I have been an enterprise customer for more than 20 years. Technology has never been my driver, but an enabler to achieve a certain objective.
The requirements of an enterprise network have changed a lot over the last 10 years. We moved from rigid and closed private network infrastructures to internet and cloud driven networks with users and applications sitting more out of the corporate network than within.
This internet first, cloud and work from anywhere approach asks a lot of flexibility and agility from IT departments. Technology vendors and the connectivity market have well understood those needs and solutions are available to address them.
The challenge for an enterprise is to benefit from this fast-evolving connectivity market in a controlled way and to keep the necessary agility avoiding locked-in models.
Over the last 10 years I have been driving different network transformations on WAN, LAN, WiFi or Cloud connectivity level. The move from manually configured infrastructures to orchestrated solutions like Software Defined Networking has been a game changer.
The shift to orchestration and automation enables enterprises to transform and operate their network infrastructures with limited efforts bringing significant cost savings and reducing their operational efforts.
Unfortunately, technology isn’t enough and too frequently network transformations are primarily technology or cost driven.
When talking to enterprises and network stakeholders you see that network expectations vary a lot. Some see connectivity as a commodity like electricity, it just needs to be there, others are searching a way to enable their digital ambitions and others want to make sure that sustainability and right cost are considered.
As a network manager you need to answer all of these expectations. A network manager is like an orchestrator who needs to put connectivity into music. Missing the necessary tools to solve this pushed me to start Conncert.
When joining enterprises, I have always been surprised about the lack of data quality in network inventories and tools. How can you operate a network or start a transformation journey if you don’t know what you have, how you use it, and what you potentially will need in the near future?
Lots of enterprises don’t have a complete view on their network and are not aware they're not optimal, either on compliancy level, resiliency, or cost efficiency. If they are aware, they most likely won’t have the time, competences, or insights to act.
Improving data quality and visibility isn’t about introducing new tools, enterprises have plenty of tools producing data. Improving data quality and visibility is about activating and empowering existing data so you can come to actionable insights.
Providing actionable insights is what Conncert is about. It’s about helping our customers in making decisions. More than that, it’s about helping our customers to make informed decisions.
The Conncert journey starts by connecting existing data sources to the Conncert platform. This can be inventory, CMDB, contracts, monitoring data, etc. Customers aren’t obliged to import all their data sources, but the more data sources, the more actionable insights we can provide.
We tend to keep this onboarding process as simple as possible. This can be done through API connectors or for example through a CSV import.
Our aim is not to replace existing tools. You connect the way you want, using the tools you want.
While designing the Conncert platform we defined some ground rules. One of them is to bring value early on. Even with the least amount of user input, we should be able to create value.
When a customer connects a data source, it’s mapped to our Conncert best practices and data analytics engine. The platform has predefined KPIs that focus on Data Quality, Compliancy & Risk, Efficiency and Cost.
For each of those KPIs we provide maturity scores and actionable insights how to improve those scores and this from day 1.
We suggest our customers to start with their inventory and contract data. This will generate first advises like improving data quality of the inventory, improving site resiliency based on best practices or providing some vendor and contract insights.
Next, we suggest to onboard monitoring data to gain insights on consumption. This will cross check data quality on accuracy level, identify and resolve capacity risks or identify unnecessary costs.
A step further is where Customers personalize Conncert and define policies to meet their compliancy rules and ambitions.
We don’t compete, we bring together! Our goal is to empower enterprises, not to sell technology, connectivity, or services.
Conncert's DNA is right sizing, right sourcing, and right usage of connectivity. In order to achieve this we stay technology, telco and MSP independent what keeps enterprises in control.
Customers play a central role from beginning to end in our platform and service design. Therefore, we develop the platform in a co-creation mode with enterprises and partners that believe in our values and solution.
This gives us the opportunity to prioritise our feature release and bring value early on.
Officially we started Conncert on the 1st of February 2022, currently we are engaging with different enterprises to onboard our co-creation program.
Lifetime partnerships with our customers and partners!
Our ambition is not to help enterprises transform and then letting them go (even though they always have the option to step out). We see ourselves as trusted advisors, coaches, and mentors. It’s about becoming the partner in life to operational and service excellence.
