Fujitsu wins $140m ICT contract with City of Gold Coast

Fujitsu has landed a $140 million contract with the City of Gold Coast to manage and support its ICT infrastructure and applications.

The contract will include an arrangement for Fujitsu to act as the City’s managed services provider over a five-year period (plus 6-month transition), as well as provision for upgraded hardware and transformation to cloud services.

The City of Gold Coast is the second-largest local government organisation in Australia, with an annual budget of $1.2 billion and infrastructure assets valued at $14 billion.

“The Gold Coast is an important global city, which is proudly looking towards the future. This contract will help transform the way we work and our customer experience,” said Dale Dickson, chief executive officer of City of Gold Coast.

“Our partnership with Fujitsu will offer flexibility in the way we consume ICT services and also allow us to leverage a proven delivery model that is responsive to peaks and troughs in demand.”

One of the main benefits for the City is, under the contract, it will only need to pay for what it uses, rather than funding ICT assets upfront.

Dickson said the partnership will progress their ‘Digital Gold Coast’ agenda, which is focused on making lives easier and more connected, as well as making businesses more efficient and globally competitive through new technologies.

Fujitsu said it will implement an end-to-end suite of managed infrastructure and applications services from a combination of on-site, onshore and offshore delivery. The council will retain responsibility for its service desk during business hours, while Fujitsu will provide after-hours support.

Fujitsu will also partner with Optus and local internet services provider Onthenet to provide telecommunications and WAN services.

The company said around 100 technical, support and administrative positions will be created over the next 18 months to ensure service delivery.

The transition to the Fujitsu managed services model is underway and is expected to be fully operational by 1 June 2016.

Image courtesy of xiquinhosilva under CC-BY-2.0