Picture this: an Australian property management company has spent the last few years adapting its customer service to the digital era. Its customers have become accustomed to increasingly sophisticated ways of browsing properties online and visualising and planning new builds. The business owners want to take this digital experience to the next level. They are interested in using AI and other technologies online and in showrooms across the country, making better use of expensive, under-utilised real estate.
As nbn Australia’s national manager, ICT Channel, Andrew Charitou explains, this is just one example of many Australian businesses looking to take the next step in their digital transformation, but unsure of where to start.
“We've come out of COVID and businesses are starting to say, ‘Look, cash is tight, capital is tight, how can I improve my business, become more efficient, save money, enhance customer experience and move with the demands we have on our business to get better reach and differentiate?’” he said.
Charitou sees an opportunity for IT partners to shift discussions with clients about the nbn from transactional conversations to strategic engagements.
“How do you create a discussion that gets you engaged, that gets you sitting at the board table as an advisor to the business?” he asked. “If you can weave that magic together with the infrastructure as the enabler, that's where the engagement that customers have with MSPs really grows.”
In the case of a property management company, that conversation might be about the increasing bandwidth needed to enable immersive customer experiences, such as virtual tours of their premises for lease or purchase.
Access to greater bandwidth might also be a key factor for a new distribution centre or office in a regional location, or to move large amounts of data to more environmentally sustainable locations, Charitou said.
Bandwidth also remains an enabler of greater adoption of cloud computing and delivery of consistent application experiences throughout business networks.
Charitou also sees AI as a driver of higher bandwidth requirements. He points to emerging use of AI in medical professions, such as for spotting cancers in high resolution scans.
There are AI solutions that have the ability to look at minutia, look through stacks of data, enhanced streaming data, HD data – that's going to have a big impact on the Internet, the networking, where it's stored, how its protected, and cater for the need to access masses of information for it to be effective,” he said.
Network change
Upload capabilities are important in some of these scenarios. “Some businesses using the nbn look at their download speed and say, ‘I have reasonable download speed; I should be okay. It's four times better than what I had before’,” Charitou said.
“Your download capability is what you experience, but the speed at which you can upload is a factor in what your customers experience and what business efficiency and productivity is reliant upon. You've got to be able to deliver that information efficiently, particularly when a customer wants to see and interact directly with your applications. Your capability to upload can be the differentiator,” Charitou noted.
nbn recently announced more than two million additional residential and business premises are eligible to upgrade their existing nbn connection to FTTP, which has the ability to deliver maximum wholesale download speeds of up to 1000 Mbps and maximum wholesale upload speeds of 400 Mbps*.
Thousands of both residential and business premises are upgrading to fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology weekly, nbn announced recently.
The nbn is looking to entice businesses to plans with higher upload speeds when compared with its residential plans. “Our new business rebates on highspeed fibre (FTTP) plans, which include business purpose built support services, are about improving that access to high upload capability for business,#” Charitou said.
“We've got to the point now where an MSP can get in and start to talk to customers about what they can use the network for and not have the price of bandwidth be the inhibitor to change.” Charitou said.
How MSP’s and nbn can solve for your customers’ needs
Rather than leading with factors such as price and bandwidth, Charitou suggested MSPs focus initial conversations on enlightening customers. “It might be about resilience, it might be about capability, it might be about empowering you to make decisions, find out what their concerns are, uncovering opportunities and go from there.” he commented.
MSPs can then apply these insights to a customer's business and facilitate implementation and management, as some have done with SD-WAN. “Customers were thinking, ‘If the bandwidth is so affordable and available then I can look to implement SD-WAN, and with enhanced network capability look to include recommended services that the MSP has put on the table and they’ll manage that whole process,” Charitou said.
“MSPs then have the flexibility to discuss their value stack and can say, ‘Here's our insight, here's how it applies to your business, why don't you let us manage that for you, implement it on your behalf and we'll run the reporting tools? We’ll roll out the licenses, support, commence business process re-engineering and the automation processes for you, and we’ll facilitate the lot’.”
While nbn doesn’t sell directly to MSPs, it aims to enable them. “Our role is to educate this market and equip them with insights they can then take back to their customers,” Charitou said.
The ICT channel program covers sales insights, technical insights program support, channel marketing initiatives and industry events. MSPs can talk to the nbn ICT channel team to get certification and tools designed to help them understand nbn availability. Some partners have asked nbn to wash their databases, providing insight into network topology available to customers.
“They can get on the front foot and let customers know, ‘This is what is available for you’, then talk to their telco, their RSP, to work with them to place their orders and deliver the services,” Charitou explained.
“We have found that partners want to engage with nbn’s ICT Channel Program to gain insights into the investments that nbn is making in the network, particularly around fibre for business and access to high-speed bandwidth that can be incorporated that into their proposals.”
Partners see the nbn® ICT Channel as an independent source of information that can help them with insights on the topology of their client base when it comes to what's available when it comes to fibre to the business.”
Building trust
With AI, customer experience and digital transformation opportunities evolving, and nbn expanding full fibre access to more businesses, Charitou sees the nbn as a strategic offering for ICT channel players who frame the network in these terms.
Learn more about how nbn’s ICT channel team can help your ICT business by contacting them at ictmarketing@nbnco.com.au.
* Regardless of the retail service purchased, the actual wholesale download speeds delivered to providers will be less than 100Mbps due to equipment and network limitations. An end user’s experience on FTTP, including the speeds actually achieved, depends on the configuration over which services are delivered to their premises, whether they are using the internet during the busy period, and some factors outside of nbn’s control (like their equipment quality, software, chosen broadband plan, or how their provider designs its network.
# business nbn is not available on the nbn Fixed Wireless network. Not all providers offer plans based on the full range of wholesale business nbn products, product features and services. Availability of wholesale business nbn products, product features and services depends on your access technology and area. Ask your preferred provider if they offer plans based on these wholesale business nbn products, product features and services in your area.
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