John Hancock Financial Services will let go of as many as 100 workers from its technology division as part of an outsourcing move. Hancock said that it expects to save as much as $90 million by outsourcing much of its Infrastructure Support Services department to IBM.

That department is part of Hancock's Information Technology Services Sector and now maintains the company's mainframes, servers, networks, desktops, Help Desk, and 24 X 7 operations. Those services will be shifted to IBM under a contract that is expected to be signed before the end of the second quarter. The transition is expected to last four months.

Hancock officials said they expect about 180 of the 300 department members affected by the outsourcing to move to IBM, which will relocate some offices to Hancock's buildings. Another 20 employees will remain at Hancock to oversee the new arrangement. Employees that are not offered positions will be offered severance.

IBM won the business by offering Hancock on demand computing. Essentially, that service provides Hancock greater flexibility in drawing on computing resources. Hancock is also able to move fixed technology expenses to a variable basis.

Bob Walters, EVP and CIO of John Hancock, said that IBM anticipates establishing an office in the Hancock's Berkeley Building and that the vast majority of the employees it hires will work out of that building, too. Some of the jobs will also be located at off-site IBM offices, he said.  

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