Frucor Beverages Now Fujitsu’s Leading Sap Cloud Customer

Frucor Beverages Becomes Fujitsu’s Leading Sap Cloud Customer

An energising move to a highly flexible and environmentally responsible customer service platform

Sydney and Auckland, 18 January 2011 – Fujitsu Australia & New Zealand, a leading provider of ICT business solutions, today announces it has secured Frucor Beverages Ltd as a leading SAP Cloud Services customer in the region. Under the multi-million dollar contract, Fujitsu will host Frucor’s business-critical SAP and business intelligence systems from its Cloud data centres in Sydney. The flexibility offered by a cloud solution and the ability to strengthen Frucor’s customer service leadership via its longstanding SAP investment were the drivers behind Frucor’s move to the new environment. It will also support Frucor’s trans-Tasman growth and international expansion plans, particularly into new markets within Europe.

Frucor is one of Australasia’s largest beverage manufacturers and distributors. Its flagship product is the V energy drink and its brand portfolio includes fruit juices, waters and soft drinks. Headquartered in Auckland, Frucor has more than 900 employees in New Zealand and Australia.

Frucor will be taking its 10 year SAP investment to the next level with the move to Fujitsu’s SAP Cloud Services.

Paul Miller, Group IS Manager (AU & NZ) at Frucor Beverages, said: “We will be able to quickly step up our customer service capabilities to maintain our leadership position in the supply chain. Frucor invests heavily in advanced technologies to ensure we keep working better with our major customers and maintain their confidence in dealing with us.”

Frucor’s SAP servers are currently outsourced under a single host model, while inhouse servers run its business intelligence applications. In the first phase of Frucor's strategy Fujitsu will provide the Service Delivery Management, SAP Support and the transition and management of Frucor's core applications. The switchover is scheduled for April 2011.

“The project’s focus is to provide the flexibility to accommodate the rate of change we have in the business but there will also be immediate returns on this initial exercise through the Fujitsu Cloud Services ‘pay by use’ model,” Miller said.

“Ours is a seasonal business with a summer peak for our products. Frucor will now have an IT model which is able to respond to our business activities and market conditions as and when required. Plus we’ve had solid growth in recent years. Accurate IT capacity planning under a traditional, three-years-in-advance purchasing model is impossible,” Miller explained.

Miller said that Fujitsu’s “global but local” strength was another key factor in awarding the contract: “Fujitsu has the most mature cloud solution in the region. And it has great people on the ground across its data centres and SAP support.”

Miller commented that the Green IT features of Fujitsu’s data centres were a “huge positive in the decision-making process. We like what Fujitsu is doing with smart cooling and power at its Data Centres. Its operations are far more efficient per device than we could possibly provide inhouse or gain from our existing hosted service.”

Frucor Beverages is part of Japanese food and beverage giant Suntory, and this deal is the first step in Suntory’s strategy to move its global infrastructure into the cloud. Miller acknowledged that the strong existing global relationship between Fujitsu and Suntory was an influence on the selection of the Fujitsu cloud solution but “it had to make specific commercial sense for us because Frucor is responsible for the investment.”

Cameron McNaught, Executive General Manager Solutions for Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand, said: “The new contract with Frucor is significant proof that cloud services, delivered locally to meet the needs of our local market, have become a real alternative to traditional IT consumption models. With Fujitsu taking responsibility for Frucor’s infrastructure needs, its internal IT resources can focus on core, customer service delivery.”

ENDS

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