• ABF uses the assyst solution to share services across fourteen business units

United Kingdom, 14 June 2009 – Axios Systems, the world’s leading provider of IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions, has signed a contract with Associated British Foods (ABF), the global retail group, to implement the assyst software, enabling delivery of IT Shared Services across its business units. The deal adds to Axios’ expanding retail customer base which includes Arcadia, Kingfisher and Shop Direct Group.

The ABF implementation will utilise many of the advanced functionalities of the assyst solution including Dashboards, showing real-time management views and the Process Designer, which gives management powerful control over the design and execution of processes. The ABF Shared Service Centre has to demonstrate to its fourteen business units, such as Allied Bakeries, British Sugar and ABAgri that the IT service provided is agile and aligned to the changing dynamics in each business within the group.

By selecting Axios as their strategic vendor to deliver service value, ABF is confident that it has engaged with a partner that has the required experience, flexibility and functional leadership. Working with Axios, the ABF Shared Service Centre expect to deliver efficient IT services to the ABF business units to enable competitive advantage in each of the market places they operate in.

Neil Rudolph, Service Support Manager at ABF Shared Services explains, “Whilst Axios’ solution has been used for some years in two of ABF’s business units, when it came to selecting a standardised ITSM platform in Shared Services we engaged Getronics, an ICT service provider, to review the market and ensure we found the best solution to meet our needs. We were very impressed with the advancement made in version 8 of assyst and also with the way Axios engaged with us. They understood our business needs and have been flexible in how they work with us to make sure we get value for our investments”

The solution will go live for the Shared Service Centre in summer 2009, and then in a phased approach each of the group’s fourteen business units will take advantage of the solution over the following 12-18 months.

Ailsa Symeonides, Sales and Marketing Director at Axios Systems says: “Our retail customer base is continually expanding and this latest addition strengthens Axios’ position in this sector. It is very encouraging to see another organisation leveraging assyst’s multi-tenancy capability to enable a Shared Services model.”