Optus to outsource HR, finance operations

Optus has confirmed it plans to outsource operations within its internal human resources and finance teams, and will spend the next 12 months reviewing which jobs would be best suited to a third-party handover.

The news, first reported by the Australian Financial Review, follows an April announcement that as many as 480 jobs could go from the telco’s consumer, enterprise, wholesale and satellite divisions this financial year, despite a 7 percent year-on-year profit jump in Optus’ last round of quarterly results.

The company is currently in talks with business process outsourcing suppliers - reported by the AFR to be Accenture for the finance work and Infosys on the HR side - and expects to make contract decisions within the coming months.

“While we are talking to a number of parties, we have not finalised arrangements with any vendors,” an Optus spokeswoman said.

“Specific roles which may be affected have not yet been identified but we will work with employees who may be affected by these changes.”

The HR/finance outsourcing program is not expected to incur any redundancies for at least a year.

One of the aims of the initiative is to improve the quality of data and analytics coming out of the back office functions to inform decision making at the top of the business.

Optus will also seek out improved technology and processes to “evolve service delivery across our business” through the selected third parties.

The Singapore-owned business is no stranger to this kind of restructuring. It has cut more than 2000 roles since 2012.

In late 2014 it dropped 75 customer-facing jobs, many of which were shipped to the Philippines, and let go another 70 in credit risk management due to an automation drive.

Savings from the latest round of up to 480 redundancies are due to be booked in Optus’ Q1 results.