Nieuwegein, January 8, 2019 – Network integrator Avit has been appointed by ASICS, one of the world's major producers of sports shoes, sportswear, and sports accessories, as the main contractor for IT services for almost all ASICS EMEAR members. The companies have concluded a long-term collaborative agreement with a contract value of several million euros. Avit has a range of responsibilities as the main contractor, including to monitor and report on IT services and ensure strict compliance with all agreements made.

Edwin Idema, Global IT Manager at ASICS Europe, had this to say: “ASICS has a small IT team that has a lot of work to do. We also really need to align business and IT, so we decided to outsource operational IT services. We started looking for a party who could both deliver a large part of the IT and manage the parties supplying the remaining part. We'd then have just one delivery manager with whom we would coordinate our operational IT, giving our own IT team much more time to support our own business.”

Ronald Hoogeboom, external organization advisor at ASICS, commented: “One of our major criteria was that the main IT contractor should be able to work according to the Service Integration and Management (SIAM) model. After an extensive independent selection procedure, we selected Avit. Whereas other suppliers believe they could offer specific capabilities when it comes to SIAM, Avit responded to our request with an entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to invest in working according to SIAM. We have absolute trust in Avit's knowledge, expertise, and experience!”

Ronald Kraanen, CEO of Avit, added: “Avit was already a network supplier to ASICS, and we're proud to have come out on top in the independent selection procedure. Our experience with managing various IT partners in outsourcing arrangements was a major factor in our ability to respond to ASICS's demand. We think SIAM is a logical step in outsourcing, and we aim to do a lot with it. There's more and more demand for it in the market.”

Service Integration And Management (SIAM) is more than just managing daily service monitoring. According to SIAM, IT service providers are responsible for ensuring end-to-end IT services to businesses based on KPIs. This goes in hand in hand with the integration of all internal and external, insourced and outsourced cloud and other services in the IT value chain.

Avit will manage ASICS's various IT service providers according to SIAM from ASICS's European headquarters, which is located in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands, and employs over 300 workers. The different suppliers’ services will be integrated, with Avit responsible for the entire operation.

Specific agreements have already been made: Avit is going to manage the service desk (remote), the service counter (a desk at ASICS's headquarters), and on-site support in EMEAR. Over the long run, more services will be added to this list. Alongside this, ASICS and Avit are aiming to gradually increase the maturity of the services from 1.5 to 3.0 by 2020.