Fujitsu UK & Ireland
London, 27th August 2010 — Global technology company Fujitsu is establishing a new Highlands headquarters in Inverness. The new office, which is on the Beechwood Business Park, will be home for 70 of Fujitsu's 500 Scottish employees and will lead the work the company does for The Highland Council – which currently includes modernising the Council's IT infrastructure, systems and services.
This modernisation is in line with the Scottish Government's national aims for transforming citizen services and will enable the Council to carry out its business as effectively and efficiently as possible, making the best use of its resources. The new IT platform is enabling improvements in how services are delivered and is supporting and enabling initiatives which make Council services more accessible, more convenient, more operationally efficient and cost-effective. One such service is Curriculum ICT – a Fujitsu delivered service that means 35,000 primary and secondary pupils in Highland schools can access their school work and email wherever they are connected to the Internet. Coupled with this teachers in schools across the Highlands are benefiting from a great, reliable and consistent service regardless of their size or location.
Fujitsu has been expanding its business in Scotland over the last few years and sees the Highlands region as a key strategic base. In particular Fujitsu is keen to grow the company's broad capabilities in the region, for example by complementing the Alness service desk office with consultancy and project management roles in the Inverness headquarters.
Commenting on the opening of the office, Roger Gilbert, chief executive of Fujitsu UK & Ireland, said: "It's an exciting time to be expanding our business when many others are doing the opposite. The work with The Highland Council remains the key focus for us in the region but our ambition is to make Fujitsu the first choice IT services provider in Scotland. We already support 2,500 different customer sites in Scotland, 750 of which are in the Highlands, and are committed to bringing a world-class service to customers at a local level, from Shetland to the Borders."
Caroline Thomson, Fujitsu Scotland director, added: "To date our Highlands presence has been in the Council's offices and whilst that has been a tremendous success the time is now right for change. Our own flagship office will also put our stamp on the local community and help us continue the community benefits programme that we undertake with The Highland Council – which includes a commitment to creating employment opportunities, working with the Council to reduce its carbon footprint, and supporting a community engagement programme in conjunction with the charity ReBOOT around recycling PCs and laptops."
As part of the contract with The Highland Council Fujitsu is undertaking a five year community benefits plan which includes 40 commitments with an investment of £1.6m. The plan includes initiatives around training and recruitment; community engagement and the environment, such as:
Fujitsu is a leading provider of ICT-based business solutions for the global marketplace. With approximately 170,000 employees supporting customers in 70 countries, Fujitsu combines a worldwide corps of systems and services experts with highly reliable computing and communications products and advanced microelectronics to deliver added value to customers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.6 trillion yen (US$50 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2010. For more information, please see: www.fujitsu.com.
Fujitsu UK and Ireland is a leading IT systems, services and products company employing 11,500 people with an annual revenue of £2 billion. Its business is in enabling its customers to realise their objectives by exploiting information technology through its integrated product and service portfolio. This includes consulting, applications, systems integration, managed services and products for customers in the private and public sectors including retail, financial services, telecoms, government, defence and consumer sectors. For more information, please see: uk.fujitsu.com
Charlotte West
Harvard PR
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7861 2842
E-mail:teamfujitsu@harvard.co.uk
Graham Goulden
Fujitsu UK and Ireland
Tel: + 44 (0) 843 354 9568
E-mail:graham.goulden@uk.fujitsu.com