news The business division of Singtel subsidiary Optus today announced that it had signed a five year, $30 million contract for managed ICT and mobility services with Australian engineering and property services group UGL that will affect more than 8,000 UGL staff around Australia and throughout Asia.
Under the whole-of-business agreement, according to Optus, the telco will provide UGL with a comprehensive range of managed ICT services, mobility, broadband and machine-to-machine capabilities. Optus Business was chosen by UGL after a competitive tender process for its ability to deliver domestic and regional data network services, as well as custom-design a range of intelligent business management applications that will enable UGL to improve productivity and business efficiency.
The Optus mobility solution will connect more than 8,000 UGL employees across Australia and Asia, delivering cost savings and productivity benefits. As part of the deployment, Optus Business will transition the UGL field force of engineers to a range of new smartphone devices and applications that will enable real-time access to the company’s critical Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), CRM and workflow systems, enhancing planning and decision making processes across its divisions.
With the Optus Business solution, UGL staff will now be able to, according to a statement issued today by Optus, make faster, smarter decisions – accessing and updating critical customer data from their phones in real-time – improving information flow, speed of decision making and reducing risk of delays; analyse their technology use and efficiencies – tracked by Optus Business’ machine to machine solution; and reduce operating costs – enabling real-time updates to workflow systems and tracking of jobs – improving efficiency and reducing carbon outputs.
“Innovation was at the forefront of what we were looking for from this partnership,” said UGL chief executive Richard Leupen. “We chose Optus because their team demonstrated an innovative approach. They made it their purpose to understand our business and our challenges, and to work with us to design solutions that would address them. That, for us, is a true partnership.”
The managed data and ICT services provided under this deal will enable UGL to hand over monitoring, maintenance and management of ICT to Optus Business.
UGL chose Optus Business for its ability to provide an end-to-end ICT solution as well as its capacity to provide a roadmap for expansion into Asia through its SingTel relationship and cloud capabilities.
“Positioning UGL to benefit from ongoing growth in Asia is a key strategic priority for our business and we required an ICT partner who could support our regional needs,” Leupen said. “Optus Business is the best placed regional ICT partner through the SingTel group and has a shared commitment to continual investment in innovation and growth.”
opinion/analysis
A logical decision by UGL. Optus has significant telecommunications resources throughout Asia, courtesy of its SingTel parent. The company’s Australian mobile and fixed telecommunications infrastructure is now very strong, after substantial recent upgrades, and through its Alphawest division that is part of Optus Business, Optus has quite strong capabilities in ICT integration. It also has a strong Infrastructure as a Service portfolio.
Plus, its prices are always going to be notably cheaper than those of Telstra in terms of large corporate contracts; at least for the forseeable future.
Since when do Optus offer IT services? I thought they were a telco.
Alphawest is Managed Services ICT arm of Optus Business for Medium, Large Enterprise, State and Federal GovernmentI(there international Coverage through Singtel and there Subsidiary ICT Business) . Telstra have within Enterprise and Federal Government ‘Network, Applications and Services(NAS) that offers similar solutions to Alphawest|Optus Business. There blur within Information, Communications and Technology Space with Convergence in Network, Unified Communication, Cloud, Mobile Devices, etc.
Its something that occurred overseas with UK BT Global Services, and Vodafone Global Enterprise(both Global ICT Shops) US with AT&T Global Networks and Verizon Enterprise Solutions (again with Global Reach) in Amongst others,
IBM Global Services, HP Enterprise Services and CSC would have there own specific solutions and also compete with these Telco’s that now offer ICT Solutions.
Looks like this came down to $$’s as I am sure Telstra would have been in there with a similar offering and hunger to win UGL business. Proof will be over time with the redundancy of the systems and networks, and the footprint of Optus Mobile network in regional areas where UGL win projects over time and what their end users say.
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