Belk Signs $98M IT Services Deal with IBM

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Belk department store chain has signed a $98 million contract with IBM (NYSE: IBM) for information technology outsourcing services.

The seven-year deal is a renewal of an agreement first made between the companies in 2001.

"Our objective is to continue to leverage IBM's proven track record and abilities in service delivery while we focus our energy on our customers, stores and business growth model," said Roddy Kerr, Belk’s executive vice president and chief information officer. "Extending our existing agreement simply made good sense given our business objectives and direction.”

The two companies have worked together for some 60 years.

IBM will provide Belk with data center, storage management, server support, backup and recovery support, security monitoring and several other services.