Ford and IBM Sign Strategic Services Agreement
To open two Accelerated Solutions Centers in Europe
London, ENGLAND (December 14, 1999) – Ford and IBM have today announced a multi million dollar strategic services agreement over five years. The agreement involves the creation of purpose-designed Accelerated Solutions Centers (ASCs) in Essex, in the UK and in Cologne, Germany which will support Ford’s business across Europe.
Mirroring the success of the Ford/IBM ASC partnership launched in the US in January 1999, the two centers for Europe, will marry Ford’s industry expertise and technical knowledge with IBM’s advanced technical and e-business knowledge, applications development and project management skills. IBM will be operationally responsible for the success of the centers. Currently both centers are in set-up mode with around 20 staff but when fully operational by late next year, each center will have around 120 staff, half of whom will be skilled specialists from IBM and half expert Ford developers. It is expected that the new centers will be able to run 16 development projects concurrently in each location which will lead to around 100 new applications a year across Europe.
Frank Kern, general manager, Professional Services, IBM Global Services EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) said; “We have conclusively proven the business benefits of IBM’s Applications Management Services in our work with Ford in the US. Since Ford commissioned us to partner with them on its first ASC in the US earlier this year, our joint Ford /IBM teams have already successfully completed over 100 challenging projects. In addition, these projects are all well on the way to achieving the target of 50% time-savings and 30% in cost-savings over the traditional development model within Ford. We are targeting to achieve similar success in Europe.”
Source: IBM