From the CEO - Exciting times for Fujitsu and its customers

by Rod Vawdrey, CEO, Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand

This is an exciting time for Fujitsu and its customers. In October, we significantly strengthened our enterprise solutions capability when we acquired the Australian operations of Atos Origin, a successful provider of business software deployment and IT outsourcing services.

In today's business environment, packaged software applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms are fundamental to the competitiveness and efficiency of many organisations. For this reason, customers are increasingly looking to Fujitsu to provide applications expertise in addition to our proven skills in strategic consulting, systems integration and infrastructure management.

Acquiring Atos Origin's Australian operation represents an immediate and dramatic expansion in the scope of Fujitsu's services. Atos Origin Australia was a wholly owned subsidiary of Atos Origin, an A$8.5 billion-a-year Paris-based company that provides business application deployment and IT outsourcing services.

Atos Origin has tremendous strength in supporting customers through the implementation and optimisation of ERP and CRM applications. Its abilities extend Fujitsu's service offerings and provide customers with the applications expertise to complement our capabilities in the core elements of business technology.

The acquisition is part of Fujitsu's strategic growth plan and further expands our suite of IT services and solutions. It follows our successful incorporation of IT consulting company DMR Consulting Australia earlier this year.

Our expanded services capability strengthens Fujitsu's position as one of the leading IT services providers in Australia. As well as enhancing the professional services we provide, the acquisition enables us to offer customers in Victoria access to a state-of-the-art data centre in Melbourne. This data centre is a valuable complement to Fujitsu's world-class Internet Data Centre in Sydney. Together, they offer a managed services infrastructure that gives customers cost-effective options to lower the cost of packaged software through application and infrastructure outsourcing.

With the depth and breadth of our combined services, customers can take a holistic, integrated approach to IT with one of the world's most trusted end-to-end solutions providers. Fujitsu has a presence in 60 countries, with 160,000 professional staff and over one million satisfied customers. In Australia, we have more than 2500 people and a proven track record of assisting many of the country's largest and most dynamic organisations.

It's always exciting to undertake a strategic expansion that offers such immediate and substantial benefits for our customers. We look forward to talking with you about new possibilities that can benefit your organisation.