Marks and Spencer extends partnership with TCS to transform core tech stack

TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced on April 25 that British retailer Marks and Spencer (M&S) has extended its contract with the IT major to transform its core technology stack, improve resilience and pace of innovation, and drive sustainable growth; this comes at a time when cost-efficiency deals are taking centre stage for IT services firms.

The new modernisation programme is aimed at helping M&S reduce technical debt, improve time to market and enhance scalability.

TCS has been helping M&S drive numerous business-critical transformation programmes for over a decade now. In the next phase of the partnership, TCS will simplify M&S’ technology landscape and modernise its core business systems with a cloud-first and composable platform strategy.

While the company did not disclose the exact deal size, media reports suggest that it could be worth $1 billion.

“As we move into the next phase of our transformation to reshape M&S for growth and value creation, we are delighted to extend our partnership with TCS. Together, we pivoted M&S to a digital-first business and achieved key business outcomes such as growing dotcom, driving loyalty through Sparks and realising significant cost and productivity efficiencies,” said Katie Bickerstaffe, Co-Chief Executive Officer, M&S PLC.

"Their industry advisory capabilities will help us accelerate the pace of business transformation by improving time to market; increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of M&S’ operating model; reducing technical debt; and infusing innovation for growth and value creation. This will enable us to achieve our goals of significantly increasing our active app userbase; further growing online sales volume; and building an efficient, resilient supply chain network," she added.

“As the long-standing transformation partner of M&S, we are fully vested in their purpose and belief that a simplified organisation with a culture of customer centricity and continuous innovation will help them drive sustainable growth in market share, sales, and profit. We are truly delighted to continue and enhance our relationship with them,” Shankar Narayanan, President, Retail Cluster, TCS said.