Originally called BL Systems, the company was created to provide British Leyland with reliable, state-of-the-art information technology services. The idea of a separate information technology company for this purpose was conceived in 1977 by John Leighfield, who later became the new company's chairman and chief executive. When the plan was approved in 1978, all British Leyland's mainframe computers were unified in one data center at Redditch, joined via a microwave communications network

- the first such private network in Europe - to the automotive

manufacturing sites. The new center was finished in February 1979, and BL Systems came into official existence the following June.