International Virtual Network Operator Improves Customer Service with SOA-based Integration
Established in 1988, Vanco plc (FTSE: VAN) is the pioneer of the virtual network operator model of network sourcing. Vanco does not own telecom assets, and so it has the freedom to source infrastructure from the most suitable asset-based carriers worldwide. Directly or through partners, Vanco provides enterprise clients with cost-effective, optimized and fully managed network solutions. Carriers can also extend their off-net reach by accessing other carrier networks around the world through Vanco.
Customer Challenges
Improve customer service by enabling partners to access and interact with Vanco's service management system
Integrate internal systems to improve process flow and efficiency
Save staff time by reducing status inquiries
Solution
Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite enabled Vanco to automate and orchestrate complex business processes and workflows, providing a high level of integration with key partners and improving customer service.
Business Results
Costs are reduced because the staff spends less time dealing with status inquiries
Efficiencies create competitive service differentiation
Customer satisfaction has increased, reducing churn
Company has a single development environment for all external and internal integration projects
Complex business processes and workflow is automated
At the end of 2004, Vanco's goal was to broaden its sales strategy to include an indirect channel of resellers and systems integrators. But several of the company's large partners indicated that they needed to be able to access and interact with Vanco's service management system to provide effective support for their end-customers.
"If channel partners are responsible for managing a number of services for customers and only some of those services are provided by Vanco, they don't want to find that they can share most of the trouble tickets with their customers, but not the ones in Vanco's system. They want an integrated system so that they can manage the whole process," explained David Doherty, global IT program director at Vanco.
As a result, Vanco introduced a business process management suite that would be versatile enough not only to help solve its immediate and pressing external integration challenges, but also enable it to achieve its longer-term, strategic internal integration goals.
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The Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite provided us with a single development environment for all elements of our integration work, from developing adapters through to mapping business processes -- all based on SOA principles and standards.
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— David Doherty, Global IT Program Director, Vanco
"We wanted to integrate our internal systems to enable us to move information around more easily," Doherty said. "We wanted a solution that would integrate data and improve process flow and efficiency, making it easier and less error-prone to populate production systems with customer and situational information."
After evaluating four different options, Vanco chose Java CAPS. The company deployed two key elements of Java CAPS:
Sun SeeBeyond eInsight Business Process Manager, which automates and orchestrates complex business processes and workflows
Sun SeeBeyond eGate Integrator, which provides J2EE-compliant services for connecting applications, transforming data, undertaking messaging, and guaranteeing transactions
"We didn't want to overinvest upfront. We wanted something that would provide us with all the functionality we needed, but that could grow and scale at a proportionate rate as time went on," Doherty explained. "Many products like this don't scale down from a price point of view, so the cost/functionality/scale issue was important for us."
For Vanco, the technical advantages of Java CAPS were that it enabled users to build a master database record to ensure data integrity and it comprised a fully integrated offering based on common development standards.
Vanco started its initial integration project with a large US-based systems integrator in June 2005. The initiative involved evaluating both sides' business processes, mapping them to each other and agreeing on the rules behind how transactions should take place. The systems were then linked together using Web services and tested extensively. Vanco completed the work in only four months and has since added a second partner to the list.
The smoothness of the project was helped, however, by the fact that Java CAPS was "pretty straightforward to use," Doherty said. He was also pleased with the developers provided by Sun's SOA and Business Integration Consulting Practice, whom he felt understood the product well and provided good documentation and knowledge transfer.
One of the key benefits of the project to date is that staff no longer spends a lot of time on telephone or email exchanges with partners regarding the status of trouble tickets.
"If end-customers ask for a status update, it's possible to inform them immediately that an engineer is on his way, for example, which increases satisfaction. It also means that we don't have to learn our partner's system and they don't have to learn ours -- yet we can still obtain the right information," Doherty said.
As a result of its success to date, Vanco is planning to undertake partner integration projects with a US-based direct customer and a UK-based reseller. Over time, the company is considering adding other new processes to the integration options available. Vanco is also evaluating how to integrate some of its own internal systems, although this is a more medium- to long-term project.
"While internal integration is initially more complex than point-to-point integration, we'll see a much better return as we start to do multiple projects," Doherty concludes.
