Perth-based BankWest and Unisys Australia have formed a joint venture, Unisys West, to provide e-commerce solutions to public and private sector companies.
Unisys West will begin operations in September with a brief to provide IT services to government departments and enterprises across all industries, including business-to-business e-commerce transaction services, data centre outsourcing, business process outsourcing, network management, help-desk operations, disaster recovery services, managed services and application service provision (ASP).
BankWest general manager emerging businesses and systems Chris Whitehead says the joint venture is part of a strategy to diversify its business by developing profitable new revenue streams. "We expect this to result in a better return on investments in BankWest's technology infrastructure," he adds.
BankWest and Unisys will consolidate their respective West Australian IT services groups into the joint venture, which expects to start recruiting soon.
The joint venture builds on a 12-year business relationship between the organisations, that has included cheque processing and imaging solutions, desktop outsourcing, network integration services and management consulting.
The new company will initially service the West Australian market, and aims to develop business in other States.