Launched in 2001 by Chairman Peter Wood to offer competitive insurance cover online and by phone, esure became one of the fastest-growing insurance brands in the world, attracting over a million customers in its first five years and launching the ground-breaking Sheilas' Wheels brand. Its staff numbers have grown from 50 to over 1200 since launch.

Comprehensive new IT has been deployed by Capgemini following esure's management buy-out in February from Lloyds Banking Group, which had previously provided IT support. Capgemini was selected by competitive tender because of its commitment to fully collaborative working and its track record of success in large-scale IT and outsourcing assignments. A partnership approach was used throughout with Capgemini working as an integral part of the project team.

Peter Wood, Chairman and founder of esure, said: 'We needed a managed IT solution that would match the levels of quality, reliability and security that we require for all aspects of our business, and that is what Capgemini have delivered. They have fully met our requirement to effect this major transition with virtually no disruption to our business, and we are pleased that our relationship is now set to continue for a further five years.'

The transition managed by Capgemini involved migration of the esure IT infrastructure from Lloyds Banking Group (HBOS) facilities to Capgemini secure data centres at London City and London Southbank, and the implementation of new hardware and systems software including a new Sun Solaris environment, Unix systems management based on IBM Tivoli Workload Schedulers, and a new Wintel estate involving Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, Blackberry and content management. Under the contract esure will also receive help-desk and incident management support from Capgemini service centres in Inverness and Nairn, Scotland.

The infrastructure managed by Capgemini runs all the esure core applications includiding finance systems and its customer-facing online and call centre policy administration and acquisition systems such as sales, marketing, website content, quotations and claims management. Capgemini is also managing esure's telephony systems including call management, via a subcontractor.

A key feature of the project was the deployment of rigorous and comprehensive testing at all key stages, using the Testing Services methodology that has recently been launched by Capgemini as a Global Service Line. The process confirmed the capability of the new infrastructure to satisfy esure's stringent requirements for security, reliability and scalability.

Greg Hyttenrauch, Chief Executive Officer of UK Outsourcing at Capgemini, said: 'As a web-based business esure needs excellent IT support 24/7 and we are naturally delighted that the company has selected Capgemini to meet that need. We look forward to a long and effective collaboration with this dynamic company.'