Vodafone names EDS and IBM as preferred bidders in apps development deal

Vodafone has named EDS and IBM as the preferred bidders for an application development and maintenance services deal worth £560m per year.

The world’s largest mobile phone company wants the outsourcing companies to cut the costs of application development and maintenance by between 25% and 30% within three to five years.

Vodafone plans to finalise its contacts with both outsourcing suppliers within the next few weeks.

The company’s chief executive Arun Sarin said, “The outsourcing of this application development and maintenance work complements a series of other projects designed to reduce group overheads including the regional consolidation of datacentres and the centralisation of network supply chain management.”

The outsourced services will be provided to separate groupings of Vodafone’s operating companies. Key IT systems covered by the deal include billing and customer relationship management.

EDS and IBM emerged as the preferred bidders at the end of an eight-month selection process.