The UK’s national postal service Royal Mail Group Ltd (RMG), has signed a six-year IT contract with consulting, technology and outsourcing services provider Capgemini UK, a subsidiary of Capgemini group.

The agreement aims to transform its business and consumer online services, help to reduce its annual website IT costs and support expansion and diversification into a wide range of new web-based business opportunities without the delays and expense of traditional IT.

The cloud computing a technology which will be deployed will enable IT-on-demand to be piped into an organisation as a ‘smart utility’ on a money-saving pay-as-you-go basis.

The new technology can be quickly and easily reconfigured to support RMG in launching new business ventures and bringing new services to market as quickly as possible.

Areas seen as strong candidates for expansion and diversification at RMG include services for personal and small or medium business customers, and high-quality, innovative parcel delivery services to meet the needs of the UK’s boom in online shopping.