Vodafone Calls for Managed Services Help to Care for Customers

Mobile and network service provider Vodafone (News - Alert) has plenty of technology and gobs of customers – over 400 million to be exact. MSP Amdocs is likewise flush with customers. It claims to have over 500 million subscribers to its services, customers supported by Amdocs (News - Alert) 20,000 employees. So it is no real surprise that the world’s second largest mobile carrier would ring up a huge MSP for billing and customer care.

The thirty-year-old Amdocs has a host of software tools designed for this type of customer engagement. Besides the software itself, Amdocs will add maintenance, operations support and application development to the Vodafone mix. “As part of this strategic agreement, Amdocs will establish a dedicated Shared Service and Development Center for Vodafone and this center will start with servicing Vodafone's local markets in Germany, UK and the Netherlands,” the companies explained.

The two are not exactly strangers as they share a 20 year old working relationship. “This agreement is testament to the relationship between Amdocs and Vodafone that stretches over two decades,” noted Rebecca Prudhomme (News - Alert), vice president of product and solutions marketing at Amdocs. “Our managed services model helps Vodafone to provide a consistent customer experience across markets through standardized service-level agreements, as well as leverage Amdocs' business knowledge and expertise to deliver service excellence and innovation.”

Analyzing Amdocs

Amdocs has some serious service provider bulk, with revenues last year of $3.2 billion and a product line that includes network control, OSS and BSS, all backed by managed and professional services.

Viewing Vodafone

Vodafone is a mobile pioneer having placed its first mobile call on New Year’s Day way back in 1985. Today Vodafone is trying to figure out its technological and business future, a future closely intertwined with Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless.

Vodafone owns some $115 billion worth of Verizon stock – and this stock constitutes a majority of Vodafone’s market value. It also means that Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon. Verizon is apparently getting antsy and want to buy back these shares or possible even acquire Vodafone.

In late April, Verizon made a $100 billion bid to buy back its stock, which Vodafone rejected believing the stock is worth far more, more like $115-120 billion.

Vodafone historically had a foothold in the U.S. Fourteen years ago Bell Atlantic and the U.S. asset of Vodafone came together to create Verizon Wireless (News - Alert), which is how Vodafone came to own nearly half of the U.S. wireless concern.