Report Claims Virgin Media O2 UK Set to Outsource IT to Tata in Forthcoming Deal
A new report has claimed that broadband and mobile giant Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2) are reportedly in the process of reaching a new agreement with India’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which is allegedly said to be worth around £750m over 10-years. The move could see the telecoms provider outsourcing some of their IT, such as in application management and infrastructure services.
According to the report on Telco Titans (paywall), the as yet unconfirmed move is being done at the direction of co-owners Telefónica, which recently set out a new five-year strategic plan (here). The latter included a desire to modernise IT systems and processes “externally“, which is where Tata could come into play. But a portion of the deal for VMO2 is also said to include ‘new work‘ for the business.
At present there are a lot of unknowns about all this and what the new agreement, if it is indeed signed, will deliver. The report indicates that a formal announcement of the deal is expected in the coming weeks (early New Year). VMO2 declined to comment when ISPreview asked, although O2 did inform us that it had no plans to move IT jobs from the UK to India or any other country, and that any such speculation would be unsubstantiated and misleading.
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We should point out that VMO2 already work with TCS as part of an enterprise software integration contract, which was announced back in 2023. The UK is TCS’s second-largest market after the USA and they’re currently in the process of expanding their UK based workforce to create 5,000 new jobs, although the timeframe for this seems to be unclear.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Yet another company outsourcing! How many staff are at risk with this new move?
I interviewed with VM 6 years ago.The interviewer begged me for a job as their network was such a crapfest. I noped out, but this can only make it worse. Thank Dog BRSK came to my area.
One hopeless company outsources to another hopeless company. I can’t see how this could possibly go wrong.
I wonder if they’ve had a serious chat to other TCS customers? Works OK for about six months when the initial (pretty good) tech transfer team are around, they then vanish to the next victim, along with the remains of the TUPE’d former staff and an ever changing bunch of clueless numpties struggle to distinguish arse from elbow. But that’s Standard Operating Procedure in this game…
Did they not see what happened to M&S
This is why people shouldn’t support companies that don’t employ within the country they serve
Really… nothing will get better but far worse is set to come. So will they partner with infosys and palantir??
This is a win win for the alt nets.
Its not the outsourcing itself that’s the issue, but TCS? Has everyone forgotten M&S, Harrods, Jaguar, et, al?
They will never learn, India in itself is a huge source of scams from data leaks, and these type of deals often dont work out as a positive for the business as it interrupts work flows.