European industrialist, AkzoNobel, has signed a five-year, multimillion euro contract extension with France Telecom’s Orange business services for the supply of ICT services in 55 countries, including Australia and New Zealand.

Brussel said the main focus of the agreement was the integration of the European and Asian network sites of British company ICI, which was acquired by AkzoNobel last year.

“This agreement is the result of a successful five-year collaboration between the chemical group and Orange business services, with the successful integration of the 1,000th  site in the network, an unparalleled achievement within three years. The good results achieved are the reason for the extension of the contract.”

AkzoNobel CIO, Gerard Helmink, said that with the acquisition of ICI, it became essential for the company to gain synergy advantages as quickly as possible, and over the past few years, Orange had proven it had “the knowledge and expertise to implement such complex IT projects on a global scale.”