Unisys signs up business for strong start to 2008

News Release

Unisys signs up business for strong start to 2008

Unisys has recorded a strong finish to 2007 and start of 2008 in New Zealand and Australia by signing up several new clients for a range of IT service contracts including business process outsourcing, IT and desktop support, enterprise content management and virtualisation for some of Australasia’s best known brands.

“The Unisys business in New Zealand and Australia continues to grow because we have built a solid reputation based on our expertise and credentials in making IT services more secure – from advice to implementation to ongoing support,” says Brett Hodgson, Managing Director, Unisys New Zealand. “We make it our business to know our clients’ business so that we can really make a difference.”

Recent new business includes trans-Tasman desktop support for Vodafone out of New Zealand; business process outsourcing engagements to process cheques collected from approximately 4,500 Australia Post retail outlets nationally and provide outsourced mortgage processing for a major Australian bank; as well as anti-money laundering solutions for online account acquisition at two banks including ING DIRECT.

Meanwhile, in January, the Unisys-developed New Zealand Legislation website, www.legislation.govt.nz went live, providing free public access to acts, regulations, and bills, to anyone with access to the internet. Also in January, ASB marked its 30th anniversary of running its core banking system on the Unisys ClearPath mainframe platform.

“The diversity of our recent deals and milestones reflects how many organisations across a wide range of industries are looking for ways to grow their business and improve their service offerings. They are doing this by offering new products and accessing new markets, building flexible IT infrastructures that enable fast and easy expansion into other geographies and streamlining business processes to increase efficiencies while improving the customers’ experience. Similarly, regulatory requirements coupled with consumer expectation of being able to conduct business in a secure environment, have seen significant investment in identity authentication, access management and biometric solutions. These are all areas where Unisys can support organisations to meet their business goals,” Mr Hodgson explained.

Mr Hodgson said that the company had stuck to its three-year transition strategy, announced at the end of 2005, to focus on the core business of providing outsourcing, security and technology solutions to a targeted set of top level customers.

“The success of our outsourcing business is based on our ability to draw on our specialised experience and global resources in IT outsourcing – including application design, development and implementation, help desks and managed data centres – and niche business process outsourcing, particularly in the payments and mortgage processes areas.

“Our ongoing global research programme, the Unisys Security Index (which was originally initiated in Australia and New Zealand) confirms that security continues to be a key issue for New Zealand. As the public becomes more familiar with security solutions such as fingerprint, voice, facial and vascular biometric identity authentication, there is greater acceptance of the increased security measures being implemented by businesses and government agencies. As a result, many security measures now actually increase convenience by speeding up processes such as applying for bank accounts online or pre-registering personal details to allow faster identity authentication.

“Today’s businesses are struggling to better manage large and complex IT systems and teams and as a result seek IT infrastructure that has the in-built flexibility to quickly scale up and down, change function and move location in line with business needs. Unisys is well-placed to meet this opportunity of providing Real Time Infrastructure or “IT Agility” based on best of breed solutions from a range of partners. Virtualisation of server infrastructure and modernisation of old proprietary systems are two trends where we are enabling IT teams to model and design architecture that truly matches an organisation’s business objectives,” said Mr Hodgson.

About Unisys Asia Pacific
Unisys offers clients solutions for secure business operations by aligning technology with business strategy. Drawing on a history of industry innovation and expertise, Unisys provides specialised services, delivered by trusted consultants. In Asia Pacific, Unisys delivers services and solutions through subsidiaries in New Zealand, Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand and through distributors or resellers in other countries in the region. For more information, visit www.unisys.com.

About Unisys
Unisys is a worldwide information technology services and solutions company. We provide high-level services in consulting, systems integration, outsourcing and infrastructure services, combined with powerful enterprise server technology. We specialize in helping organizations use information to create efficient, secure business operations that allow our clients to grow and achieve their business goals. Our consultants and industry experts work with clients to understand their business challenges and create greater visibility into critical linkages throughout their operations. For more information, visit www.unisys.com.

ENDS

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