VHA outsources IT operations to Tech Mahindra

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 07 April 2011 10:33

IT Industry - Deals

Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) has appointed Indian IT outsourcing specialist Tech Mahindra to take responsibility for the running and operations of the company's IT systems, replacing a number of providers that included Ericsson and IBM.

VHA said in a statement: "the five year agreement aims to improve IT operations and deliver efficiencies through the management of Vodafone and 3's IT systems by one supplier."
The deal has been a long time coming. In May 2010, just after it had announced the outsourcing of its network operations to Nokia Siemens Networks under a seven-year agreement, VHA said it was in the process of finding an organisation to manage its IT services.

A spokeswoman told ExchangeDaily at the time: "The scope of work for our IT managed services is currently being reviewed. That includes the billing and provisioning and service application. For Hutchison that is all managed by Ericsson. For Vodafone there are multiple partners, including IBM."

CTO Michael Young, said: "The new partnership will provide us with a single point of accountability for IT systems performance and management. It will also bring greater operational efficiencies and the ability to continuously improve our customers' experience of our services."

Tech Mahindra bills itself as "the leading IT services and solutions provider to global telecom operators." It was formed in 1986 as BT Mahindra, a joint venture between BT and Mahindra and Mahindra. BT has progressively reduced its stake and late last year sold 5.5 percent to Mahindra and Mahindra for $US100m, reducing its stake to 24.5 percent.

In June 2008, Telecom New Zealand signed a contract with Tech Mahindra for delivery of the information systems element of Next Generation Telecom, its plan to deliver new customer relationship management and billing capability using new IP connectivity products.