Telecom finishes first stage of re-engineering programme despite delays

TelecomTelecom has spent $70 million in the first stage of a programme to re-engineer and update customer service IT platforms.

The implementation, which had been nearly two years in the making, affected more than 120 IT systems and took more than 430 person years of work to deliver, according to Telecom.

“The reengineering programme is a significant driver of our long-term strategy. The first stage of reengineering has delivered major improvements to our foundation system capabilities and to our prepaid mobile customer systems, as well as to some customer facing systems including a brand new website.

He added that while the implementation, which took place over the weekend of 17 and 18 May 2014 went smoothly, going live on the new systems had to be delayed by 12 hours due to the hardware fault that affected the internal IT network on the 19th of May.

The next major stage of the reengineering programme is due to be completed in the FY15 financial year, with the emphasis on post-paid mobile and building on the foundation laid in the first stage.

“The change of our name and core brand to Spark, scheduled to take place in August, is also on-track.

“We are well on track to meet our FY14 guidance. Our full year guidance for adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations remains unchanged at $925 million to $945 million, excluding the one-off AAPT sale proceeds and rebranding costs. As noted at the half year, our intention is to pay a minimum dividend of 16 cps for the FY14 year,” added Moutter.