Capita loses £18Mn Deliveroo contract
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM — An £18 million (US$22.5 million) deal between outsourcing giant Capita and online food delivery firm Deliveroo was canceled only five months after it was signed.
The contract was aimed at recruiting a team of 150 multilingual staff for Deliveroo’s new support center in Poland. However, Capita failed to deliver on its promise due to a lack of leadership, poor communication, and experience in setting up a center in Poland.
Delays led to Deliveroo pulling the plug on the project, which was supposed to support the company’s restaurant partners.
This latest development put further pressure on the outsourcing giant, which is already dealing with the fallout from the recent cyberattack.
The canceled deal is also a setback for Capita’s multilingual capabilities expansion in Poland. It is still unclear what the financial implications of the collapsed contract are for either companies or the terms of the final commercial negotiation that led to its cancellation.
Last March, the firm agreed to sell its resourcing businesses — Capita Resourcing, HR Solutions, and ThirtyThree — or £21 million (US$24.8 million) to reduce its debt and strengthen its balance sheet.
Capita is the largest software and IT services provider in the United Kingdom (UK), employing over 52,000 people in the UK, Europe, India, and South Africa. The firm ranked 19th on the Time Doctor OA500, an index of the world’s top 500 outsourcing companies and a vital tool in assisting the BPO decision-making community.
