AstraZeneca inks 25m communications deal
telecommunications provider, British Telecom (BT) a greater role in
its business, to the tune of £25m.
The firm has extended an existing relationship between the pair that has been in place since 2003, and will see BT provide extended global networking services over the next five years. Specifically, BT will be providing AstraZeneca with a global managed multi protocol layer switching (MPLS) wide area network service with end to end service levels covering all [131] key company locations, a company spokesperson told Outsourcing-Pharma.com. Currently BT already provides these services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) as well as the Asia Pacific, but the new geographical regions of Latin America and the US will also now be included under the agreement. 60 countries in total will now be involved. The expanded network is designed to provide a single, global network or the convergence of voice, video and other multimedia applications, as well as giving company employees greater access to real-time information. Commenting on the deal, the spokesperson said that the firm "made the decision to consolidate its wide area network providers as this aligns with the strategic sourcing strategy to seek more global solutions and services and offer the AstraZeneca internal customers more consistent end to end service levels and resilience." They also said that BT was chosen as a result of a competitive sourcing process that evaluated a number of factors such as cost, network coverage, quality of service and service levels and cost of change. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca has also just commenced a mammoth $1.4bn (€1.0bn) IT outsourcing deal with computer giant IBM - the seven year contract was signed back in July last year but was not due to take effect until six months later. The contract is effectively the continuation of an existing $1.7bn seven year deal that was first signed between the two firms in 2001, covering IT infrastructure services, in what was the pharma industry's largest deal of this kind at the time. However, although it is slightly less in terms of monetary value, the newly-signed deal is broader in shape and scope as well as geography, an AstraZeneca spokesperson told Outsourcing-Pharma.com at the time. "The new contract includes server hosting and storage of AstraZeneca's scientific, commercial and supply operations, where as the previous contract mainly involved out major operations in the US, UK and Sweden," he said. As is the case with the BT contract extension, the IBM arrangement also extends to new geographies - the previous contract covered AstraZeneca's operations in 45 countries, while the new contract also now covers 60 countries.
