Optus eyes finance, HR outsourcing

Optus has confirmed that it is considering outsourcing elements of its finance and HR operations.

The Australian Financial Review broke the news earlier today.

“Optus continually reviews its operations to ensure it has the right organisational structure in place to achieve its goals,” a spokesperson said. “We are currently reviewing our back office HR and finance operations to identify potential activities that could be outsourced over the next 12 months.”

The telco is looking at ways that it can enhance finance and HR functions “through better analytics, systems and technology to evolve service delivery across our business”.

Optus expects to select a vendor in the new few months, but is not able to identify the number of staff that would be affected by outsourcing. The AFR reported that Accenture and Infosys are believed to be leading the race to take over back-office functions for the telco.

There will be no redundancies this year linked to the process, according to the telco.

“While we are talking to a number of parties, we have not finalised arrangements with any vendors,” the spokesperson said. “Specific roles which may be affected have not yet been identified but we will work with employees who may be affected by these changes.”

Earlier this year the telco said it would restructure its enterprise and consumer divisions, potentially resulting in up to 480 redundancies.

Optus CEO Allen Lew said last month that a transformation process taking the company beyond telecommunications to become a “mobile-led entertainment brand” was on track