Serving citizens and businesses 24 hours a day, 7 days a week while saving millions of dollars.
Done.
The City of Minneapolis outsourced its technology infrastructure to Unisys, dramatically enhancing citizen services while making better use of tax dollars.
Automating Processes. Improving City Services.
With a vision of becoming a national leader in public service delivery . and thus attracting more business . the city of Minneapolis faced significant resource challenges. Its Information Technology and Services department was already working at full capacity providing "break/fix" services for the city's 4,000 employees.
Says the city's Chief Information Officer (CIO) Karl Kaiser, "We needed to automate processes and step up to citizens' expectations by moving as many city services as possible to the Internet. Our support structure did not allow for that. We just did not have much capability to ensure uptime on a 24 by 7 basis."
Kaiser researched how the city could achieve its vision and discovered a cost-effective method for doing so: outsourcing its information technology (IT) infrastructure. Not only would this provide a virtual city that citizens could visit 24 hours a day via the Internet or conveniently located Government kiosks, it would free Kaiser and his IT services staff to focus their efforts on more mission-critical tasks.
In mid 2002, Minneapolis issued a request for proposal, emphasizing the need for a partner with strong capabilities and experience in outsourcing as well as one with public sector expertise. Unisys .who, in addition to meeting these requirements, had already successfully partnered with the city to provide hardware and software support for moving applications to the Internet . won the seven-year contract.
According to City Council President Paul Ostrow, "Unisys stood out as the partner best able to provide the city, its employees and our citizens with a secure, reliable, state-of-the-art solution that furthers our vision of making Minneapolis a world-class virtual city, serving the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year."
The scope of services includes providing data center administration, desk-side support services, a service desk, network and systems monitoring, as well as management and disaster recovery services. Unisys will also take ownership of the city's existing servers, including Unisys ES7000 servers, IBM midrange servers, EMC storage area network and all of the city's PCs and printers.
Unisys will manage and support approximately 2,700 desktops and more than 100 servers, providing services that include service desk, software support and remedial maintenance for desktop and laptop systems, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and peripherals.
A dedicated Unisys program management office, providing an on-site single point of contact and responsibility for client service requirements, will coordinate delivery of the services. This single-point-of-contact approach streamlines all service requests and is a key "best practice" that Unisys brings to the engagement.
The terms of the contract provide the city with significantly enhanced levels of support and disaster recovery capabilities. Additionally, under a technology refresh program administered by Unisys, the contract will provide the city and its employees with new hardware, including laptops, desktops, PDAs, servers and storage equipment.
Improved Public Services. Millions in Savings.
"By having Unisys take over our IT infrastructure," says Kaiser, we can enhance service delivery quite a bit to those institutions that require 24 by 7 support. And, outsourcing allows us to consolidate services for very little cost."
In fact, outsourcing will save the city a significant amount. "Outsourcing our IT infrastructure to Unisys will enable us to save in excess of $20 million over the course of seven years," Kaiser remarks.
In addition, continues Kaiser, "I am free to expend my energy and focus on helping the city achieve its business goals."
Ostrow concurs, pointing out just how advantageous outsourcing can be. "Our decision to outsource the maintenance of our technology infrastructure is just one of many ways Minneapolis is working to deliver more streamlined, efficient and cost-effective city services to our citizens. It enables us to contain costs, use our tax dollars more efficiently and increase service levels to city employees and constituents. It also frees the city's internal IT staff to concentrate on strategic initiatives that improve the services we provide."
Customer at-a-glance
City of Minneapolis
Reports to
Mayor's Office
Mission
Become a world-class virtual city, with public services available 24 x 7, 365 days a year.
Objective
Outsource IT infrastructure to free internal resources and reduce costs.
Results
Improved service to citizens. More efficient use of tax dollars. Refocused resources.
Population served
383,000 citizens
About Unisys in the Public Sector
Unisys is a worldwide systems integrator specializing in information technology services and solutions. We offer an end-to-end portfolio of value-based solutions led by our competency in consulting and systems integration, outsourcing, network services and security, combined with leading enterprise-class server and related technologies.
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Our government clients value the combination of people, process and performance we deliver on every project:
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Our people get it done—we resolve complex, information technology problems with a combination of precision thinking and relentless execution.
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Our Vision-to-ValueSM process is proven—we strategically align our clients. IT investment with their mission and vision.
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Our performance is world class—we deliver what we promise.
We have kept our commitment to more than 1,500 government clients around the world and we’ll do the same for you.
