The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has signed a deal with IBM to provide greater insight into the management of its £22.5bn property portfolio.
The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO), the body responsible for managing the MoD's estate, awarded the contract in order to gain greater insight into the use of its 4,000 separate sites and includes military barracks; land, air and naval bases; and military training grounds.
The DIO hopes to reduce building operating costs and find ways to better utilise its existing real estate. The DIO's goal is to drive greater efficiency and operations of these buildings to support an estates rationalisation programme that will deliver significant efficiencies over the next decade.
Under the deal the DIO will see its outdated legacy IT environment replaced, and the creation of a new centralised information management system, enabling analysis and more informed decision-making to better manage its vast network of real estate.
IBM will provide an integrated property management solution comprising of software and consultancy services. This will give DIO central visibility of its extensive global property holdings and data on how efficiently they are being used. Geospatial mapping capability, created by business partner Esri UK limited, provides the real-time visualisation map that gives a complete scope of their infrastructure and assets.
"The award of this contract to IBM represents a major milestone in transforming the Defence Infrastructure Organisation since it will allow us to work smarter in providing a Defence estate, which meets military needs and supports our Armed Forces," said Andrew Manley, DIO Chief Executive.
The upgraded system will be launched in April 2014.
French outsourcing company Steria already holds a contract to provide a housing management system to DIO for the management of the housing estate. "It may well be that an interface will be required between the Steria and IBM systems," said Georgina O'Tool, analyst at TechMarketView.
