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Accenture woos telecom cos to grab outsourcing pie
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Accenture woos telecom cos to grab outsourcing pie
8 Dec 2008 ,BANGALORE: Having missed the early wave of telecom outsourcing
in the world’s fastest growing phone market, Accenture is now in discussions with
top Indian phone firms including Bharti Airtel for strategic outsourcing of new business processes apart from management
consulting projects, as these telcos seek to sustain profitability and outsource non-core functions.
Experts who did not wish to be identified said these consulting and strategic outsourcing contracts could be smaller, estimated anywhere between $50 million to $200 million, but will bring high margin business for Accenture.
“We are currently in discussions with the top four telcos, apart from the new telecom entrants,” Martin I Cole, group chief executive, communications and high tech, Accenture told ETin an interview on Friday. “We are having discussions around the outsourcing of processes such as value added services, which include music and video offerings, apart from the overall solution delivery platform,” added Mr Cole.
During the first wave of telecom outsourcing, which started in 2004, firms such as Bharti architected total IT outsourcing contracts and asked IBM to take over all IT and back-office processes. Now, having already achieved over 80 million customers, companies such as Bharti would like to focus more on sustaining profitability and differentiate themselves by offering innovative and unique solutions.
In what appears to be the next phase of outsourcing by mature Indian telcos such as Bharti, there is an opportunity to become nimbler by giving out the operational nuisances of new business offerings of video and music-based solutions.
Accenture’s strategy for addressing the lucrative Indian telecom market might be unfolding late, but the company is all set to gain from the next wave of strategic outsourcing. For instance, when Virgin Mobile wanted to establish its Indian Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) service within few months, it turned to Accenture. “We helped Virgin go live, and consulted them on strategy,” added Mr Cole.
“There could be more similar opportunities.” “We should see new forms of outsourcing that involve strategic consulting,” said Kumar S Ranjan, executive partner, India lead communication, media and high tech, Accenture. “We are talking to the top four Indian telcos to help them with customer segmentation, and nobody has that expertise here,” he added.
IBM India, which has ongoing outsourcing contracts from India’s top phone firms including Bharti, Vodafone and Idea, helps these telcos focus on their core operations by taking away the functions of back-office, billing and data centre management, apart from a host of other business processes.
Accenture is not necessarily looking at IT outsourcing, but other potential processes that are not strategic for the phone firms. “Our discussions with large Indian carriers is around right cost transformation, while the new entrants are exploring ways to start business quickly and exploring different models including software-as-a-service,” said Mr Ranjan.
Source:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Accenture_woos_telecom_cos/articles
in the world’s fastest growing phone market, Accenture is now in discussions with
top Indian phone firms including Bharti Airtel for strategic outsourcing of new business processes apart from management
consulting projects, as these telcos seek to sustain profitability and outsource non-core functions.
Experts who did not wish to be identified said these consulting and strategic outsourcing contracts could be smaller, estimated anywhere between $50 million to $200 million, but will bring high margin business for Accenture.
“We are currently in discussions with the top four telcos, apart from the new telecom entrants,” Martin I Cole, group chief executive, communications and high tech, Accenture told ETin an interview on Friday. “We are having discussions around the outsourcing of processes such as value added services, which include music and video offerings, apart from the overall solution delivery platform,” added Mr Cole.
During the first wave of telecom outsourcing, which started in 2004, firms such as Bharti architected total IT outsourcing contracts and asked IBM to take over all IT and back-office processes. Now, having already achieved over 80 million customers, companies such as Bharti would like to focus more on sustaining profitability and differentiate themselves by offering innovative and unique solutions.
In what appears to be the next phase of outsourcing by mature Indian telcos such as Bharti, there is an opportunity to become nimbler by giving out the operational nuisances of new business offerings of video and music-based solutions.
Accenture’s strategy for addressing the lucrative Indian telecom market might be unfolding late, but the company is all set to gain from the next wave of strategic outsourcing. For instance, when Virgin Mobile wanted to establish its Indian Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) service within few months, it turned to Accenture. “We helped Virgin go live, and consulted them on strategy,” added Mr Cole.
“There could be more similar opportunities.” “We should see new forms of outsourcing that involve strategic consulting,” said Kumar S Ranjan, executive partner, India lead communication, media and high tech, Accenture. “We are talking to the top four Indian telcos to help them with customer segmentation, and nobody has that expertise here,” he added.
IBM India, which has ongoing outsourcing contracts from India’s top phone firms including Bharti, Vodafone and Idea, helps these telcos focus on their core operations by taking away the functions of back-office, billing and data centre management, apart from a host of other business processes.
Accenture is not necessarily looking at IT outsourcing, but other potential processes that are not strategic for the phone firms. “Our discussions with large Indian carriers is around right cost transformation, while the new entrants are exploring ways to start business quickly and exploring different models including software-as-a-service,” said Mr Ranjan.
Source:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Accenture_woos_telecom_cos/articles
