Telkomtelstra - We are One!

It’s official. This little joint venture that went live in 2015 is now one year old! The day that we opened our doors to prospective customers, shared with them the immersive experience that they would have using our managed services through our Customer Experience Centre - and activated our first customer, is a day that will stay with me for a long time.

To have reached our launch day, it had already been an amazing journey from sitting in the basement of a hotel with a group of Telkom and Telstra folks asking ourselves what exactly this joint venture should look like. From those humble beginnings to get to where we are now is simply amazing.  It’s exciting to consider that since that first activation a year ago we have now contracted over 50 customers, recruited over one hundred employees and developed a suite of services across Managed Networks, Cloud Infrastructure and SaaS. All of this being built on a solely cloud enabled architecture across the operations and business systems, providing us with the ability to scale. However, equally important, was to ensure systems could be integrated and thus avoiding unnecessary rework or risk of inaccurate data.

I remain excited for the customer experience that we have been able to provide and the ongoing self-awareness that we can never stop improving our customer experience. We must always ensure that we hear the voice of our customers clearly.  The introduction of the telkomtelstra Infinity Portal has provided our customers with the first end-to-end view of the real time performance of their ICT services, in the form of an easy access web platform. I look forward to the day where we can leverage the value of Artificial Intelligence to inform customers, in a business language, of proposed actions, that seeks to continually improve their services. This means responding at a pace that will ensure ICT remains a business enabler for companies in an every changing economic landscape.

I am very proud to have been part of this team to establish a culture of collaboration, accelerated innovation and customer centricity. I am excited to see what the future holds for this joint venture – one which has overcome start-up challenges, sought to address customer challenges and provide both of its parents with a view into the possible, when it comes to Managed Services in Indonesia. I look forward to seeing telkomtelstra continue to set the standard on what managed services should be in a growth market like Indonesia. The validation of that is seen in the voice of our customers who remain our best advocates!

As a 1 year old, we have now learned to walk, we have had a few stumbles but we are on our feet. Now we are starting to show what we can do in a dynamic market like Indonesia and hopefully prove our value to both parents. My personal hope is that as managed services in markets like Indonesia over the years to come become more common, the market will continue to look to the likes of telkomtelstra as to what the next evolution of managed services could look like in these rapidly growing markets. So with that, I wish telkomtelstra a Happy Birthday and look forward to seeing it celebrate many more to come.

Nothing to Fear but Fear itself

On my way back from a Telecom conference – in Hawaii of all places! – I read an interesting article stating that CEO’s are nervous about how they will succeed in 2013. I hope they are not feeling inhibited by the technology that their businesses use, because if they are, then clearly I am not getting my blog out to enough people!
It was very interesting to read the concerns regarding “too many unknowns” that need to be managed during this year: market stability; changes in governments; regulatory changes; the risk of economies slowing down further; and managing supply chains. Now, I know I am often regarded as being “ultra positive” when looking at business challenges and I am probably too often looking for the silver lining in any challenge, but seriously…we have been managing thus far, are we really saying we haven’t yet learned to adapt?
Businesses now have access to the tools to help them adapt their businesses to the ongoing market dynamics, whether they are localized or global. Most successful companies have the necessary tools right at their finger tips. If you don’t, I am not suggesting a complete rip and replace of your existing systems and communications platforms … those assets, are, or are in the process of being depreciated. What I am suggesting is to look around and ask yourself this question – Can I make business decisions first and foremost knowing my IT & Comm’s will adapt to those needs? Will my infrastructure be able to adapt to necessary business changes and challenges? I am hopeful (yes I know Mister Positive) that there are a few of you out there who are thinking that yes, we have started to progress towards a business which can adapt to change.
This past year has been exciting! Business processes are being virtualized, meaning we only need to pay software providers, for the number of active sessions, which is ultimately dependent on the success and customer demand. Communications services are now accessible through a network, rather than taking up expensive office space and, security is increasingly being embedded in internet gateways, which has resulted in reducing the need for higher capex. All of these items are helping businesses to manage more effectively, its assets, which are directly impacting people, processes and place.
With all of that said above why then is there still this drive to spend capex? How can it be, that in a market where we are concerned about whether a business will survive, that people still want to buy assets that will sit on their books for the next 5-7 years. I understand the emotional aspect, this is what people have done for years and they are given a budget and hence think it is better to spend it upfront in case they don’t get another one. Think about it though, what if you could have a meeting between your CEO, CFO and CIO and define a new way of working, one in which the costs of IT & Comm’s would be directly associated to the growth or decline of a business?
Of course this is not just relevant to local market businesses but also international ones, in fact this approach is possibly even more important to international businesses that have to deal with both growth and decline, in parallel, yet coming from different markets. Well again, what if you were able to redeploy IT & Comm’s resources to countries where there is growth or increased demand and then shift those again if the wave of growth should start to decline? I have seen businesses do this with people, but then get caught up with increased cost as they seek to buy incremental equipment and services to temporarily support this staff. This can be expensive if after those temporary resources have gone and you haven’t reallocated them and they simply gather dust.
In Asia. we have become increasingly aware of the regulatory limitations in terms of security, voice and in some markets the quality of the internet access. These are increasingly manageable as vendors seek to create new offerings to be regulatory compliant whilst driving new service creation. Take the example of being able to redirect local calls in Indonesia, yes these calls do need to remain in-country and as such need to be connected to a local operator, but separate the regulatory needs vs. the driver for efficiency. The Actual telephony server for the Indonesia office doesn’t need to be IN Indonesia, it can easily be in Singapore, but a small device located in the Indonesia office simply helps to separate local from international and office to office calls. It is small examples like this that can rapidly help to empower a business to decide what they want to do, provide them the ability to effectively manage and/or adapt to changes around them, and then help to minimize the immediate concern of how much is it going to cost.
I challenge the CEO’s out there to pull together their leadership team and ask the question, how elastic is your IT & Comm’s environment? Can IT & Comm’s be an enabler for business change or will it be an inhibitor? If the latter, then you have some work to do, as businesses who are already on this journey will start to move past you in their goals to maximize growth, mitigate risk and manage change, without the concern of significant ICT change management overheads.
Hence don’t fear change, embrace it, and use it to enable your business to become more robust, in a market which currently requires you to adapt, in order to remain relevant, and create the opportunity to drive sustainable growth.

Importance of Cloud to Asia

Asia is still recognized as the growth region of the world. Look at any research firm and they will be talking about Asia and if not they will have read someone else’s report and realize that this is where the growth engine of the global economy now resides. But like any new engine Asia is not yet purring smoothly - especially for new businesses looking to expand rapidly into the region. The challenge for these businesses is how to grow faster than the competition but at the same time reduce the risk of burning out the engine before they have had a real chance to maximize its potential.


Asia is an incredibly dynamic region and unlike Europe or the US, it is complex. It is a dynamic patchwork of markets, each with their own challenges, opportunities and relationships. To be successful businesses need to be able to rapidly test new products, new services and new approaches – but with minimal risk and maximum flexibility. This is where Cloud technology comes into play.

In a market like Asia, Cloud provides an avenue to address the challenges of low risk, scalability and rapid response that business leaders have been trying to articulate to their CFOs and Management teams for years. Yes Asia is a growth engine, yes it comes with risks that mean we have to be able to change direction or approach quickly BUT now for the first time we have a Cloud technology toolkit which supports, not prevents, this agility.

Contact centres in Asia are a classic example of the need for increased flexibility, sounds like a leap right, but stay with me and I will explain. Customer engagement has become a critical differentiator in Asia. Why? Simply because it is increasingly difficult to gain any sustainable advantage through price or functionality alone. Therefore businesses need to differentiate through the manner in which they engage with their customers – which for most businesses means the contact centre.

With a population of over 2 billion, Asia has a large number of customers looking for personal attention! To retain those customers and to differentiate through service businesses need to be able adapt to their changing needs, views and preferences of engagement. That’s right, we are truly a complex people and technology hasn’t helped matters. Mobile phones, social media and applications have empowered the end user to define their individual anywhere, anytime and anyhow needs. In addition consider the diverse segments a regional business in Asia must engage with – language, culture, age, religion, nationality and above all personal preference – a significant opportunity but to adapt to all of this successfully in a static technology environment is near impossible. Hence flexible, scalable, low cost cloud services simply MUST be an integral part of any future customer experience provided by businesses in Asia.

Cloud-based contact centres provide us with the confidence that we can scale with the ever changing demand ensuring that our costs are always in line with business needs. More importantly, a cloud-based contact centre means businesses can take back control and respond to market changes in real time.

Imagine for a moment a certain country in Asia is announced as being the no. 1 tourist destination - and, as a tourist airline, that could mean big business for you. But how do you inform your regular customers and the tourist agencies that your airline is a key provider of flights to that country and that now you are going to increase flights to that country as well? Traditionally getting these new campaigns live might take weeks or even months, but with a public cloud-based contact centre you can make these changes in minutes and across all media channels. As a result you have been able to rapidly take advantage of a market shift faster than your competitors and secure new business ahead of the rest of the market. Equally as important is the confidence that your cloud technology platform will be there to support rapid business growth as and when you need it.

Cloud services in the Asia market represent a key opportunity for businesses to minimize the key risk factors often associated with high growth markets. Use these services to embrace Asia for what it is – the growth engine of our global economy. If you don’t have public cloud in the contact centre you’re not agile. And in Asia if you’re not agile you’re not competitive.

Shift from a Flat world to a Virtual world

We have always talked about globalization as enabling businesses to leverage resources whether they are material, people or systems; these three components are crucial to support our businesses in meeting the changing and expanding needs of our Customers. Globalization used to demand the expansion into new markets with offices, systems and staff, in essence globalization used to mean businesses had to be physically global. Two key trends though have led to a significant shift in what is required to meet the needs of customers in a market where they seek to maximize the benefits of Globalization. This shift has resulted in businesses being in growth markets without having to actually be on the ground something which up until a few years ago would have been considered impossible.

I have been a big fan of Thomas Friedman’s book “The World is Flat”, which reinforced the trends that I had been seeing in Asia with the growth of international business from key geographies beyond the traditional business centre’s of US, Europe and Japan. The increasingly flat world is one of the key trends which are altering globalization; one important outcome of the “world being flat” is that quality and performance of businesses have improved significantly in what were regarded historically as emerging markets which have recently evolved into growth markets. Why would I call these growth markets? Well quite simply the development of business models have become more sophisticated and as a result have provided an improving foundation for economic growth. This development has meant that the market entry approach global System Integrator’s (SI) or Service Provider’s (SP) had taken previously can either face growing local competition or challenges in other markets as SI’s and SP’s from growth markets continue to expand their own borders of service delivery – you only need to look at the SI’s and Telco’s from India expanding internationally to see how this change has accelerated.

The other key trend is the increased capability of cloud based services and a reduced requirement for premise based solutions. This trend is creating new opportunities and extending the reach of service providers without the need for resourcing to the same extent as with premise based platforms. To give you a few examples, consider Telephony, something which has historically always been a service and a platform which would be built on the premises of the customer, yet with a evolution towards IP Telephony, making a phone call becomes the same as accessing any application on the web and in so doing creates new opportunities to look at how these services can be provided to end customers.  Likewise for our personal communication, media and entertainment tools through the web and mobile phones, as I had mentioned in a previous blog the diversity of where applications are developed and can be hosted result in traffic crisscrossing the globe and our growing acceptance of the same only validates the fact that a good chunk of our consumer IT requirements coming from the cloud will only continue to grow.

With these two key trends an exciting evolution of globalization is starting to happen, globalization is no longer about being global, it is about being able to support your end customer wherever they may be and where they expand, shift or evolve to. This is an important evolution, as many businesses have always looked to truly global providers or integrators thinking that only they can meet their needs, but with the evolution of emerging markets to growth markets as well as the expanding capability of cloud based services, the landscape and solutions to address business challenges are changing, to the point that the world is no longer flat it is now virtual.

So what does working in a virtual world actually mean? It comes down to the blending of a partner ecosystem to provide an integrated network solution whilst incorporating cloud based services which provide accessibility beyond the traditional physical limitations of a network. Many people out there will read this and suggest that you cannot own something unless you can see it, I would counter that with understanding the evolution of software – do you know where your browser is pulling down data from? A Cached server engine or a mirror website? What about the applications you run on your phone have you ever checked where the data stored is hosted from? To a large degree the consumer side of communications and IT has already started the transition to a virtual environment; the question is how quickly the business market can follow.

For many businesses the benefits of virtualization (aka cloud computing) are clear however, so are the risks and as such many remain cautious as to how to progress whilst mitigating those risks. Many businesses though, are now testing the benefits of a virtual world yet remain overtly cautious as this represents a fundamental shift from their traditional supply chain management of IT and Communications Services.  Therefore the lead must come from providers who are able to extend their capabilities beyond their traditional physical limitations and demonstrate that this new virtual world doesn’t mean that quality and performance are put at risk. The misperception that businesses without global presence cannot meet the needs of the customer independent of where they are located vs. where their customer is located remains the biggest challenge but one which can be overcome through key partnerships.

The last question we must ask is why should service providers with the ambition and capability to extend globally on a “virtual” basis want to challenge the traditional global providers? Simply put because the world is changing. Okay that is a fairly obvious point however the change stems from the improvements in technology, the quality of networks in domestic or regional markets and the increasing urgency for businesses to be able to adapt to the changing market whilst balancing the need for sustainable growth. All of these changes combined represent a evolution in the market landscape creating a new opportunity which regional providers seeking to serve their customers beyond their traditional reach are well placed to serve through the creation of new partnerships and the introduction of platforms which leverage cloud computing, in so doing providing them with the business agility to ensure their own sustainable growth place. The world was flat, now we are transitioning to virtual, the next step? Perhaps an augmented reality of being instantly virtual in a flat world – but that’s a whole other blog waiting to be written! 

Different Path same Destination

Our world is changing dramatically, Stock Markets have become more like Roller coasters, many businesses are now satisfied with sustainable business models as opposed to rapid growth and many technology companies are suggesting that hardware and software sales could be in for a difficult time. The result of all of this? Zero to Low confidence within businesses on their journey of business evolution as they continue on their journey in the increasingly global and competitive landscape. At this point I can already hear a few people wondering how this has anything to do with the common topic of my blogs, the impact of technology on the world we live in? Well it does, so let me explain.

Today’s businesses and technology are intertwined to such a degree that you can’t look at one without understanding the implications, limitations or even changes required to the other. Many CXO’s that I speak to lately are concerned with the balancing act they are facing – how do they invest in technology to ensure they can support their business requirements but at the same time manage a tight rope balance of cost vs. business benefit without knowing what is happening in the next 3 months let alone 3 years!

Many businesses are offering increased flexibility in their products but they are equally concerned with their own business models and outlook resulting in their own business concerns. On that basis it is time to throw out the guide book and reconsider business models for a new era, a period of sustained unpredictability as a vehicle for change. I have said it before in one of my blogs, we as individuals and society drive technology, we should not accept that technology will limit our own choices or for that matter determine our own path to success. Consider for a moment what would happen if we knew our oil would run out (I know not a pleasant thought!), we would adapt and look at alternatives to ensure our needs were met ensuring we could continue with our journey as we already are starting to do so!

Each and every business has a vision or a goal they are seeking to achieve over a 3 to 5 year period, many are concerned that the current instability in the market is placing that goal at risk. What is required is for businesses to reassess the path they are taking to achieve their goal. It may take longer, it may require acceptance that they are evolving from a straight highway to a windy mountain path, which requires a more graduated approach to ensure the business does not slip backwards as it progresses towards its goal.

Once we have identified the new path to achieve our goal and/or vision businesses can then look to what role technology could and will play in supporting the journey along that path. This is a crucial pause point, looking to technology in the same way as we have done in the past will simply result in reliving “Groundhog Day” (for those of you who don't understand that analogy watch the movie!). We need to look at the principles of what technology can provide in its simplest form and redesign the manner in which that technology is both delivered/implemented and supported. What I mean is we need to look at how we reshape the use of technology, from its commercial, integration and utilization aspects. Business are looking for new ways of working as they seek to break the cycle of change they find themselves in today with various factors pulling their decision making in different directions.

Technology can support businesses in continuing their journey to their goal by ensuring that communication and IT developments are not static and that they can be moulded to the needs of the business. The end benefit of this approach is a return to three year planning, an increased confidence in formulating longer term decision making and commitments … Why? Simply because if you know that your business can access levers across your organization from commercial, technology, geography and people in order to adapt to your changing business environment then your business will equally grow in confidence and will increasingly develop an inherent ability to adapt and anticipate market change.

On that note I leave you with two final comments – Stay on your path, your vision is the key to the sustainability of your business and remind yourself that technology is only an enabler. Accept that the path to realizing your goal may change and that it is your adaptability as a business that will result in the greatest chance of achieving success!