Practicing Transition in the Telecommunication Industry: SST Joins Hands with Partners to Embrace the Future
Globally, telecommunication carriers are changing the traditional telecommunication operation model which mainly focuses on the basic business such as providing voice and data services, and further tapping customer needs from industrial market, developing new business opportunities, so as to fulfill sustainable development and performance reconstruction. SST, a domestically well-known WAN and telecommunication value-added serviceprovider, is also marching on the path of such transition in the telecommunication industry, and is engaged in sincerecooperation with partners to embrace the future.
Transition in 2014
Recently, at the UVA (Unisiti Value-chain Alliance) Partner Annual Conference jointly attended by partners including AT&T, China Telecom, ECCOM, Shanghai Ideal Information Industry (Group), Co., Ltd, INGEEK Information Security Consulting Associates Co.,Ltd, Shanghai Data Solution, and NOCSYS, Samuel Qi, General Manager of SST, shared business operation and business transition progress of SST in 2014.
SST General Manager Samuel Qi shared the company’s progress in business transition
He said thatsince 2009, SST has maintained continual and steady growth in business income. In the 2014 financial year, its business income topped 700 million yuan, recording a historical new high. Meanwhile, SST business transition made breakthrough: On the basis of past several years, in 2014 SST further consolidated product library and sales product library, and developed diversified “1+4” business structure, that is, traditional WAN solution, plus managed data center hosting service, unified telecommunication service, mobile solution and cloud service which were provided in the recent several years. Wherein, the business income of four new businesses cultivated in the past three years now accounts for 10% of overall business income, and is picking up speed in growth, hopefully to become new business pillars of SST.
In the aspect of marketing channel construction, in 2014, SST set up its second sales center, aiming to intensify efforts in developing “Big A end customer”; for a long time, the company has cooperated with AT&T in inter-linkage to serve huge number of B end international customers; furthermore, by relying on direct selling team, the company has established sales channel for inter-linked marketing cooperation with numerous partners, withits business income from cooperative marketing channel grew by 20% on Y-o-Y basis in 2014 . This year, the number of corporate customers served by the company also reached a new high of 519.
Cooperation at UVA
Wang Siwei, Director of SST and Senior Manager of China Telecom Shanghai Branch, effusively praised the value of holding UVA at the UVA Partner Annual Conference. He said the UVA Annual Conference plays a constructive role in promoting business cooperation, resource integration and sharing, strengthening cooperative marketing channels between SST and key partners, and he aired the opinion, “the basic operation model of the entire telecommunication industry is cooperation”.
SST gathered with partners to together seek sincere cooperation and embrace the future
By making comparison with China Telecom, Wang Siwei pointed out, “the transition of the entire China Telecom is to change operation model, to change from product promotion to supplying services based on customer demands. The problem is--China’s traditional telecommunication operating enterprises lack enough professional ability to offer various applications required by customers. What is the solution? Cooperation. The operation model of telecommunication industry will certainly move toward a cooperative one. Cooperation mayeven become the most basic operation model for the integration of the telecommunication industry.”
“The industrialcooperation between main telecommunication carriers and traditional ICT giants such as ZTE and Huawei has been successfully maintained for several decades, which are indeed able to meet many needs of telecommunication carriers, but may not necessarily meet the diversified needs of end users along with us. Therefore, if telecommunication operating enterprises want to build a brand-new cooperative industrial chain, they not only need to cooperate with major companies such as ZTE and Huawei, but also cooperate with all specializedcompanies, as well as successfulcompanies in different fields. They may not be large enough, but they must be specialized; their business scope may only involve a segmented market, but they must possess special value for at least one key customer group.” Wang Siwei said.
It is worth mentioning that, many new products and solutions of SST exactly come from joint cultivation and construction with multiple partners. One well-known automobile project is a case in point. It was reported that after being informed that this automobile company felt dissatisfied with overseas MDM solution being used, SST immediately tried to join hands with partners to provide customized MDM solutions for the customer. In response to the customer needs of fixing management and configuration of application through MDM, SST and its partner designed specific MDM solution for the customer, including steps from safe deployment of application, to ID authentication, protection of user privacy and large-scale distribution of the application.
Finally, withits partner providing software, and SST building MDM cloud platform, a solution was successfully delivered to the customer. Today, with the help of the cloud platform, 4S shop staff of this auto brand can share files, and develop their business with merely an iPad. In the future, the cloud platform will also adopt multiple applications such as vehicle order placing, vehicle 3D display, to complete the whole MDM package.
Samuel Qi summarized that, partner eco chain is of greatsignificanceto SST: Judging from docking betweenbusiness resource and business procedure, through coordination with partners, SST can provide customers with highly efficient green procedure and SLA service support, so as to support premium service to customers, meanwhile, help to ease pressure on prices; confronted with the global trend and pressure of a continual decline in prices of bandwidth business, SST can join hands with partners, with their support in cost competitiveness, to protect existing customers, and attract new customers; in the aspect of marketing channel construction,with the joint efforts of both sides,SST and its partners can provide wider business service for their respective customers, and tap more opportunities for business growth; finally, in the aspect of innovative products and solutions, SST and its partners can learn from each other’s mutual strengths, expand product lines, jointly build united business platform, so as to create more powerful arsenal.
Looking ahead into 2015
Looking into the upcoming year of 2015,cooperation partners of UVAAlliance have reached consensus, that is: Concern for customer needs, mutual support, complementary advantage, improving business transition, and reintegrating resource structure, all of which will help partners to seek cooperation and win-win results.
As the initiator of UVA Alliance, SST has every reason to shoulder the responsibility to continue playing a leading and coordinating role.
Samuel Qi said, in 2015, SST will better construct self-owned marketing ability, and dedicate itself to joining hands with partners to strengthen united marketing, continue to strengthen and implement transition in customerstructure and business structure, meanwhile vigorously strengtheninvestment in and cultivation of core staff members.
Of course, WAN service and existing customers are still the foundation of all businesses. Samuel Qi also emphasized, “In 2015 and beyond, in order to support the consistent development of SST, while developing satisfactory business ability, we will increase investment in business platform resource, R&D, and core team.”
Wang Siweisupported the view of Samuel Qi.He said, “SST has noticed that network service is the fundamental, which coincides with the view of China Telecom. In the world of today, connectivity is always needed. Besides,the demand for connectivity will multiply. For the global telecommunication operating industry, connection-oriented service is also the one with the highest rate of channel and infrastructure utilization. Nevertheless, while keeping existing network service as the core, showing concern for customer needs,and developing industry market will definitely represent the direction of transition for the majority of telecommunication operating enterprises including SST.”