Mitchells & Butlers continues to drive down IT costs

Pub group Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) is continuing an IT cost-cutting plan to respond to pressure on its operating margins.

Earlier this year, the owner of the All Bar One and O'Neill's bar chains carried out a review of its £1bn external spend, which resulted in a "redesign" of the company's relationships with suppliers in areas including IT.

As part of the plan, M&B chose Fujitsu as a key IT vendor, following the end of a contract with IBM and a competitive process involving three other suppliers.

In the firm's financial results statement today it said, "We continue to drive increases in productivity and cost effectiveness and have identified a number of initiatives to offset inflationary cost headwinds. These initiatives are in areas such as menu improvements; drinks sales initiatives; gross margin management; IT costs; and organisation changes to improve efficiency and effectiveness."

Just over a year ago, M&B's chief information officer Mike Sackman told Computer Weekly that the goal was to reduce technology spending by about 20% over the next two to three years.

M&B's IT management was unavailable for further comment at the time of writing.