30 August 2010 | Lindsay Clark
Petroleum manufacturer Sunoco is set to hand over indirect procurement to global service firm IBM as part of a wide-reaching outsourcing deal.
The companies said that IBM would improve a number of Sunoco’s back office processes by using its experience in the oil and gas industry.
Sunoco said the deal would enable it to “focus more of its resources on critical growth initiatives”.
IBM is due to provide services to Sunoco from its global operations centres, enabling Sunoco to better manage its improvement and maintenance of application software, finance and accounting, and indirect procurement processes.
Brian MacDonald, Sunoco’s chief financial officer, said: “This arrangement marks another important step in our continued expense reduction programme, which is critical to improving the company’s competitiveness.”
Neither firm would reveal the length or the value of the deal.
In February, IBM won a $74.4 million (£48.1 million) eight-year deal to upgrade the procurement system used by US federal agencies and their suppliers. It was contracted to design and implement a standard package to be used by the US General Services Administration’s “integrated acquisition environment” to source equipment and other services, including IT and telecoms.
