Steria signs a 3-year managed services contract with Philip Morris France

Steria signs a 3-year managed services contract with Philip Morris France Steria, European IT services global operator, has been chosen by Philip Morris, the world's leading tobacco company, to provide on-site managed services for the operation of all its IT applications, the management of its IT resources and for user support in France. Wishing to focus on its core business and due to its large number of mobile workers (230 employees visit France's 25,000 main tobacconist shops and retail outlets every day), Philip Morris France wanted to improve the quality of the IT service provided to its users and better control its IT costs, through backing from a reliable partner capable of supporting the company in its development, within a precise contractual framework. This 3-year contract, with strong commitment to results and based on 12 service quality indicators, follows a call for tender launched by Philip Morris at the beginning of 2002. It began on 1 January 2003 at the Philip Morris France head office. "Our main objective was to provide the best quality of service to our users and thus find a new partner capable of contractually guaranteeing this quality of service. The industrialisation level of the managed services proposed by Steria, the quality of the service convention we set up, along with their knowledge of the ITIL methodology¹, used by our whole group on a European level, were the determining criteria for choosing Steria," says Stéphane Quenson, Information Systems Manager for Philip Morris France. 1. The ITIL methodology (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) was developed by the United Kingdom 's Office of Government Commerce. It defines criteria and best practices to implement a managed services project. "Like Philip Morris France, more and more of our customers are asking us to commit to strong objectives in terms of service quality. Thanks to regular contact with them, especially through our Users' Club, we have finely tuned precise quality indicators that can be adapted according to each sector of activity," explains Eric Messigny, Managed Services Director at Steria in France. Steria's managed services offer includes three areas: user support organised around a "Service Desk" accessible from Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 6pm (4:15pm on Friday), providing incident management services and first and second level support, IT resources management (with maintenance coordination), version and computer replacement management, operation, administration and security management of all office and core business applications (ERP, CRM, Business Intelligence), servers, networks and telephony. It is backed by the ITIL methodology (Information Technology Infrastructure Library), a daily steering committee bringing together the Philip Morris and Steria teams, and follow-up and quality of service planning boards. Twelve indicators guarantee the quality of service. They define the scope of the service (number of calls, computer traffic, etc.), the "Service Desk's" response time to users, the time taken to resolve incidents, and especially optimisation of IT resources management. The quality objective defined in the contract is 98%. In addition, a system of penalties, which could equal up to 5% of the contract amount, is applied if the quality objective is not reached. Steria is a managed services global operator that handles all its customers' IT needs through a progressive services offer: platform management (infrastructure support) and application management and maintenance, global operations management (systems integration and consulting projects), business process and support process management, and outsourcing services (Business Process Outsourcing). Steria has developed numerous managed services projects in Europe for Michelin, Ericsson, Carrefour, Panasonic, the French Navy, Lloyd's, Exxon, TotalFinaElf, EADS and Norwich City Council in England, to name but a few. About Philip Morris France's IT system: Philip Morris France's IT system involves a team of fifteen people, managed by Stéphane Quenson. Business applications (Siebel 6 for Sales Administration, Oracle and Business Object for Business Intelligence and SAP R/3 for management and logistics) are accessible via the group's European IT centre in Lausanne. The computer base is composed of 150 PCs at the Neuilly head office (currently migrating to Windows XP), 190 Fujitsu touch screen notebooks for sales promoters and 40 HP notebooks for sales management. About Philip Morris France: Philip Morris International is one of the companies that form Altria Group, Inc. Philip Morris International is one of the largest cigarette manufacturers in the world, boasting a workforce of over 40,000. The company manufactures, markets, sells and/or distributes tobacco products in more than 160 countries worldwide. Philip Morris France S.A.S., a subsidiary of Philip Morris International, is based in Neuilly-sur-Seine and employs around 360 people. Philip Morris France S.A.S. is tobacco market leader thanks to its successful brands and held a 39% market share at the end of 2002. About Steria (www.steria.com) With 2002 revenue of ?1.018bn and 8,500 employees, Steria is one of the top ten IT services companies in Europe. Present in 12 countries worldwide, the Group is positioned as an IT services global operator thanks to the mastery of its three core businesses: consulting, systems integration and managed services. Its acknowledged expertise in managing large-scale projects and its range of industrialised solutions in Europe enable Steria to offer its customers a reliable service with commitment to cost and risk control. The Group has strong sector-based expertise in the Public Services, Banking and Insurance, Manufacturing/Utilities/Transport and Telecommunications markets. Created in 1969, the Steria group is a pioneer in employee shareholding, with 31% of its capital being held by employees. Steria is listed on the Premier Marché of the Paris Stock Exchange and in the SBF 120 index. More information about Steria and Managed Services in the backgrounder : Steria and Managed Services Steria Press Office France and Regions Managed Services Olivier Coreau Tel.: 01 34 88 93 34 e-mail: olivier.coreau@steria.com Steria Group Press Office Dominique Lambert Tel: 01 34 88 64 44 e-mail: Dominique.lambert@steria.com Actus PR Laurent Meggs Tel.: 01 53 67 36 39 e-mail: lmeggs@actus.fr ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2003/10/09/20031009BIT01510/wkr0001.pdf