Amdocs
Encyclopedia
Amdocs Limited is a provider of software and services for billing
, customer relationship management
(CRM), operations support systems (OSS). Its traditional clients are telecommunications "Tier-1" and "Tier-2" providers such as AT&T
, BT Group
, Sprint
, T-Mobile
, Vodafone
, Bell Canada
, Telus
, Rogers Communications
, Telekom Austria
, Cellcom
, Comcast
, DirecTV
, Elisa Oyj
, TeliaSonera
and O2-Ireland. The company also offers outsourced customer service
and data center
operations. Headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri
, Amdocs has more than 20,000 employees and serves customers in more than fifty countries (the Registered office
of the company is in the Island of Guernsey).
, the Israeli business phone directory company, which was owned by the Aurec Group
headed by Morris Kahn. Together with others at Golden Pages, Kahn developed a software program for billing telecom companies and established a company called Aurec Information to market this product.
In 1985, Southwestern Bell Corporation
acquired a 50 percent ownership share of Aurec Information, and its name was changed to Amdocs. Within two years, the Aurec Group sold off all its holdings in Amdocs for almost US$1 billion.
Amdocs was valued at US$2.75 billion when it went public as company traded on the New York Stock Exchange
in 1998.
In the early 2000s, Amdocs branched out into the financial services industry with the Dutch bank ABN AMRO
, its first major non-telco customer. Amdocs also has its own consulting division called the Amdocs Consulting Division with offices worldwide.
Amdocs maintains development facilities in India, Israel, Cyprus, Great Britain, Ireland, and the United States, operates a support center in Brazil, and has operations in North America, Europe, South Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.
Amdocs' main products are centered around "Customer Experience Systems
" (CES), first introduced as CES 7.5 in January 2008. CES comprises a complete product and service suite including products for CRM, customer 'self-service', and business and operations support systems, as well as a mobile advertising
, digital commerce and entertainment platform.
Dov Baharav replaced Avi Naor as Amdocs' CEO as of 2002.
In October 2008, Amdocs' first WiMAX
4G solution for Sprint-Nextel was launched.
In May 2009, Gartner ranked Amdocs as the worldwide market share leader in 2008 in the Telecommunications Software Management Systems marketplace.
In May 2010, Amdocs won the "Industry Leadership Award" at the prestigious TMForum Excellence Awards 2010.
In September 2010, Eli Gelman was announced to replace Dov Baharav as Amdocs' CEO as of 2011.
Eli Gelman assumed the position of CEO on November 15, 2010..
Invoice
An invoice or bill is a commercial document issued by a seller to the buyer, indicating the products, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller has provided the buyer. An invoice indicates the buyer must pay the seller, according to the payment terms...
, customer relationship management
Customer relationship management
Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...
(CRM), operations support systems (OSS). Its traditional clients are telecommunications "Tier-1" and "Tier-2" providers such as AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
, BT Group
BT Group
BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...
, Sprint
Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...
, T-Mobile
T-Mobile
T-Mobile International AG is a German-based holding company for Deutsche Telekom AG's various mobile communications subsidiaries outside Germany. Based in Bonn, Germany, its subsidiaries operate GSM and UMTS-based cellular networks in Europe, the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
, Vodafone
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
, Bell Canada
Bell Canada
Bell Canada is a major Canadian telecommunications company. Including its subsidiaries such as Bell Aliant, Northwestel, Télébec, and NorthernTel, it is the incumbent local exchange carrier for telephone and DSL Internet services in most of Canada east of Manitoba and in the northern territories,...
, Telus
TELUS
Telus is a national telecommunications company in Canada that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services including internet access, voice, entertainment, video, and satellite television. The company is based in Burnaby, British Columbia, part of Greater Vancouver...
, Rogers Communications
Rogers Communications
Rogers Communications Inc. is one of Canada's largest communications companies, particularly in the field of wireless communications, cable television, home phone and internet with additional telecommunications and mass media assets...
, Telekom Austria
Telekom Austria
Telekom Austria is a provider of a range of fixed line, mobile, data, and Internet communications services. The company has a 100 per cent share in telecommunications provider A1 Telekom Austria....
, Cellcom
Cellcom
Cellcom may refer to:*Cellcom , a cellular service provider for Northeastern Wisconsin*Cellcom , a cellular service provider in Israel...
, Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
, DirecTV
DirecTV
DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
, Elisa Oyj
Elisa Oyj
Elisa Oyj is a Finnish telecommunications company founded in 1882 that was known until July 2000 as HPY. Elisa Oyj employs about 3000 people and in 2007 had revenue of about €1.57 billion...
, TeliaSonera
TeliaSonera
TeliaSonera AB is the dominant telephone company and mobile network operator in Sweden and Finland. The company has operations in other countries in Northern, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Spain, with a total of 150 million mobile customers...
and O2-Ireland. The company also offers outsourced customer service
Customer service
Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer...
and data center
Data center
A data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems...
operations. Headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri
Chesterfield, Missouri
Chesterfield is a second-ring western suburb of St. Louis and is the largest city in west St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. As of the 2010 census the population is 47,484. Chesterfield also celebrated its 20th birthday in 2008.- Geography :...
, Amdocs has more than 20,000 employees and serves customers in more than fifty countries (the Registered office
Registered office
Registered office is a term used to describe the address which is registered with the government registrar as the official address of a company, an association or any other legal entity. Generally it will form part of the public record...
of the company is in the Island of Guernsey).
History
The company was founded in 1982 as an offshoot of Golden PagesGolden Pages
Golden Pages is a telephone directory of businesses categorized according to product or service. Business listings are printed on yellow paper as opposed to white paper for non-commercial and private phone numbers...
, the Israeli business phone directory company, which was owned by the Aurec Group
Aurec Group
The "Aurec Group", is an Israeli holding company established in 1968 by Morris Kahn.Amongst the group's holdings have been Golden Pages , the former cable television provider Golden Channels ; an internet service provider named Golden Lines The "Aurec Group"(from Latin: Aurum - gold, or from...
headed by Morris Kahn. Together with others at Golden Pages, Kahn developed a software program for billing telecom companies and established a company called Aurec Information to market this product.
In 1985, Southwestern Bell Corporation
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
acquired a 50 percent ownership share of Aurec Information, and its name was changed to Amdocs. Within two years, the Aurec Group sold off all its holdings in Amdocs for almost US$1 billion.
Amdocs was valued at US$2.75 billion when it went public as company traded on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
in 1998.
In the early 2000s, Amdocs branched out into the financial services industry with the Dutch bank ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is a Dutch state-owned bank with headquarters in Amsterdam. It was re-established, in its current form, in 2009 following the acquisition and break up of ABN AMRO Group by a banking consortium consisting of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Santander and Fortis...
, its first major non-telco customer. Amdocs also has its own consulting division called the Amdocs Consulting Division with offices worldwide.
Amdocs maintains development facilities in India, Israel, Cyprus, Great Britain, Ireland, and the United States, operates a support center in Brazil, and has operations in North America, Europe, South Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.
Amdocs' main products are centered around "Customer Experience Systems
Customer experience systems
Customer experience systems are integrated business and operational support systems that particularly address service providers’ mandate of focusing on the customer experience.-Systems Reflect New Customer Orientation:...
" (CES), first introduced as CES 7.5 in January 2008. CES comprises a complete product and service suite including products for CRM, customer 'self-service', and business and operations support systems, as well as a mobile advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
, digital commerce and entertainment platform.
Dov Baharav replaced Avi Naor as Amdocs' CEO as of 2002.
In October 2008, Amdocs' first WiMAX
WiMAX
WiMAX is a communication technology for wirelessly delivering high-speed Internet service to large geographical areas. The 2005 WiMAX revision provided bit rates up to 40 Mbit/s with the 2011 update up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations...
4G solution for Sprint-Nextel was launched.
In May 2009, Gartner ranked Amdocs as the worldwide market share leader in 2008 in the Telecommunications Software Management Systems marketplace.
In May 2010, Amdocs won the "Industry Leadership Award" at the prestigious TMForum Excellence Awards 2010.
In September 2010, Eli Gelman was announced to replace Dov Baharav as Amdocs' CEO as of 2011.
Eli Gelman assumed the position of CEO on November 15, 2010..
Acquisitions
- On April 6th 2000, Amdocs acquired all the outstanding stock and options of Solect Technology Group, a developer of billing and administrative software for Internet service providers and wireless telephone service carriers.
- In October 2001, Amdocs purchased the Clarify CRMCustomer relationship managementCustomer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...
system from Nortel Networks.
- On February 19, 2004, Amdocs purchased XACCT, a provider of mediation software to Communications Services Providers, for $29.5 Million.
- In July 2005, Amdocs purchased DST Innovis from DST SystemsDST SystemsDST Systems Inc. is a software development firm that specializes in information processing and management, with the goal of improving efficiency, productivity, and customer service...
, a vendor providing end-to-end customer care and billing for broadband, cable, and satellite operators.
- In May 2006, Amdocs purchased Stibo Graphic Software, a Danish software company previously owned by The Stibo Group.
- In April 2006, Amdocs purchased QpassQpassQpass of Seattle, WA was a technology company that specialized in providing the infrastructure for electronic payments. Examples are selling products through mobile phones, digital television and for billing services for Voice over IP products....
, a Seattle-based company with an Austrian subsidiary that provides "solutions" for the marketing and merchandising of digital goods and services. The acquisition cost Amdocs a reported US$275 million.
- In August 2006, Amdocs purchased Cramer SystemsCramer SystemsCramer Systems, founded in 1996 by Jon Craton and Don Gibson develop operations support systems OSS systems for the telecommunication industry Cramer Systems, founded in 1996 by Jon Craton and Don Gibson develop operations support systems OSS systems for the telecommunication industry Cramer...
, a Bath, UK based company that provides OSS (Operations Support Systems) "solutions" to telecom operators. The acquisition was reported at US$375 million. This allowed Amdocs to become one of very few companies claiming to offer a complete BSS/OSS product suite. Cramer Systems, combined with existing Amdocs OSS software groups, is now the OSS Division.
- In November 2006, Amdocs purchased Moria, a small Canadian software firm, known for its innovation in the field of account billing services.
- In January 2007, Amdocs purchased SigValue TechnologiesSigvalueSigValue Technologies Ltd. is a provider of Telecommunications billing software solutions for the prepaid market; owned by Amdocs Limited .- History :SigValue was founded in Hod Hasharon, Israel in April 2000, by Eli Yardeni...
, an Israel-based vendor of prepaid billing systems for mobile operators based in low cost markets, which have been growing rapidly.
- In April 2008, Amdocs purchased JacobsRimell, the UK based provider of "user-centric service fulfillment solutions" in cable IP provisioning. The APS (Adapative Provisioning System) product will be part of Amdocs OSS product offerings.
- In November 2008, Amdocs acquired ChangingWorlds of Ireland.
- In October 2009, Amdocs acquired jNetX.
- In March 2010, Amdocs acquired MX Telecom, a leading mobile payments and messaging aggregator, for at US$104 million in cash, net of debt and cash. MX Telecom will be part of Amdocs' OpenMarket business to provide a hosted platform to extend mobile payments and messaging capabilities.
- In June 2010, Amdocs acquired the French company Streamezzo (www.streamezzo.com), a leading provider of an SDK and a run-time for portable rich application development and execution across multi-models, multi-OS mobile terminals.
- In June 2011, Amdocs approved the take over of CanadianCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
firm Bridgewater SystemsBridgewater SystemsBridgewater Systems is a Canadian software company providing pre-integrated solutions for mobile and converged operators. The Company’s portfolio provides a real-time, unified view of the subscriber including service entitlements, devices and networks being used, billing profiles, and preferences...
for $215 million. The deal offered a 30% premium on the Value Bridgewater's stock before the deal was announced. It is hoped that the transaction will be completed by mid-September.