I wish the partner service providers would offer more remote connectivity tools

A prominent player in the IT-enabled business services space, Steria has

recognized the need for deploying suitable telecommunications solutions for an

efficient operation to yield desired results for its customers. Gurinder Vir

Singh, chief information Officer of Steria, who has more than 23 years

experience in various areas including technology and strategy development and IT

infrastructure delivery, is responsible for managing the information flow

framework in the organization and also provides strategic technology direction

to the company. Here he talks about the telecom solutions Steria uses, how it

effectively utilizes telecom tools, and its expectations from service providers,

etc. Excerpts:

Which communications applications is your company using for business,

operations, etc?



We are using BT's NGCC 'New Generation Contact Central' for serving external
clients as of now which is recently being upgraded from BT HCC 'hosted contact

central' solution thus integrating the managed CRM. The new solution is on cost

effective policy based MPLS networks rather than legacy point to point circuits.

At the same time we have deployed the internal unified communications roadmap

and have deployed IP Telephony, in pockets of immediate need replacing TDM

telephony. Going forward, we have developed the roadmap for entire unified

communications suite with internal deployment of IP Contact Central managed by

Steria ourselves.

Gurinder Vir Singh, chief information officer, Steria

For Steria's centers/branches in remote areas, how do you cope with the

connectivity challenges, and what kind of ICT tools do you use?



We are using managed communications services as of now, based on ICT principles
of 'work and communicate anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Steria colleagues work

closely amongst themselves as well as with clients, suppliers and partners

regardless of physical location, time or devices.

We have a managed MPLS architecture with fail-over ports which keeps the

connectivity up and running irrespective of any ring failures. The second front

is connected with secure Internet gateway thus enabling critical services to be

delivered anytime. We are using the meet-me-bridges and internal telephony

conferencing systems, videoconference, collaborative tools on unified messaging

to collaborate with remote offices.

Due to the recession almost all enterprises took to consolidating their

activities. How did ICT technologies help you there?



Recession apart, we are moving from a product to a service economy and these two
factors have substantial impact on all businesses, effecting every process and

every relationship between Steria staff, customers, suppliers and partners. We

are carrying out critical business across national borders on managed networks

wherein our service providers have deployed the tools on networks thus making

them robust and green.

On consolidation, we have reduced our data center footprint to a maximum thus

making headway towards green IT. After successfully deploying the consolidation

on servers, storage, networks we are now bringing the virtualization outside the

perimeters of the data center, introducing application and desktop

virtualization. This will enable Steria to make further headway on its green

agenda and improve employee satisfaction index, thus enabling all Steria

colleagues to achieve secure connectivity.

How are modern communications solutions like videoconferencing helping

you?



All our delivery centers are networked via traditional videoconference
endpoints. VC has certainly improved our performance to a large extent enabling

experts to join together in the time of need, whatever time it may be. This has

not only expedited our decision making process but also helped in achieving

synergy on account of reduction in travel as well as on green initiative of the

company. Training, KT sessions, service reviews have gone so easy that the

clients of Srera are very happy about this sort of collaboration which enables

them to execute their jobs without disturbing their family commitments. Both

clients and employees satisfaction indices have improved significantly. As an

initiative we are taking the videoconference technology outside the board rooms

and traditional fixed videoconference rooms to desktops and laptops, increasing

mobility. This will integrate with Steria's unified communications roadmap.

Steria believes that its employees travel only when absolutely necessary, thus

reducing its ecological footprint.

What ICT technologies/applications do you plan to add in the near future?



Steria's agenda is to further enhance the mobility of its employees, extending
it to outside the physical location. On the unified communications roadmap the

policy based secure connectivity from mobile computers to Steria infrastructure

will further be extended thus converging voice, video and data. The user

mobility and presence, unified messaging, collaboration and conferencing,

contact center and CRM tools and application management are to be extended to

all the Indian centers in a meticulously thought out manner.

How do you think 3G technologies will help you?



Steria intends to explore these to increase employee secure mobility thus

converging the data, voice and video together on the end point. We are working
on a proof of concept to bridge the application extension to mobile telephony,
increasing secure connectivity while decreasing dependency on relatively high

power laptop devices.

What are your expectations from telecom vendors to help run your company

efficiently and smoothly?



Steria wishes the partner service providers to offer more remote connectivity
tools which can observe the traffic up time pro-actively. At the same time

Internet has to be made cheaper and commercially viable in India. At the same

time the infrastructure supporting it also needs overhauling as downtimes have

adverse impact on business as well as the country's reputation. High speed

Internet needs to be extended to commercially sensitive Indian households

enabling secure virtual offices to expand thus achieving greener IT for India.

Kannan K



kannan@cybermedia.co.in