When Hugo Winterbach took over as CIO at Business Connexion (BCX) two years ago, his first task was to put a network in place. This may sound strange, given what BCX does, but at the time, the company`s network, which was shared with its clients, was insufficient for its needs.
"We had a line here and a line there," says Winterbach, "so I decided that we needed our own network to underpin the business. Around the same time, BCX decided to get into the value-added networking space, so I said that I`d be its first customer."
Winterbach wanted to ensure the internal business ran as smoothly as possible. At the same time, new technology was emerging and converging and the company needed to advance.
"You need technology to underpin your information and to allow for the provision of new services and applications," he says. "The common need, of course, is bandwidth to facilitate the availability of information on demand and on funny devices like cellphones, scanners, PCs and so on. An NGN offers that, bringing old voice and data networks together on IP."
The major selling points for Winterbach were bandwidth on demand and voice. "I don`t want to pay to have a huge amount of bandwidth available all the time. I only want to pay for it when I use it," he explains. As for voice, he says: "Voice calls are very expensive, and cutting calls costs is a major driver for us and everyone else." With an NGN, of course, VOIP is part of the package.
"On the business side, for our guys to do business they need information, and quickly, at various locations. They also need to manage their clients. Internally, HR, finance, stock control and the rest also need good, fast systems.
"The impact an NGN has on our business is that it enables BCX to service its clients better because we have better information," he states. "Also, from the perspective of managing the business, users can get information faster and get reports out on time, for example."
Bidding wisely
Once the decision to move to an NGN was made, Winterbach merely had to knock on the door of the company`s strategy executive Willem van Rensburg, and tell him he wanted to outsource the network.
The implementation went so smoothly it was absolutely unreal.
Hugo Winterbach, CIO, BCX
BCX acquired Bidvest Network Solutions (Bidnet) in August last year. What made the company so attractive to BCX was its NGN-ready network. With one deal, BCX had its NGN, and could start offering VPN services to clients, starting with its own IS department.
Says Winterbach: "When we acquired the network, I sat down with them [the company`s communications division, which runs the VPN offering] and planned our needs in terms of what we had, what we needed, and what we`d need in the future."
The planning and hardware acquisition took six to eight months, while the implementation was remarkably rapid. "Once we`d finished planning and made sure we had the relevant equipment at the various locations, switching over and getting operational took three days," Winterbach says.
According to Van Rensburg, the move to an NGN cost the company very little in terms of equipment, because most of it was either already IP-capable or required only minor upgrades. "We haven`t found upgrading to be forklift stuff. Maybe a router or two, or adding an Ethernet switch, or some customer premises equipment," he says. In any event, Winterbach now has his own NGN, completely separate from the networks BCX runs for its clients. The NGN is capable of coping with the company`s current and future needs, and he is a happy man.
"This can be a very costly exercise," he warns, "as this is a complex environment. If you don`t do a good deal of planning you may create a solution and have to start looking for the problem afterwards. In other words, you`ll deliver a solution you don`t need.
"We`ve laid a foundation with the option of adding to it to accommodate growth. The challenge is to define what you do need, and estimate what you will need in future. The rest of the implementation went so smoothly, it was absolutely unreal."
Winterbach`s favourite feature is that the network is outsourced, and he has no network management with which to concern himself. Therein lies a message for any company looking at NGN. It seldom makes sense to build it yourself when someone else has already done it and is willing to take on the task for you. And while sharing the same physical links with other companies may sound scary, the cost of outsourcing compared to the expense of upgrading an ATM or fibre network should prove relatively reassuring.
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