Royal Mail has taken on leading ITO provider, CSC to deliver a national mobile service to 25,000 delivery vehicles in its letters and parcels operation. CSC will lead the team delivering the service which includes Blackbay, a provider of mobile workforce solutions.

Royal Mail hopes that the rollout will “provide increased quality of service to customers by allowing them to view the status of their tracked deliveries in near real time via the Web.” Another benefits is the reduction of paper-based systems which have traditionally been used in the delivery of the post. The service will also provide Royal Mail delivery staff with the ability to map routes and exchange messages with their base locations.

Robin Dargue, CIO at Royal Mail Group, commented: "Working with CSC to deliver this innovative, key service will help Royal Mail to continue to meet the growing needs of our customers, increasing our efficiency and service in this area of our expanding business in an increasingly competitive marketplace,"

The deal marks a diversification of the two companies’ existing relationships. CSC has worked with Royal Mail Group since 2003 and is responsible for the maintenance of its 42,000 desktop computers and management and development of its servers, mainframes and IT processes. CSC also develops and maintains applications and provides a range of professional services supporting business critical systems.

The fiscal value of the deal was not disclosed.