Three Ireland signed a five-year managed services contract worth €65 million ($72 million) with OSS/BSS specialist Amdocs to support the overhaul of its IT systems and improve time to market for new services.
The company said the "IT digital transformation" would include the integration of former O2 IT systems and the elimination of duplicate IT costs, and would be in addition to Three's previously announced network investment of €300 million.
Three Ireland gained European Union regulatory approval for its proposed merger with O2 Ireland in May 2014, and now operates solely under the Three brand on the Irish market.
Robert Finnegan, CEO at Three Ireland, said the new agreement would "substantially reduce Three's annual IT costs, which is good news for our customers as it allows Three to continue to offer great value tariffs. The acquisition of O2 in 2014 has made this investment possible."
Finnegan stressed that CK Hutchison-owned Three Ireland had met promises it made at the time of the acquisition, including the creation of two new MVNOs and 100 new jobs in Ireland.
"We also promised innovation and delivering the best experience for our customers and that is what this project will achieve," he added.
The agreement will see Amdocs act as lead systems integrator under a five-year managed services model to consolidate, modernise and simplify Three Ireland's IT systems and processes across all lines of business. An emphasis was also placed on the ability to serve customers through omni-channels -- the term now used to reflect a better integration of online, call centre and in store customer support.
Following its previous acquisitions in Ireland and Austria, Hutchison's Three units in the UK and Italy are now looking to merge with O2 UK and Wind Italy respectively.
The Hong Kong-based company has recently stepped up efforts to convince the European Commission to approve its UK plans without imposing drastic concessions.
According to Bloomberg, CK Hutchison representatives met with senior European Union competition officials on Thursday last week to counter concerns that a merger of Three with O2 UK would harm competition.
That meeting followed an earlier closed-door meeting between CK Hutchison and the European Commission that was also attended by a number of rival companies and customers.
For more:
- see this Three Ireland release
- see this Bloomberg article
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