Suntel innovates to empower businesses

19-Aug-2009

Ranjith Fernando, Head of Corporate Suntel

Suntel’s Head of Corporate and the large/ medium business segment Ranjith Fernando shares some key insights about the global and local trends in telecommunication.

Q; What are the global telecom market trends in enterprise communications?

A: The global telecommunication industry has slowed down with a negative growth rate of 2.9% for Q1 2009, and the computer hardware market has shrunk by 14.9%. In global context, lot of emphasis is placed on next generation based applications which are on IP and mostly hosted by Telco’s. The ideology behind this is to converge telecommunication with IT to rationalise on investment with an increase in functionalities. This is a trend which can be observed in the developed world and offers benefits for the customer as well as to the service provider.

For an example, we as a Telco who has a higher market share in the business segment, often provide systems infrastructure on communication. However with the rapid development of the technology features and functionality get out dated. This deprives the company to enjoy new features which could help reduce expenses for an enterprise and hinders growth potential. Therefore it is prudent to work with centralised infrastructure where you forgo the burden of maintaining and updating the facilities. Also not to mention the hassle of protecting equipment from theft lighting etc. On the other hand for the Telco the investment will be reasonable as against doing it on piece meal basis. Maintaining the systems will be much more economical and efficient compared to being stationed at customer premises with down time…. etc.

Apart from this features like Unified Communications are simplifying the communication aspect of the business world with taking control of all communications in to a single platform. You can receive a fax to your computer; do selective call acceptances or rejection, forwarding incoming calls to your e mail as voice prompts etc. However such developments in the world have not taken long time to reach Sri Lanka. Hosted NGN related service was launched in Sri Lanka in Feb which enables our customers features such as unified communications etc.

Q: What is Convergence? How will this help for an Enterprise?

A: Traditionally all networks were based on TDM technology hence if you were transmitting voice communication, you may need to have a voice and data cables separately. In some cases to run a video conference you needed to have totally separate infrastructure. This made an organisation invest on three types of wiring. Many communication related hardware also needed to change. However convergence made all this into one type of traffic which is based on TCP/IP.

Hence a single data network could communicate all these types of traffic across the company. When considering the application of such technology the capital cost of laying different cables come down immediately. The richness in functionality would make the office more productive. The existing office environment could be also migrated to this status either as whole or through various phases. Main problem of this migration is the capital investment for such changes. Through Suntel enabled services we have made life easier by offering OPEX business model. This enables business entities to adopt the technology faster and pay as you earn mechanism.

Q: Suntel expanded its Internet Data Centre to Malabe recently, how this will benefit to our business community?

A: Our new state-of-the-art data centre will offer advance managed services to enterprise customers. This new facility is a continuation of Suntel Colombo IDC and it proves our commitment to providing our clients with world class telecommunication services. Our new data center offers co-location, Hosted services, and acts as a DR facility for the Colombo centre. Organisations of all sizes strive to be more productive and try to optimise their cost of operation.

Particularly in challenging economic times, many organisations will evaluate various cost-cutting initiatives in order to weather the storm. However, enterprises need to be careful to pursue cost cutting measures that will not negatively impact day-to-day operations or constrain long term growth. In today’s fiercely competitive environment, any business small, medium or large can succeed only if it maintains business continuity, which in turn, is mostly dependent on automated data handling systems. In the wake of recent natural and other disasters, companies have increased their investments in highly secure storage and retrieval systems for their data. For companies whose core business is not IT, it makes sense to outsource the storage and maintenance of these systems to an IDC. This strategy allows them to save time and money while it will also allow IT department to focus on their core business.

Even if IT is your core business, setting up your own data center or computer room is an expensive proposition both in terms of money, time and deployment of human resources. Apart from the high capital costs, there are the day-to-day management costs. Routinely adding new services or upgrading to the latest technology is also not feasible. In this scenario, it makes sense to outsource this service to a trusted telecom partner. This offers you the flexibility to upscale or downscale your technology and requirements as your business grow, without having to make repeated capital investments.

Q: How does Suntel hope to develop its infrastructure/technology to deliver a better service to its enterprise customers in the next five years?

A: We are in a challenging environment and a global village. With the dawn of peace, the access to the North and East of the country provides excellent opportunity takeoff delivering economic prosperity there. To do this companies should invest and should play a key role. In doing so we as a telecom company have a great responsibility. Unless the communication infrastructure is developed, no organisation would be willing to invest. We have to fill the gap and the private sector can thrive from the opportunity whilst developing the areas.

Sri Lanka as a developing country has human capital as an asset. We can make use of our human capital to develop a knowledge based society find answers to social issues... To optimise the human capital, country needs to take modern communication services to villages. The private sector can play a key role in this sphere. In addressing the opportunity placed before us as a country, Suntel is committed in bringing world class telecommunication services to its customers. Where we were the first to bring in many services to Sri Lankan corporates and we will continue to do so and play our role as a leading telecommunication service provider in the business sector.