Case Studies

Company Overview
SIRVA is a global business services company. It is the industry’s largest and most innovative worldwide relocation company and a leader in logistics for integrated high value products. SIRVA companies include established brands such as SIRVA Relocation, Allied Van Lines, northAmerican Van Lines, Pickfords (in the U.K.), Allied Pickfords (in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Asia), TransGuard and northAmerican Logistics. SIRVA has operations in 36 countries, with more than 7,000 associates and over 1,700 independent agents. Its revenues in 2001 were approximately $2.2 billion.

The Business Challenge
SIRVA, the world’s most comprehensive provider of relocation services and logistics solutions for high value products, sought to accelerate their investment in IT growth initiatives, gain flexibility and speed, and significantly reduce non-core costs.

The Covansys Solution
Following an exhaustive, nine-month process to identify the most effective company for the job, SIRVA chose Covansys for a ten-year outsourcing project. SIRVA outsources selected applications development and maintenance, as well as project management, to Covansys.

The partnership with Covansys supports SIRVA’s long-term strategy to significantly decrease their non-core IT spending, while at the same time enhancing the level of customer service. Information technology is a critical part of the customer value proposition in all of SIRVA’s businesses.

Covansys’ unique blend of outsourcing options provides these benefits for clients like SIRVA:

• Strategic focus on core IT activities
• Increased ability to ramp resources up/down quickly
• Significant savings that can be re-invested in growth initiatives
• Access to ‘leading edge’ technology and best practices

By working with Covansys, SIRVA expects to reap immediate first-year cost savings, in addition to long-term savings of over 20%. SIRVA’s ability to ramp services up or down provides them with added project flexibility. This benefit is due to Covansys’ unique, blended on-site/offshore outsourcing model which allows for seamless operations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Covansys has a decade-long track record of success in managing outsourcing for more than four-dozen top companies, including Ford Motor Company and Henry Ford Health Systems.