OREANDA-NEWS. August 05, 2011. McDonald’s UK has signed a deal with Fujitsu for the provision of IT infrastructure support services to the company’s 1,200 restaurants in the UK and Republic of Ireland. McDonald’s is consolidating work, which was previously undertaken by separate providers, into a single contract with Fujitsu with the intention of simplifying its support model to restaurants and ensuring a more nimble and holistic view of its IT estate. The new contract will ensure McDonald’s can deliver the right support capability into restaurants day-to-day, and help the company remain at the forefront of innovating its IT as it moves towards becoming a wider hospitality environment for families, reported the press-centre of ujitsu.

Within the five year deal, Fujitsu will support the restaurant IT estate, from front of house tills and Point-of-Sale (POS), to drive-thru ordering, restaurant bridge (the area where food is prepared and served) and back office.

The McDonald’s business is split between approximately 60 per cent of restaurants run by franchisees, with the rest operated corporately. This split means it is more critical than ever that the company can offer a formal, transparent, agile and professional IT support service to its frontline restaurant staff. Fujitsu’s success will be measured on a mixture of:

Simplification and improved satisfaction around IT support for restaurant staff

Overall call prevention and reduction

Reduction in onsite engineering visits through second line remote diagnostics

SLAs met based on problem severity, i.e. fixed in four hours; eight hours; next business day; next business day +1

Reduction in the total cost of ownership of IT equipment over its lifecycle

An element of Fujitsu’s role will be bringing a ‘user exchangeable parts’ strategy to day-to-day support, enabling staff in restaurants to fix minor problems themselves without the need to dispatch an engineer.

Commenting on the work, Jon Wolfe, business unit director at Fujitsu UK & Ireland, said: “The McDonald’s environment is fast-paced and exciting to work in. As a leading brand in quick-service restaurants our IT support work must reflect the pace at which the business operates - the most critical part being to keep tills open and operating. However the role moving forward is as much about the customer experience and supporting new technologies that ensure agility in meeting customer demands, such as touch-screen ordering and contactless payments – both areas that McDonald’s is already deploying.”