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Vodafone to announce big deal with IBM "to run the business"

Next week, expect Vodafone to announce the complete outsourcing of its operations - everything except the network itself, say sources here at Barcelona 3GSM Congress. The story could not be checked with Vodafone itself before press time, but the deal is almost certain to be seen as an attempt to buy "breathing time" for CEO Arun Sarin

How well the deal will work, remains to be seen. If it goes ahead, it is handing full control of the central revenue generation engine - the billing process - to a source which has not covered itself with public glory in its attempts to revitalise the O2 billing setup.

The news that O2 is to pass control of its big billing reorganisation to an outside consultant was broken in NewsWireless last November, with the consultant named as Accenture. But Accenture was taking over the project; it was started by IBM, and was moved to Accenture after senior management decided it was stalled.

Sarin's position as head of Vodafone will now be regarded by many observers as "in question." One source told NewsWireless: "This gives him another two or three quarters to get out of the position Voda has got itself into, and to pre-empt any attempt to replace him in this quarter at least, by someone like Warren Finegold."

According to the Telegraph report, "UBS banker Warren Finegold is joining the Vodafone executive committee." He becomes chief executive of global business development responsible for mergers & acquisitions and partner networks.

It isn't any secret that Vodafone's investors are dissatisfied with performance, and observers blame this problem squarely on management policy, which has been to avoid trying to be excellent, and be content with "being 10% better than number two" in the market.

 Tags: 3GSM, Vodafone, and IBM