Fujitsu has signed a five-year deal with fast food chain McDonald’s to supply IT support to the company’s 1,200 branches in the UK and Ireland.

The IT outsourcer will offer support for point-of-sale systems and back office operations to both company-owned and franchise outlets, replacing various incumbent suppliers.

Fujitsu plans to make McDonald’s IT systems more reliable by deploying systems built on "user-exchangeable parts", the company said in a statement. This will allow staff to fix minor IT problems themselves by replacing faulty units such as card readers, it claimed.

The provider said success would be judged on whether it simplified IT support for branch staff, reduced of on-site engineering visits and drove down the total cost of ownership of McDonald’s IT equipment over its lifetime. Fujitsu’s business unit director Jon Wolfe said that keeping tills open and operating was the most important job for IT support.

"However the role moving forward is as much about the customer experience and supporting new technologies that ensure agility in meeting customer demands, such as touch-screen ordering and contactless payments – both areas that McDonald’s is already deploying," Wolfe claimed. In Janaury 2011, McDonald’s announced that it will use Visa’s contactless payments infrastructure. 

McDonald’s was not available for comment.