RCS - Vodafone Group Plc - Strategic Partnership with Accenture

VodafoneAnnouncement

13/11/2023 07:00

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RNS Number : 1594T  Vodafone Group Plc  13 November 2023

13 November 2023

VODAFONE ANNOUNCES STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH ACCENTURE TO ACCELERATE

THE COMMERCIALISATION OF ITS SHARED OPERATIONS

 

·    Vodafone is accelerating its transformation to commercialise its
market leading shared services operations

·    Accenture to invest €150m in new shared services entity for an
undisclosed minority interest

·    The partnership taps into Accenture's world class technology,
industry and transformation services, and talent development expertise

Vodafone Group Plc ("Vodafone") announced today its intention to create a
strategic partnership with Accenture to commercialise Vodafone's shared
operations to accelerate growth, enhance customer service and drive
significant efficiencies for Vodafone's operating companies and partner
markets, as well as create new career opportunities for its people.

The strategic partnership will build on Vodafone's market leading shared
services unit, Vodafone Intelligent Solutions (_VOIS), to create a scaled,
commercially driven and more efficient organisation with high quality services
and enhanced speed to market for its portfolio of offerings. Under this new
model for the industry, Vodafone will retain majority interest, management
control and sourcing decisions.

The new unit will utilise Accenture's world class technology and
transformation services such as its digital solutions and platforms, and deep
AI expertise. It will also tap into Accenture's well-known learning
capabilities to continuously create new skilling and career paths for its
people. Accenture will invest in the order of €150m for a minority stake in
the partnership.

"Today's announcement is a significant development for Vodafone as we change
and simplify the way we work to better serve our customers and drive growth,"
said Margherita Della Valle, Group CEO, Vodafone. "The partnership with
Accenture opens up new opportunities for our company and our people. We're
excited about the potential of our new commercial shared services organisation
and the potential to serve not only Vodafone's own markets but our Telco
partners across the industry."

"We are proud to have partnered with Vodafone for over 20 years across many
strategic programs. We are excited to take our partnership to a new level with
this ground-breaking joint venture that will help power Vodafone's reinvention
and create significant value for their operating companies, partner markets
and employees," said Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO, Accenture. "This move speaks
to their ambition to work in entirely new ways, reduce structural complexity,
open avenues for growth, create better experiences for their customers and
provide additional career paths for their people."

By leveraging the brands, investments, scale, strengths, and expertise of both
companies, the strategic partnership will build on over a decade of
high-performance expansion and will empower Vodafone's transformation by
creating a more agile and efficient organisation that will enable its strategy
to focus on customers, simplicity, and growth. Vodafone and Accenture have
signed a Memorandum of Understanding, and the strategic partnership is subject
to completion of the definitive agreements, which are expected to be completed
in the Spring of 2024. The partnership will commit to deliver best in class
service levels and innovation to Vodafone Group through a long-term agreement,
demonstrating the deep partnership commitment between Accenture and Vodafone
and the comprehensive services portfolio that the new organisation will be
able to offer.

- ends -

 

For more information, please contact:

 Investor Relations      Media Relations
 Investors.vodafone.com  Vodafone.com/media/contact
 ir@vodafone.co.uk       GroupMedia@vodafone.com

 

Registered Office: Vodafone House, The Connection, Newbury, Berkshire RG14
2FN, England. Registered in England No. 1833679

 

About Vodafone

Vodafone is the largest pan-European and African telecoms company. Our purpose
is to connect for a better future by using technology to improve lives,
digitalise critical sectors and enable inclusive and sustainable digital
societies.

We provide mobile and fixed services to over 300 million customers in 17
countries, partner with mobile networks in 46 more and are also a world leader
in the Internet of Things (IoT), connecting over 167 million devices and
platforms. With Vodacom Financial Services and M-Pesa, the largest financial
technology platform in Africa, we serve more than 71 million people across
seven countries.

We are committed to reducing our environmental impact to reach net zero
emissions by 2040, while helping our customers reduce their own carbon
emissions by 350 million tonnes by 2030. We are driving action to reduce
device waste and achieve our target to reuse, resell or recycle 100% of our
network waste by 2025.

For more information, please visit www.vodafone.com
(http://www.vodafone.com/) , follow us on Twitter at @VodafoneGroup or connect
with us on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/vodafone
(http://www.linkedin.com/company/vodafone) .

 

 

About Accenture

 

Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the
world's leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their
digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance
citizen services-creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent-
and innovation-led company with approximately 733,000 people serving clients
in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we
are one of the world's leaders in helping drive that change, with strong
ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership
in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise
and global delivery capability. We are uniquely able to deliver tangible
outcomes because of our broad range of services, solutions and assets across
Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song. These
capabilities, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to
creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build
trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we
create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and
communities. Visit us at www.accenture.com (http://www.accenture.com/) .

 

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