Scottish Water taps two French IT consultancies for digital transformation

Scottish Water has penned a new strategic partnership deal with Capgemini and Atos. The digital partnership will deliver technology solutions to Scotland’s water supply and waste water management.

The water supply industry in the UK often engages external expertise in order to find efficiency savings and help optimise the delivery of services. Last year, this saw Thames Water create a new £57 million consulting framework as part of its long-term planning, focused on providing reliable, clean and environmentally friendly water solutions to regions of the UK expecting to see demand increase.

Now, Scottish Water has announced a new five-year partnership, starting in September 2018, which sees consulting firms Capgemini and Atos deliver a portfolio of services across Scottish Water from delivery of customer-focused IT services to its core IT infrastructure and applications.

The two firms often compete against one another for key IT contracts, however the duo will now work together to place technology and innovation at the heart of Scotland’s water supply and waste water management system, after a rigorous tendering and procurement process. Capgemini and Atos will look to deliver IT services, providing technology solutions to help the utility manage its country-wide activities. Scottish Water and Capgemini in particular have been working successfully together since 2008 and the deal sees their 11 year relationship extended. Scottish Water is a publicly-owned entity providing water and waste water services to 2.5 million households and 156,000 businesses.

Rob Mustard, Scottish Water’s Director of Digital, said of the deal, “Data, information, analysis, digital applications and processes are critical to how we deliver 1.35 billion litres of water a day and treat 945 million litres of waste water. They are key elements of how we continue to play a vital role in the life of millions of customers – at home, in business and at play - every day, around the clock. Our partnership with Capgemini and Atos will see both companies working in a fully integrated manner within Scottish Water through our Digital Directorate.”

Gavin Thomson, Senior Vice President, Scotland, Ireland & Wales, and Big Data & Security UK&I, Atos, added, “Across Scotland, public services are on a transformative journey to ensure they deliver services effectively and efficiently while securing high levels of customer engagement.  Like Atos, Scottish Water has a digital vision for the future and, thanks to this new agreement, stands ready to turn this vision into reality.”

Paul Margetts, UK CEO, Applications Services, Capgemini, said, “We will draw upon our global expertise in the energy and utilities sector to help transform their business through the adoption of next generation digital technologies; from a market-leading intelligent service centre to enhance the experience for employees to innovative and agile delivery models, cloud and automation services to improve the speed and quality of delivery.”