EDS Scores Another IT Win

Capitalizing on a bricks-and-mortar company’s desire to focus on their
product, EDS landed a 10-year, $426 million outsourcing
contract.

Starting this week, EDS will take over the day-to-day task of global
networking, global messaging and desktop/PC management for York
International, a heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration
company with 23,000 employees and sales in more than 100 countries.

According to Terry Balluck, EDS spokesperson, EDS was able to win out over
competitor Hewlett-Packard because they came to the table with a flexible
deal that lets their solution grow with the company.

“When everyone comes in with an excellent price, you have to look at the
intangibles,” he said.

The intangibles, he said, include what he says is excellent customer support
(the Web site features an instant feedback form for its customers) and
letting all York employees keep their jobs. Many of York’s IT staff will
just migrate over to EDS, with almost no disruption.

“Most people won’t even know they are working for a different company,”
Balluck said, they’ll just see a different name on the check.

York has, in recent years, been trying to manage the IT functions in-house,
a task that Balluck said was diluting the company’s resources away from
their core services: HVAC. The “strategic decision” to outsource is the
main reason, he said, that EDS doesn’t have to worry about finding new
customers anytime soon.

“There’s always going to be a need for IT outsourcing,” Balluck said.
“There are companies that try to do it in-house, but it takes away from
their core business.”

That confidence comes at a time when many “solutions” companies are
scrambling for customers in a depressed economy. Last week, CIO Magazine released a
poll that finds IT departments and executives are only looking at
marginal gains, if they can reach a consensus at any given time.

Three weeks ago, EDS signed its largest contract of the year, a multi-year,
$860 million deal with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.