Computacenter plc is a British multinational that provides computer services to public- and private-sector customers. It is a UK company based in Hatfield,

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

. The company is listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

and is a constituent of the

FTSE 250 Index The FTSE 250 Index ( "Footsie") is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions and demotions to and from the index occur quarterly in March, June, Septemb ...

History

Computacenter was founded in the UK in 1981 by

Philip Hulme Sir Philip William Hulme (born 1948) is the co-founder of Computacenter, one of the United Kingdom's largest computer businesses. Career Having graduated at Imperial College, London with a first class degree in engineering, Hulme secured a Harkn ...

and

Peter Ogden Sir Peter Ogden (born 1940) is an English businessman who is one of the founders of Computacenter, one of the United Kingdom's largest computer businesses. Education Ogden was born in Rochdale, England. He was educated at Rochdale Grammar Sch ...

. In 1990, it opened

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

's largest PC outlet; in 1991, it was listed by

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

newspaper as one of the fastest growing independent companies in the UK and, by 1994, it had grown to become the largest privately owned IT company in the UK. Computacenter was floated on the

in 1998. In 2006 the company extended its service facilities to include a new International Service Centre in Barcelona, Spain, and a customer help desk and remote management facility in Cape Town, South Africa.

Operations

The company is engaged in the

supply Supply may refer to: *The amount of a resource that is available **Supply (economics), the amount of a product which is available to customers **Materiel, the goods and equipment for a military unit to fulfill its mission *Supply, as in confidenc ...

implementation Implementation is the realization of an application, or execution of a plan, idea, model, design, specification, standard, algorithm, or policy. Industry-specific definitions Computer science In computer science, an implementation is a realiza ...

, support and

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

of information technology systems. Computacenter operates

subsidiaries A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a sa ...

and

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

s that address specific

market segment In marketing, market segmentation is the process of dividing a broad consumer or business market, normally consisting of existing and potential customers, into sub-groups of consumers (known as ''segments'') based on some type of shared charact ...

s. The following companies were acquired by Computacenter and are now integrated within their business: * Digica, which provides outsourcing and managed IT services to the corporate mid-market and the

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, infra ...

. * Allnet, which specialises in network integration and structured cabling services

Sponsorships

Computacenter was a sponsor of the Renault Sport F1 Team.

Social responsibility

Computacenter has committed itself to the 10 core principles of

United Nations Global Compact The United Nations Global Compact is a non-binding United Nations pact to encourage businesses and firms worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation. The UN Global Compact is a princ ...

. The company also works with its customers to help them meet their 'sustainable IT' objectives. In November 2007 Computacenter won BT’s inaugural Supplier Innovation Award for its work on virtualising and consolidating a number of their UK datacentres, helping BT reduce the

carbon footprint A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...

. Computacenter says its cost-neutral service to

Marks & Spencer Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...

has also helped M&S meet its WEEE requirements and its 'Plan A' environmental objectives, sending zero IT waste from M&S head office to landfill in 2008. The German branch of Computacenter is partner of the

White IT White IT is an initiative with the objective to identify adequate actions against child pornography in the internet. In the context of this initiative, the delegates of victims' associations, internet companies, the IT industry and medical associat ...

, an alliance against Internet child pornography.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Computer companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Welwyn Hatfield Computer companies established in 1981 Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange