July 03, 2013

Telenor Selects Accenture to Implement Global Shared Services Vision

FORNEBU, Norway; July 3, 2013 – Telenor today announced that it has selected Accenture (NYSE: ACN) to accelerate the implementation of a global shared services vision across companies within the Telenor Group. Under the contract with Telenor, Accenture will look to provide relevant shared services in areas including Finance & Accounting, HR, IT and transactional procurement/purchases.

The aim of the agreement is to support Telenor Global Shared Services in achieving world-class support services by working with a highly experienced management group. This 5-year contract with Accenture is worth US$215 million and is designed to increase Telenor’s efficiency and quality significantly across the relevant shared services.

Telenor actively seeks opportunities to drive quality and efficiency improvements across the business units in the group. Global Shared Services is a vehicle in this, and in order to build and scale-up world class support services across geographies and business units, Telenor determined it needed a collaborative partner.

“This is about meeting our customers’ needs. We secure quality and efficiency through leveraging scale and volume across the Telenor Group. This partnership will enable us to establish shared services as an industrial vehicle and to grow and expand shared services into new global areas. To meet future business models, we will need new and innovative ways of operating, gain competencies from partnerships, and establish sustainable cost structures,” said Hilde Tonne, EVP and Head of Telenor Group Industrial Development.

Accenture will assist in implementation of industry standard practices, processes, tools, and approaches that meet Telenor’s requirements and lead to continuous innovation and productivity improvements. It will also augment the development and implementation of Telenor’s service strategies and work towards eliminating complexity from the services and architecture. This will all help Telenor achieve its strategic goal of becoming the industry leader in customer centricity by increasing value creation through improving processes.

“Our long-standing relationship with Telenor has proven beneficial to both companies,” said Bob Sell, Group Chief Executive, Accenture Communications, Media & Technology operating group. “We are working every day to provide the best support possible for Telenor and are confident that we can help Telenor achieve its vision for world-class shared services with standardized operations and efficiencies across its entire enterprise.”

“We conducted a comprehensive selection process to evaluate potential partners, and are excited about having selected Accenture for this non-exclusive agreement. The competitive process has shown that they possess the broad experience and capabilities that will enable Telenor Group to realize our strategic objectives,” said Ingrid R. Lorange, CEO of Telenor Global Shared Services.

About Telenor
Telenor Group is an international provider of tele, data and media communication services. Telenor Group has mobile operations in 11 markets in the Nordic region, Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia, as well as a voting stake of 42.95 per cent (economic stake 33 per cent) in VimpelCom Ltd., operating in 18 markets. Headquartered in Norway, Telenor Group is one of the world’s major mobile operators with 148 million mobile subscriptions in its consolidated operations per Q1 2013, revenues in 2012 of NOK 102 billion, and a workforce of approximately 30,000. For more information about Telenor Group, please visit www.telenor.com

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 266,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$27.9 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2012. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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Contacts:

Dag Melgaard
Telenor Group
+ 47 90 19 20 00
dag.melgaard@telenor.com

Georg Huus
Accenture
+ 47 90 78 76 89
georg.andreas.huus@accenture.com

Gary Morgenstern
Accenture
+ 973 301 3347
gary.a.morgenstern@accenture.com