Clever communications

CXO. Can you explain about the technology issues that companies are facing today and how converged communications can deliver tangible benefits?
SS. Companies today are facing an unprecedented speed of change in their businesses. There is a constant need to differentiate and innovate their services in the marketplace, so the speed of response, the requirement for flexibility and scalability are like at no time before in the history of business. The people who work in these businesses and the people who work in the customer’s business, have a huge expectation in terms of the environment they work in these days. We live in an always on, always available access to everything environment, and customers expect that, as do staff.

What that means for the technology part is an unpredictable technological environment. It can mean very spiky demands for access to network and resources. Think of the chairman who wants to give an address to all customers or staff but he gives the technology department one hour’s notice to do a webcast. This is all happening in an environment that just doesn't tolerate any kind of downtime at all. So we find that converged network solutions give customers the ability to be more flexible, to respond more quickly to business change and to scale as their business requires.

CXO. What are some of the key drivers behind companies choosing to converge their communication infrastructure?
SS. Cost, as always, is a significant driver. I would be leaving out the most basic of business drivers if I didn’t acknowledge that. Of course, ROI is important. A lot of companies now use very sophisticated supply and distribution models and with the interconnected nature of electronic processes, so being able to have a converged network solution that really does reach all corners of your business enterprise can really help. But companies who really embrace converged networks do it for the flexibility, as well as the scale and the speed so that they can respond to the changes in their business markets.

CXO. How does mobile working at home contribute to the need for more advanced, flexible and reliable technology?
SS. For many businesses, the cost of their people is the single largest cost, whether you come at this from trying to increase the productivity of your teams or from reducing the cost of your teams. So looking for opportunities to make the most productive use of the people in your business is vital. If you can boost all of the lost pieces of time when people are travelling or they are home or in between meetings, you've got an opportunity to make the most out of what used to be lost time.

If you couple the need for productivity and speed of response, with the desire that people have in the 21st Century to achieve a work-life balance, and then you also throw in a few green/carbon reduction initiatives, then you've got the beginnings of a mobility strategy. In the past, the ability and cost of technology has tended to hamper this. You have only got to think of dialling up from a hotel room over a telephone line to realize how restrictive that was in the past before broadband. Wi-Fi, mobile internet and the continually reducing cost of the technology in terms of laptops, Blackberries, etc. means that it's very easy these days to have access to your corporate resources as good outside the company as inside the company.

CXO. Naturally, the issue of security is extremely important for businesses when communicating internally. How can virtual private networks and other measures help firms keep prying eyes and ears out?
SS. By definition, when you are using a converged network solution you do have all your eggs in one basket so it's right that good security is absolutely vital. We do this through establishing a virtual private networks or VPNs. These allow systems, in different physical locations, to communicate securely and they do this by setting up, what you can think of as data corridors. These are well defended routes between destinations which you can transmit your information over, and no one can see it, no one can get in and nothing can get out.

One of the ways that we give our customers confidence that they can trust and rely on the network, is by investing heavily in the physical and the logistical security and the vetting of people that are involved. We do that to the highest international standards, and we are regularly audited so that we can give customers peace of mind. They can trust this network environment. But there are going to be occasions when people are going need to access their corporate resources from outside the trusted network; whether it's across the public internet or over a mobile network, and there are techniques such as encryption for dealing with this. But as long as the security requirements are designed from the outset, there's no reason why your data can't be as secure outside the network as it is inside the network.

CXO. How do your solutions and services help in this space?
SS. We provide a full range of communication solutions over our next-generation network, including voice, data, internet and email services. We also provide services for customers when they want the confidence that their applications are hosted on our network in a high availability environment. We're finding that the demand for this type of service is very high. In fact, last year nearly 80 percent of the contracts we signed with new customers were for these kinds of next-generation services. We provide solutions capabilities for customers who want to outsource some or all of their networking needs and also design and build the bespoke networks for some of the UK's largest organizations.

We operate in the UK business sector and we have been very successful in winning and providing services in local government, in the financial services sector and the media sector; where we have always had a very strong presence. In fact, all of the UK's commercial radio stations use our services in some form or other. But it's not just about the technology. Customers value the consultative approach we take to doing business with them, as we take the time to get to know them and to understand exactly what it is they are trying to do in their business before we propose a solution for them. Many of our customers comment that they value the strength of the relationship and the straightforward, open and honest approach we take to doing business, as much as they value the technology and the service that we provide for them.

CXO. What are some of the challenges that you face when it comes to providing services for customers? How do you overcome these potential obstacles?
SS. We recognise that often technology can seem complex, so we always strive to simplify it and put it into the context of our customers' business environment. We know that the stakes are high for our customers and that communication is mission-critical for pretty much everybody, so we work with our customers to develop and joint-test implementation/migration plans.

At the end of the day, communication projects are like any other business project, in that they carry risk, and they need good planning and good managing. So the important thing is if the unexpected does crop up, or if things go wrong, then you get a swift, straightforward response to the issue. For example, last summer when we had all the floods, one of my customers was rolling out a national project, and some of the sites were under water. Now, we didn't expect that, but we planned around it, and we were able to deal with it. So the chances are if we are rolling out a communications project and something unexpected does crop up, we will have seen it before and we will know how to deal with it.

www.thus.net

Stuart Sutton is responsible for the end-to-end delivery of service to all THUS and Demon customers. This includes the design, build, operation and support of all technology platforms through to the provisioning of new customer’s and in-life customer care. Sutton joined the group in 2000 and has been instrumental in the rollout and integration of THUS’s national optical network and the integration of the Scottish Telecom and Demon businesses to form THUS. He has been in the Telecommunications industry since 1985, initially in R&D and more latterly in operational and product roles in the Far East with BT and the USA as part of the Concert joint venture.