Introduction: After launching five brand-new major product portfolios, SST transition picked up speed in 2014.
Judging from industry trends, this year marks a transition year for WAN service providers, a number of enterprises in the industry respectively adopted ingenious ways of transition, such as purchase, merger, and cooperation, just like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea each one shows his or her special prowess; in view of the situation, as background info, the author will first talk about: Why WAN service providers need transition, and how to fulfill transition.
Why transition?
On the one hand, as service price continues to drop and operational & maintenance cost steadily climbs, the profit earning level of traditional enterprise WAN operation service providers becomes gradually restricted, they are eager to seek broader space of enterprise development. On the other hand, IT information demand from users has enabled them see new blue ocean in the corporate level market, and finally, the current cloud computing and mobile revolution have brought tremendous market opportunities.
How to make the transition?
Choosing to give up is a kind of transition. For instance ,DYXnet gaveup MPLS VPN business with low profit frontline.
Integration and merging is a kind of transition. For instance the acquisition of frontline MPLS VPN business by 21ViaNet to form bigger WAN service provider.
Collaboration and union is a kind of transition. For instance China Entercom leveraged resources of STNC build data center business.
Self metamorphosis is also a kind of transition. For instance as this article is about to narrate, the fast transition road proven by SST with self real practice.
New five carriages
Compared with peer enterprises, SST blazed its own trail of transition: while developing WAN business, it introduced four major business combinations——Enterprise remote collaboration service, enterprise data hosting service, enterprise mobile data management service, and enterprise network technology service——thus forming a new pattern of five carriages running abreast to propel the transition.
Mainstay—Enterprise WAN service
As the main source of cash flow for SST today, the importance of WAN service is self-evident. As far as SST is concerned, it not only must hold this mainstay, but also need to seek re-building on such basis.
For many self-built WAN service providers, this move is extremely difficult. Yet for SST, which embraced outsourcing model early, it enjoys natural advantages.
This is because, at the very beginning of its inception SST chose to carry out all-round cooperation with global telecommunication carrier AT&T and domestic carrier China Telecom. This greatly reduced capital and labor investment into network construction and operation & maintenance, while at the same time enabled it to develop MPLS service ability with global distribution.
Today, this giant network is still in the process of upgrading, aiming to expand the service scope of MPLS VPN. Compared with numerous measures adopted by peers in striving to cut down expense and save operational cost, at this moment SST seems slightly leisurely.
Valued added service—Enterprise remote collaboration service
Remote collaboration is undoubtedly one of the most valuable value added services on the bases of MPLS VPN.
For enterprises with a number of subsidiaries, remote collaboration is not merely a good method to eliminate expensive travel expenditure, it also makes problem settlement more efficient.
“Immersive” TelePresence can enable people to carry out face-to-facecommunication like facing real person. Other remote collaboration services such as web conference, virtual classroom, webiniar, web broadcast etc can let people better share, communicate, and study, so as to greatly improve work efficiency.
This is exactly the brand-new enterprise remote collaboration service that SST is able to offer to users. It is not only a value added service based on MPLS VPN, it will also become cloud service option for SST cloud computing data center business.
Obviously, as one of the best WAN service providers in China, it’s a wise option for SST to provide one-stop solution for users.
Just like what SST General Manger Samuel Qi has said, users trust and rely on our service ability, they hope SST can bring them more informatization services based on network. If that’s the case, so why not?
Consequently, with support from two partners of AT&T and China Telecom, SST introduced world top-class TelePresence service, multi-lateral coordination service, and formally introduced it to the market this year.
Platform service—Enterprise data hosting service
Enterprise data hosting service first came from centralized management demand of multinational corporation customers.
As you know, WAN service and remote collaboration service cannot fully meet customer’s needs for one-stop service. Apart from network, they also hope to obtain cloud computing, storage, network management, as well as a large number of value added services.
Especially at the current stage when enterprise IT functions are comprehensively implementing migration into cloud, multinational corporation customers also hope SST will be able to, like its consistently supplied premium WAN service, shoulder the important mission of helping them migrate into cloud. SST’s enterprise data hosting service is born against such background. This is the origin of SST enterprise data hosting service.
Over the past two years, in order to meet customer demand for collective management, SST joined hands with telecommunication carriers and international renowned service providers to jointly build new generation cloud computing data center, beginning from 2014, on the basis of this data center, it will provide comprehensive cloud data center services ranging from basic IaaS service to custom-made SaaS service to customers.
Specifically it includes:
1. Cloud host service: Based on Vmware business platform, able to provide high-end corporate level IaaS service and high cost performance SME level IaaS service.
2. Cloud storage service: Based on frontline storage manufacturers’ technologies and products like EMC/NetApp, it can provide corporate level cloud storage service including file storage/backup/filing services.
3. Private cloud service: Can provide flexible configuration options of resources, ensure the platform’s high level of availability and safety, provide enterprise with custom-made private cloud platform.
In summary, the whole package of enterprise data hosting service can help SST’s multinational enterprise customers to complete migration of IT infrastructure and business into cloud, what’s more, they will also reap SST’s consistent international level service standard in the process.
In addition, for multinational corporations in manufacture, logistics, retail, and medical industries, they will additionally acquire SST’s rich service experience in these vertical industries; for local SME enterprises, they will benefit from flexible service options in SST enterprise data hosting service along with well-developed network resources and telecommunication technology guarantee which are independent of all carriers.
Star product—Enterprise mobile data management service
In 2014, the key needs of enterprise IT are cloud computing and mobility.
If it can be argued that enterprise data hosting service is enough to help multinational corporations to migrate from traditional IT architecture into cloud. Then, mobile equipment / data management is the most urgently needed value added services by those enterprise customers that have migrated to cloud.
This time, SST newly introduced enterprise mobile data management service, which can apply to common BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) demand and mobile safety management needs commonly seen inside enterprises, it can also help customers build new business model revolving around mobile application, such as on-the-spot order signing and sale by insurance companies, mobile big data in retail industry, hospital mobile diagnosis, electronic case history inquiry etc.
Consulting service——Enterprise network technology service
Past multinational corporations receiving SST services often praised SST team’s service ability, there are two reasons: On the one hand, SST established a whole package of international standard telecommunication service system allthe way from the its inception, on the other hand, SST team boasts consistent active service ability from the start to the end.
In this age of service economy, active service means moving close to customers, it also means more business opportunities.
In fact, it is by relying on active service that SST team accumulated rich experience in network and informatization deployment in the customer’s industry, and progressively walked onto the road of supplyingindustry IT solutions including WAN service. From the manufacture industry in the very beginning, to retail industry, and now followed by extension to medical industry.
In the aspect of service scope, at present SST is now able to provide whole package solutions covering the whole process from early stage IT consulting, system design to after-sale maintenance to domestic and foreign invested multinational corporations customers to meet customers’integrated needs in business, technology, enterprise strategy aspects. In industries with very high requirements for customization such as manufacture and finance, SST is able to perform its best.
Consolidate foundation, cherish original intention
Currently, SST brand-new cloud computing data center is now ready. The effects of “five carriages” running abreast are also directly reflected on the rising sales performance in the first half of the year.
Nevertheless, against the background of fast advancing businesses and services, Ji Ping, Chief of SST Market Technology Department, also said that consolidating foundation would be sufficiently highlighted, because this is the original intension of SST to bring high value service to customers. Although the current market demand has revealed the powerful vitality of SST new five product portfolio, SST’s primary task this year is still continue to consolidate foundation, and make sure to supply best products and service experience to users.
Consequently, in the introduction and development of all new products, SST on the one hand will strictly control development procedure, ensure product ex factory quality; on the other hand, it will painstakingly single out more experienced top-class enterprises to jointly serve the customers.
“Quality comes before everything else, continue to create value for customers”.