Consol extends T-Systems partnership for five years

Johan du Plessis, CIO of Consol Glass, said: "We have worked with T-Systems for the past six years, therefore our extension of the contract was a natural choice. Our working experience together provides them with a richer understanding of our organisation and, thus, enables us to plan for our future requirements effectively. They have proven to be a stable partner that has demonstrated their ability to deliver.

"There was no compelling reason to go to market again as our contract features a comprehensive business review process which also forms part of the new, extended partnership ensuring optimum value."

Consol, headquartered in Joburg, and T-Systems' six-year partnership is underscored by a number of important milestones, which include the smooth transition from an in-house IT environment to a complete end-to-end outsourced service.

Mutually beneficial business contract

Gert Schoonbee, MD of T-Systems in South Africa, added: "The success of our relationship lies in our mutually beneficial business contract, which is based on T-Systems' history of innovation leadership. Consol is an early adopter of appropriate technology and together with our leadership position in technology and consistent delivery, made excellent business sense. The relationship is one of a valued partner where both not only benefit but are also willing to go the extra mile for one another."

Furthermore, T-Systems' has successfully standardised, consolidated and virtualised Consol's server architecture, which also included the virtualisation of its SAP environment; ultimately moving it to the cloud. Numerous enhancements have also been made to SAP, making it the backbone for all Consol's business transactions.

Consol also features a comprehensive Business Intelligence (BI) platform, which includes the recent deployment of the first SAP Business Objects Explorer Accelerated platform with in-memory computing in EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa).

The platform allows the analysis of business operations based on large volumes of detailed information in real time. Consol, therefore, benefits from flexible analytic models based on real-time data without affecting back-end enterprise applications or databases.

Outsourcing allows us to focus

Commented Du Plessis: "Making glass products is our core business. Outsourcing all our IT services allows us to focus on making the glass business even better, instead of being distracted by IT commodities, operations and support. In T-Systems we have a partner with excellent international resources and experience we can draw on when required."

T-System is well positioned to support Consol's strategic drive in the local and African markets. "We will also be looking at driving down the cost of business through the utilisation and exploitation of systems and technologies. A good example is using cloud computing to allow shared services on the SAP platform as well as other technology areas; gaining the most from Consol's investment in IT," said Schoonbee.