From the desk of the CEO

Last year I celebrated three years as Uecomm’s CEO, and over six years with the business. I am about to embark on the next stage of my career as Southern Region Director for Optus, and I am looking forward to the opportunities the role will present.

Until a permanent replacement is found, Ian Noble, Uecomm’s Director of Operations & Technology will act as the CEO for Uecomm.

It has been rewarding to be part of a business that has gone from strength to strength, both financially and in our ability to understand our customers’ needs and fulfil these through providing a positive customer experience.

Meeting with customers and reading the many e-mails and testimonials we receive, it is clear that delivering what we promise has had a strong impact on our customers and in the market as a whole.

The future at Uecomm is an exciting one, and one that will continue to be driven by delighting our customers and developing the expertise and skills of our staff.

Across all industries, the importance of data to businesses is driving the need for increased bandwidth, greater reliability and a level of service that exceeds customer expectations; all placing Uecomm in prime position for continued growth as a carrier of choice in the market.

In this issue, we take a closer look at Uecomm’s customer value proposition and its impact on the business, a profile of Ian Noble as acting CEO and two very pleased customers – Toyota Financial Services and Ausco Building Systems.

Dean Tognella
CEO, Uecomm

return to top

Uecomm delivers unique resilience to Toyota Financial Services

Toyota Financial Services (TFS) has chosen Uecomm to deliver an integrated and secure Ethernet VLAN solution to support its entire back-end suite of IT, Internet and VoIP.

With net receivables exceeding $4.3 billion and responsibility for critical business information, TFS wanted their needs met by a single supplier. "We could have gone through multiple vendors; one for our voice needs and one for our IT infrastructure," explained Mark Gosling, IT Manager of TFS. "Instead we chose one partner who could confidently support all requirements," he said.

TFS has offices across the country employing several hundred staff. The multi-site nature of the business with head office in Sydney and regional offices in Woolaware Bay, Townsville, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth requires IT and VoIP capabilities to be ‘live’ at all times. "Reliability is of critical importance to our business," said Mr Gosling. "Therefore complete confidence in the strength of the network was key when reviewing network requirements including finding an end-to-end solution that would eliminate outages across our sites."

To ensure 100 per cent resiliency and to minimise outages, Ethernet VLANs were set up across the network for normal day-to-day use, to back-up the main infrastructure site and to also provide seamless connectivity to the disaster recovery site.

The Uecomm design and approach has delivered an easy-to-use, cost-effective high-bandwidth solution which addresses the business’ mandatory network needs.

"The new solution has really given us bang for our buck," said Mr Gosling. "And the simplicity of the outcome means we can confidently focus on internal IT matters and not be concerned about the network connectivity and its day-to-day performance."

"Interestingly there is a growing demand from CIOs to look for flexibility in design to meet business needs, rather than just speed," said Brendan Park, Uecomm’s Director of Strategy. "Business in Australia wants a carrier who listens to a customer and provides a solution that matches what they need, not what a vendor wants to sell them."

According to a recent 2007 survey of Australia’s leading CIOs, the expectations of the financial, technological and other business benefits for network infrastructure are evolving as convergence technology matures in the marketplace.

return to top

Insight: Uecomm people living our customer mantra

In 2007, Uecomm completed a major project, working with our customers to develop relevant and clearly designed value propositions. The customer value propositions highlighted Uecomm’s differentiation in the telecommunications market in terms of what was important to customers, what Uecomm was able to deliver and what would encourage them to choose Uecomm over other carriers offering similar products and services.

Five propositions were developed, forming our customer mantra. Primarily, these propositions are about ensuring we understand our customer’s needs and are able to fulfil these through providing a positive customer experience.

• Flexibility: we are flexible in developing creative solutions for our customers
• Relationship: we partner with colleagues and customers to grow our relationship
• Professional Delivery: we deliver on our commitments
• Service: we actively resolve customer requests
• Care & Accountability: we recognise the impact our actions have on your business.

Since the conclusion of the project there has been increased focus across our business to ensure that our behaviour and ways of working are aligned with our customer mantra. This focus is paying dividends, demonstrated by the amount of unsolicited feedback our customers are providing about their Uecomm experiences.

The customer feedback has been considerable, across teams and individuals. A consistent theme prevails, we are listening to our customer, creating approaches and solutions which fit their business needs and delivering what we say will deliver.

"Uecomm provides the conduit for Eastern Health to communicate between our various campuses. The reliability of the network has been perfect. " Chief Technology Officer, Eastern Health.

"Uecomm's NOC has been excellent compared to other experiences we've had. They offer a pro-active level of support." IT Manager VECCI.

"The final result across the Toyota Financial Services Network was in fact quite unique, with Uecomm developing a flexible design which brings Toyota Financial Services business locations together securely, and at suitable capacity." IT Manager, Toyota Financial Services

return to top

Customer Profile - Ausco Building Systems

Ausco Building Systems is the foremost provider of modular buildings and complete accommodation solutions in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

With over 45 years experience, the company provides accommodation and space solutions for clients, when and where they need it, ranging from remote mining projects to classroom accommodation for schools.

As a national company operating in all states and territories, Ausco relies on the internet to be able to deliver a one stop service from initial design right through to delivery and installation.

Ausco required access to a fast and reliable internet service for time critical applications and a network that delivered the speed and scalability to allow for future growth and innovation.

Ausco’s previous ISDN service provided a 1Mbps internet connection.

The 6Mbps solution provided by Uecomm links Ausco’s 29 sites, providing centralised access to the organisation’s Enterprise Resource Planning system as well as managing everyday traffic such as web and email use.

According to Ausco’s IT Infrastructure Manager, Michael Surman, increased bandwidth and scalability were the company’s most important considerations when choosing Uecomm to deliver its internet services.

"Uecomm was the logical choice," said Mr Surman. "They offered quality of service, competitive pricing and capacity."

"Our head office is located in outer suburban Brisbane, and Uecomm was the only company able to provide fibre coverage to meet our requirements. "Nobody else around this area could match that," he said.

"Network uptime and reliability are critical to our business as we conduct a lot of our ordering online; we simply cannot afford outages or preventable delays to our service," explained Mr Surman.

Brendan Park, Uecomm’s Director of Strategy explained that Ausco’s decision to move from an ISDN internet service to an Ethernet solution was consistent with ongoing trends in Australian business, upgrading from slow legacy technology to new generation networks.

A recent research study completed by Uecomm in conjunction with Fairfax Business research shows even as recently as August last year almost 70% of respondents were planning to undertake system replacement, implementation, consolidation or migration of legacy systems in the coming year. ¹

Not only has the business achieved greater speed, reliability and scalability, but our team of network engineers at our dedicated Network Operations Centre (NOC) are available 24/7 remedying any service faults with minimal business disruptions," he said.

For Ausco, time has been the testimonial to Uecomm’s service delivery. "Our business continues to grow, requiring increased bandwidth to support new sites and IT applications. We have already required network upgrades and Uecomm has proved the ease with which this can be achieved," Mr Surman explains.

"We are confident that Uecomm will deliver the best possible solution and ongoing customer support for further changes," he said.

¹ Telecommunication Priorities for CIOs Examining the issues of convergence, security, update of VoIP and constraints to capital expenditure – August 2007

return to top

Ian Noble Appointment

Ian Noble, Uecomm Director of Operations and Technology, has been appointed acting CEO to manage the day-to-day operations of the business until the recruitment process to replace Dean Tognella has been finalised.

"Ian’s wealth of experience and clear focus on delivering outcomes positioned him as the obvious candidate as acting CEO of the business," explains Dean Tognella.

"Ian has worked in the telecommunications industry for over 20 years, with extensive experience at a senior level across operations and technology.

"More recently in his role as Director of Operations and Technology at Uecomm, Ian has proven his ability in ensuring Uecomm’s technology, direction and strategy is aligned with its operational performance and processes, delivering on the company’s customer value proposition.

"From a strategic perspective, Ian has a strong sense of direction and an understanding of the market forces that shape the industry both in Australia and internationally. His experience and knowledge will ensure that Uecomm’s next generation network meets existing and future customer requirements," Mr Tognella said.

Ian is delighted to step into the position in the interim and is confident of Uecomm’s continued growth and success as it moves into a new phase with a new CEO.

"Uecomm has experienced sustained growth over the past five years, and is well positioned for continued success in the future. The business has been able to differentiate itself in a maturing market with market leading operations and processes and through driving innovative product offerings.

"Our focus to deliver our customer value proposition is of equal importance and will continue to be a driving force for the business. I look forward to the exciting challenge before me," Noble said.

Before joining Uecomm, Noble was General Manger of Product Development and Infrastructure at Powertel and Request Broadband. He also spent three years at Compaq UK, as Program Director for the rollout of network management systems for Cable and Wireless, and a number of years at Telstra where he had responsibility for the rollout and operation of billing and encryption systems for the Foxtel/Telstra Pay TV initiative.

Ian holds a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) from Monash University and a Graduate Diploma in Computing and Information Systems from Chisholm Institute of Technology.

return to top