Norsk Telefoningeniørmøte 1992 - Telenor

Products and services for the international market
VINCENT GARGARO
The subject on which I have been asked
to speak is Products and Services for the
International Market. I would like to
approach this subject by first of all
discussing who are the customers and
what are their needs we are trying to
serve with these products and services.
I would then like to put these needs into
broad context, as requirements and trends
that are being set for the telecoms industry
and indicate some of the ways my
company’s future is being governed by
these trends.
Before I begin, I would like to put my
contribution into perspective. I am not an
industry “guru” who has spent a lifetime
evaluating this subject. Nor am I a
corporate strategist from one of the big
carriers. I am a line executive for a small
but, nevertheless, important part of the
world for the Sprint Corporation.
As many of you may know, Sprint is the
third largest long distance and
international carrier in the United States.
It also operates as a local Telephone
Company in the United States in much
the same way as the R Bocs. Its
combined revenues are around $9 billion.
Sprint captured the public eye in the mid-
80s when it deployed 37,000 kilometers
of fibre optic cable in the USA to challenge
the near monopoly of AT&T for
long distance traffic. Subsequently, in the
late 80s, it extended its fibre optic reach
by deploying, in partnership with Cable
& Wireless, the first private transatlantic
fibre cable PTAT1. These moves have
marked the way for Sprint into the
nineties but perhaps I could return to that
later.
The area of my responsibility for Sprint
is the UK, the Republic of Ireland, the
Benelux and, I am happy to say, the
Nordic Countries. Sprint has been very
active in Norway. In 1989 we formed a
joint venture company with the
Norwegian Consulting firm EB, which
was at that time called EB-Telenet. The
company, based in Oslo, was very
successful in implementing some major
data communications systems with some
major Norwegian customers like NTA,
Fellesdata, Uni-Storebrand. Sprint
acquired full ownership of that Company
in 1990 and has since promoted the sale
and support of all our products and services
through this Company. Today we
have one of our international switching
nodes at our premises in Oslo.
So, it may be that my contribution may
have a regional perspective and I make
no apology for that as it may reflect more
accurately the international requirements
and aspirations of users.
One thing that we are all agreed on is that
future trends will be increasingly dictated
by the users needs. Technology,
regulation, legislation and the suppliers
themselves will all be subservient to
meeting the needs of the users - the
Customer - the people here today. So it
would be an appropriate place to start by
determining who are these customers -
that have need of these international
telecommunication products and services
- and what do they require to satisfy their
needs?
It is my assumption that one of the major
driving forces behind the telecommunications
industry is the big multinational
corporation or organisation. They have
the most sophisticated needs and because
of the critical importance to their
business, it makes commercial sense for
them to have these needs satisfied. The
interesting question arises - Do these
users really know what they want or are
they so conditioned by what has been
offered in the past, that their expressed
needs fall far short of what, in a well
ordered world, they could get.
In very broad terms they have expressed
very clearly what they want. “They want
communications to play whatever role
will maximise the efficiency of their
business.” Obviously, the interpretation
different following would be important.
- They would want a range of services
that meet their business needs. They
would not want their business inhibited
by the lack of a service. Neither do
they particularly want to have to adapt
to available services that do not fully
meet their business needs.
- They would certainly want service
quality that was consistent or better
than their own operational requirements.
Quality of service would appear
at the top of most users list.
- They would want the availability of
services to match their business
development needs. Both in terms of
new services and geographic reach. As
their business expands they want their
suppliers to be there waiting for them
to assist in the expansion. Often these
roles seem to be reversed.
- They would view cost within the overall
business context. Obviously, it
would have to be cost-effective and all
other things being equal, price would
be a consideration, but it would be
secondary to other criteria.
These requirements are self evident
especially if you are operating multinationally.
Consider for one moment our
immediate area of the globe. In recent
years we have seen the emergence of the
single European market, the new
democracies in Central and Eastern
Europe, the Unification of Germany and
the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Large corporations are reacting to the
realities of these regional and global
markets. They are moving beyond centralized
decision-making to distributed
intelligence - be it in product management,
finance, research, development or
manufacturing. That intelligence is distributed
throughout the organisation across
divisional and geographic boundaries.
They are moving towards a situation
where it is the market that is important
and not the country.
What does this tell us about trends in the
telecommunications industry? Well, if
you were to ask the senior officials or top
strategists in major corporations what
they believed were the biggest obstacles
to becoming truly multinational, it is
likely that two issues would appear at the
top of their list. One would be learning to
work with the cultural differences inherent
in any multinational organisation and
the other would be the need to communicate
effectively. In defining the latter
point, they would mean communications
in the broadest possible sense but nevertheless
I am sure they would all accept
that telecommunications should be a vital
part of the solution and not an extension
of their problems.
It is this user requirement to operate
multinationally in a cohesive and
effective fashion that will dictate
telecommunication strategy in the coming
years. It is a need that has not been
fully met by the telecommunications
industry in the past. Traditionally, the
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