Bull has signed a pan-European outsourcing contract with PaperlinX Europe, one of the largest distributors of paper, sign & display products and packaging materials in Europe. PaperlinX was looking for a partner that could standardize and centralize its complete IT infrastructure. By outsourcing its IT, PaperlinX is able to reduce costs, raise its service levels and focus on its core activities. Within the contract, Bull is responsible for the datacenter operations of PaperlinX, as well as the desktop management and helpdesk activities for 4500 users. PaperlinX Europe has 22 branch offices in 16 countries, that, until now, all had their own IT strategy, datacenter and IT staff.
Proximity Outsourcing – housing the infrastructure and data close to the operations hub
Within the agreement, all servers in the 22 datacenters of PaperlinX will be consolidated and centralized utilizing market-leading virtualization techniques, thereby reducing more than 700 Linux and Windows servers to about 80 servers. The virtualized servers are to be housed in Bull’s newly opened datacenter in Barnsley, UK. The entire infrastructure is backed up to a second datacenter in the Netherlands.
From left to right: Jeroen de Swart, CFO, PaperlinX
and Michel Lepert, Vice-President, Bull Western Europe
One centrally managed desktop for all users
One of the key elements of the contract is to centralize the management of the desktops for all branch offices utilizing the Citrix Xen Desktop technology and PlugP’s, a thin client no larger than a matchbox connected to a screen, keyboard and mouse. The Citrix technology allows for Bull to manage the desktops centrally from the Netherlands. The helpdesk activities will be coordinated from Nantes, France, where qualified support personnel can address the call requests in all thirteen languages spoken by the PaperlinX personnel.
Jeroen de Swart, CFO of PaperlinX Europe: “In an extensive pan-European organization such as PaperlinX with customers in various industries, it is important that all business units work well together. This step towards outsourcing allows us to build on a standardized infrastructure which forms a platform for the interaction between our people, businesses, customers and suppliers and supports our growth strategy. We have chosen Bull because of the local presence, added value and service which they offer in combination with central scalability benefits, standards and technology. In addition, the migration methodology that was proposed fits our business culture and our plans towards the future.”
Didier Lamouche, Chairman and CEO of Bull: “We are very pleased that PaperlinX has chosen Bull, demonstrating once again our leadership and momentum in outsourcing. We know how to win the trust of customers, through our knowledge and experience in managing large, complex environments. In addition, we use the most advanced and proven technologies that enable our customers to save cost and bring them greater flexibility. As a result, outsourcing becomes a key enabler for our customers to focus on their core business and effectively address the economic impact of the current markets.”
