Challenges, Opportunities & Industry Change: Q&A w/ Sprint’s Paget Alves
Paget L. Alves is the President of the Business Markets Group (BMG) for Sprint Nextel and responsible for Sprint’s sales and marketing to enterprise, general business and public sector customers, and oversees the development of strategic alliances for Sprint. The BMG’s portfolio of services includes IP, international wireless and wireline and domestic 3G and 4G wireless. With more than 20 years of experience with technology companies, he has experienced a fair share of business cycles.
In the first of a Q&A series, he discusses some of Sprint’s challenges and opportunities in the current economic climate, and how the company is positioning for the changing environment. He also discusses key factors shaping the telecom industry and challenges enterprises and government agencies face in making the move to a new world of IP Convergence and Unified Communications.
Q&A
Q: Has the economic climate that has existed in the past 3-4 quarters changed how companies are buying telecom equipment and/or solutions?
A: The current economic climate has required business customers to consider a quicker return-on-investment than previously. For example, the standard was previously a desired ROI within 18 to 24 months whereas the current assessment is that ROI is required within 12-15 months. This has an obvious impact on how telecom is purchased. Businesses and government agencies, for example, require greater flexibility to rapidly deploy sites and/or employee locations to capitalize on market opportunities. As a result, we’ve seen an increased adoption of 3G/4G wireless access options…
Another key solution set with rapid adoption is Unified Communications or the integration of day-to-day communication tools into a common platform. This approach also delivers strong ROI by simplifying network infrastructure to provide cost efficiency and scalability, and eliminating the complexity and ongoing expense of managing multiple platforms.
Q: Sprint is positioning itself as an enabler of business applications including voice, video and data. How does this thinking change the traditional role of telecom provider?
A: Obviously, the communications landscape has expanded greatly. Technology has advanced to offer wireless mobility solutions that were unheard of previously. Sprint has differentiated itself by offering true convergence: Sprint’s Tier 1 global IP network integrated with our 3G/4G Mobile Broadband network. Because of the challenging economic environment, true integration of wireless and wireline enable the business applications of voice, video and data is a great opportunity to lower telecom expenses and increased productivity, particularly when it comes to allowing employees to work virtually anytime, anywhere.
The more traditional role of telecom provider has grown to be more consultative and/or collaborative. Increasingly our job is to address a business customer’s situation and leverage advanced technology to solve problems and/or exploit opportunities. This is an exciting time where the use of advanced telecommunications technology can provide a competitive differentiator for businesses. For example, one company’s use of Sprint Global MPLS and SIP Trunking (which provides local and LD voice and data over a single IP connection) allows calls to high-volume departments to be diverted to a centralized call center. This results in an improved customer experience while increasing on-net usage and reducing total telecom expenses by nearly 50% as compared to a local trunking solution.
Q: What are some of the challenges enterprises and government agencies face in making the move to a new world of Convergence/Unified Communications? And why do you think this transition will happen?
A: I’d say the greatest challenges faced by enterprise and government agencies are 1) determining if the timing is right to consider the convergence of varying communication tools to a UC solution.and then 2) deciphering the various options to enabling UC. Whether the motivation for deploying UC is aging infrastructure — as was the case for Sprint — or reducing more than $1M in audio conferencing costs as was the situation for another Sprint customer, the motivating factor for considering UC seems to be the opportunity for cost containment and increased employee productivity. To my earlier point, the return on investment for UC can be delivered within 12-15 months.
I believe the transition to UC will occur as a result of tightening credit and the need for businesses to capitalize on their existing investment, i.e. “do less with more.” The real opportunity in deploying UC is to determine the right solution for your business. Sprint has experienced the upsides of UC firsthand — realizing $6M in savings following the initial implementation with another $1.5-$2M in savings every 18 to 24 months. This is the type of savings that can ignite this transition.
Q: Looking ahead, what makes you optimistic (or pessimistic) about providing telecommunication solutions to the enterprise market?
A: With the advancement of 4G technology, enterprise businesses are primed to take advantage of the integration of wireless and wireline technologies that are driven by the need for cost efficiency and network architecture simplification. This is what makes me optimistic about providing telecommunications solutions to business and particularly optimistic about how Sprint is positioned in this market. The question of WiMAX vs. LTE is largely not material as compared to the opportunity to leverage the flexibility and efficiency of advanced technology to provide anytime connectivity within the enterprise. The need for access to business-critical information is a basic necessity to survive in these challenging economic times.
Next up: 4G technology
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SubscribeTags: convergence, enterprise market, fixed mobile convergence, FMC, Sprint, telecom equipment, telecommunication solutions, telecommuting, Unified communications
