Vodafone forms new Group Enterprise unit as CWW integration speeds up
Vodafone has revealed its integration plans for Cable & Wireless Worldwide, which it picked up for just over £1bn earlier this year.
The acquisition was always intended to boost Vodafone's enterprise portfolio and, sure enough, the telco has unveiled a new Group Enterprise unit, led by former CWW chief executive Nick Jeffery.
The unit will serve enterprises and other telcos, with offerings also including hosting, cloud and machine-to-machine services. Vodafone said on Friday that the unit would have presence in 50 countries.
"Following our acquisition of CWW in July 2012, it has become clear that there is strong customer demand for combined products and services," Vodafone said in a statement. "To realise this growth opportunity, we have decided to accelerate the CWW integration process ahead of our original schedule."
Both Vodafone and CWW were offering enterprise services, and these too are to be fused within the new group. Many of the newer carrier services, hosting and cloud elements of the new group come from the CWW side.
The two operations' customer services divisions are to be merged, as are their finance and HR departments.
Vodafone said it expected the cost of the integration to hit around £500m by March 2016, but added that "cash flow synergies" should be running at £150m-£200m a year by that point.