Boots axes IT chief

High-street health and beauty retailer Boots is axing the role of IT director as it comes to the end of a major, multi-year IT transformation programme.

The decision means current IT director Rob Fraser will leave the company this week and Boots confirmed the role is being retired.

Fraser told silicon.com: "Having spent 10 years at Boots and with the recent changes it seemed like the right time to do something different."

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Under former CIO David Lister - now at Reuters - Boots began an overhaul of its IT operations in 2001 as part of a £300m programme that included a huge SAP rollout, a new pharmacy system and the modernisation of the in-store IT infrastructure.

In a recent interview with silicon.com, Fraser said of the transformation programme: "Since 2001 we've pretty much gone out and touched every piece of IT in the organisation."

The finishing touches are just being put to the SAP rollout that will mark the end of that six-year IT overhaul. As part of the winding up process Boots also scaled back and renegotiated a £710m outsourcing contract with IBM last year, bringing 100 IT jobs back in-house in the process.

Boots is aiming to cut the cost of running its IT operations by a third from £100m per year to around £70m per year after completing the modernisation programme.

Boots' owner, Alliance Boots, fell into the hands of private equity owners earlier this year.

This week, another retailer also revealed it is to ditch the role of IT director. Department store chain House of Fraser said it will not fill the vacancy left by retiring IT director Frank Berridge.