NI Water Awards Major IT Contract to Northgate Managed Services
08 April 2009
NI Water, the sole provider of water and sewerage services in NI, has formed a Strategic IT Delivery Partnership with leading ICT company, Northgate Managed Services as part of its cost saving and efficiency drive.
NI Water, the sole provider of water and sewerage services in NI, has formed a Strategic IT Delivery Partnership with leading ICT company, Northgate Managed Services as part of its cost saving and efficiency drive.
The three year IT managed service contract, which is worth £2.8 million will result in Newtownabbey-based Northgate taking responsibility for NI Water’s entire IT infrastructure and the delivery of fully integrated IT services across its sites province-wide.
In addition to delivering year–on-year cost savings for NI Water, the contract is intended to deliver significantly improved services to over 1500 IT users. The new contract will result in the creation of 22 new roles at Northgate – including eight staff who will transfer from NI Water. Together the individuals will form a specialist NI Water delivery team, ensuring the highest levels of expertise and consistency of service across the contract.
The contract win is an important development for Northgate and further consolidates its position as a leading provider of ICT Managed Services in Ireland, where it already provides services to a number of high profile organisations including Viridian, Bord Gais, Waterways Ireland, SHS Group, DVA and C2K.
According to Colin Daysh, Acting Head of ICT for NI Water, the new partnership will deliver positive benefits for the organisation and its stakeholders by making more effective use of key resources:
“With over 790,000 domestic, agricultural, commercial and business customers, it is essential that our focus is on delivering the very best and most effective public service to our end users. Technology is key to achieving this goal and it is important that we work in partnership with a company which has a proven track record and can provide us with the service and support required to enable us to work to maximum efficiency.”
From April 2009 onwards, the Northgate Service Desk will be the first point of contact for all NI Water’s ICT related issues and services including: the management of desktop devices and servers; applications management; mobile devices and IT asset management.
A key feature of the service will be the use of Northgate’s local ISO-accredited ITIL-based Shared Service Centre from where personnel can identify and resolve IT issues centrally, resulting in faster resolution times and increased productivity for NI Water staff. This is backed up by one of the largest field engineering teams in the country to provide full on-site coverage across NI when required.
Ed Brown, Managing Director, Utilities for Northgate added:
“As with any managed service, reliability, cost reduction, flexibility and customer focus are the main benefits and our priorities for this contract are to offer a hands-on service which will make a genuine difference to the way in which NI Water delivers its services. By removing the responsibility for IT management from the utility, its staff can focus their attentions of delivering a first-class product and service which will benefit their customers throughout Northern Ireland. “
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