Sbarro Inc. partnered with Velocity Technology Solutions Inc. to lead the company’s information technology upgrade process.

Velocity, the leading provider of Lawson-managed services, coordinated the implementation of Sbarro’s business software application upgrade and its transition to Velocity’s hosting environment, Velocity On-Demand.

“At all levels of service, Velocity has demonstrated a deep understanding of our needs and a discipline to get the job done right,” says Sbarro’s Chief Information Officer Rich Guariglia. “The Velocity team is very experienced and knowledgeable. Great people make all the difference in the world, and the team is growing every day.”

Velocity, Lawson Software’s Preferred Hosting Solution, provides Sbarro with complete consulting, application management, and Velocity On-Demand hosting services related to the Lawson enterprise applications. Guariglia said Velocity has played a major role in achieving Sbarro’s strategic goal of improved IT operations delivery and regulatory compliance and has proven the value of outsource technology solutions.

“Velocity provides the expertise, all the operations and programming, in one comprehensive package,” Guariglia says. “There’s no need to hire more staff or go to multiple vendors. There’s no need to build out our own data center. Velocity does it all; I don’t even have to think about it. That’s the real driving force–the real value–of our relationship.”

Guariglia cited Velocity’s strategic partnership with Verizon Information Technologies as another key factor in Sbarro’s decision to establish a Velocity On-Demand hosting environment.

“Sbarro is a sophisticated user of enterprise software which had a pressing need to upgrade to the latest Lawson software release and a requirement to satisfy certain regulatory compliance standards for system availability, security, and disaster recovery,” says Velocity President and CEO Tom Bruno. “The upgrade represented a great opportunity to correct certain decisions made during the initial implementation and optimize their usage of the software through the improvement of select business processes. Our unique Upgrade and Outsource offering is a very efficient vehicle for clients, such as Sbarro, that want to upgrade and stay on current software release levels while they mitigate the burden and variability of running an enterprise software system.”