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Furniture Village
THE STORY
Furniture Village are a UK furniture retailer with over fifty stores in the UK, selling a broad range of home furnishings to UK customers. They are privately owned, having been established in 1989, and are based in Slough.
THE CHALLENGE
Furniture Village had well established technology, and many of their applications had been in place for a significant time. There is an internal IT team that focusses on application level services, and infrastructure support has been outsourced to a third party in a contract that has been in place for approximately 10 years, covering hosting and infrastructure support (2nd and 3rd line).
Furniture Village were looking to evaluate whether this supplier was the correct partner for them long term, and see this contract renewal as an opportunity to assess the market.
THE SOLUTION
Embedded IT were engaged to perform initial discovery of the current IT services, and create a specification to support a market engagement exercise to determine alternative supplier options.
A long list of potential suppliers was determined, based on desk based research, a short list was recommended for full engagement – including the incumbent.
IMPLEMENTATION
Working within the IT Department, Embedded IT performed an audit of existing technology and support arrangements to create a specification of services that represented both the current, and aspirational, solution for Furniture Village.
This specification, articulating the future flexibility and structure of the IT function, was used to engage with future suppliers and make a recommendation to a preferred supplier.
THE OUTCOME
A replacement supplier was recommended and contracts signed, improving both technical and commercial landscape for Furniture Village. As part of this exercise, a revised strategy for Data Connectivity was established and that was optionally brought into scope to consolidate the supplier base and improved integration between suppliers.