firm.

“Structuring the service model in this way gives each employee the specific support they need to improve availability of the technology they rely on daily and enjoy the most consistent, satisfactory end-user experience possible,” Unisys said.

Unisys also plans to make cost savings and boost efficiency with the use of “walk-in kiosks” that are intended to enable Merck users to receive software support, change hardware, request education and training, and test new devices without no appointment required.

Rudolf Kühn, Director Strategic Sales Support EMEA at Unisys, said, “We deliver end-user services for some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical and chemical companies, so we understand their needs. We’re confident that our People Computing approach can bring immediate value to Merck by giving its employees more choice and more power over the information and support they need.

“We’re excited to help simplify Merck’s IT operations, reduce service costs and deliver greater flexibility and scalability as the company continues to grow,” Kühn concluded.