Vishwanath Kulkarni

Bangalore , Nov. 15

THE Australian telecom giant, Telstra's latest move to cut 12,000 jobs over five years and revamp its network to reduce costs and improve its cash flows may benefit Indian vendors such as Infosys Technologies Ltd and Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

Industry analysts said the Indian vendors, who have an ongoing engagement with Telstra, could land some of the jobs that the telecom giant may outsource as part of the restructuring plan.

"Though it may be difficult to quantify now, Indian vendors would definitely see some benefit from Telstra's latest move as there would be an element of IT outsourcing attached to this major restructuring plan," an analyst said.

On Tuesday, Telstra announced that it would shed one fifth of its workforce and revamp about 65 per cent of its networks. Telstra plans to reduce its workforce by 6,000-8,000 in three years and by 10-12,000 over five years.

Telstra has chosen three global giants — Alcatel, Cisco and Ericsson — for its network overhaul on which it plans to spend around Australian $10 billion. While Alcatel would supply soft switches and most access services, Cisco will supply the IP core. Ericsson has been selected as the supplier of the 850Mhz 3G network.

Reports say that on the IT side, Telstra has chosen Accenture and Siebel to work on the customer relationship management and customer contact systems. Further, Telstra is expected to announce "four or five" IT supply agreements once finalised, reports said.

While Infosys has an ongoing $50-million five-year deal with the Australian company Satyam is also executing various projects for Telstra.

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