Telstra outsources bulk of back office operations to India

Australian telecommunications and media company, Telstra has announced 170 job cuts across its centres in all major capital cities in as it plans to shift its back office operations to India.

Telstra had announced in May that it would reorganise its operational activities into five groups, three of which, Networks, IT Solutions and Customer Service Delivery, would be new, however, the job cuts announced are part of a different plan of company's restructuring of operations, The Age reports.

According to the report, head of Telstra's National Applications Services (NAS) business, David Burns said that the restructure and job cuts would affect its National Applications Services unit as the current business model was inadequate and offshoring of services was necessary.

Burns said that in order to promote domestic and international growth of its NAS business, the company would establish global delivery centres with industry partners in India.

The report said that the decision if finalized would take a period of six to 12 months to complete and roles would disappear from major cities including Hobart and Canberra while the Indian jobs would be for back office operations, including service operations, SLA reporting, business and infrastructure operations, and resource management.

Burns said that the company needs to expand its capability and support their growth in Asia adding that the company has just started to consult with their employees as of now and did not mention where the jobs would be located in India, the report added.