It is the first time any of the three suppliers have worked in this way on this scale in the UK, said Anglian.
The new IT Alliance will enable Anglian Water to develop the right technology solutions for its business and deliver them quickly and efficiently. The alliance is based on a mutual gain principle, where each organisation involved has strong incentives to collaborate in order to get the job done to the benefit of all.
Anglian Water head of information services Iain Fry said: “By forming an alliance and not simply outsourcing all our IT needs to a third party we’ll be able to build up a reservoir of knowledge and skills between the suppliers. This know-how will remain within the alliance and enable us to extract the maximum long term benefits.
“Our alliances make our business as efficient as it can be, which ultimately is what enables us to support the business in the best way possible while keeping customer bills low. We have been at the frontier of establishing alliances in the construction and engineering sector, but in the IT world this is still quite new.
“Very few technology companies currently do business in this truly collaborative way making this contract an industry-leading approach to delivering IT services.”
Fry said Anglian has selected providers that share its vision and are committed to the same business outcomes as it is. “Atos, Capgemini and Cognizant demonstrated stand-out collaborative behaviours and share the leadership principles that we see as vital in driving continuous change and improvements over the coming years. This will enable the alliance to run smoothly and effectively, and was the essential component we were looking for and testing for throughout this tender process.”
The contracts begin in 2016 and are expected to run until 2024, with a review in year four.
Atos UK and Ireland chief executive Adrian Gregory said: “As the water industry faces some of the biggest challenges in its history, Anglian Water have ambitious goals to outperform the market and serve their customers in even better ways.”
A version of this story first appeared on WWTonline.