OPTUS FURTHER ENHANCES INTEGRATED ICT ORGANISATION

New services investments, senior appointments and co-creation ThinkSpace centre established

Optus Business today announced several key updates to its integrated ICT organisation, further expanding its end-to-end ICT and managed services capability for enterprise and government customers.

This includes an updated product and services roadmap, senior appointments and the establishment of a new Business Solution Centre – ThinkSpace – to enable a collaborative approach to developing business strategy and innovation with customers.

“Today’s announcements demonstrate the value Optus continues to provide our customers by aligning our telecommunications and IT technical expertise in core competencies such as business application services, cloud and data centres, unified communications and collaboration, and security,” said John Paitaridis, Managing Director, Optus Business.

“In our experience enterprises are increasingly seeking service agreements with one or a small number of trusted partners, to both decrease complexity and reduce management and operational costs,” Mr Paitaridis said.

In the last 12 months, Optus Business has publicly announced a total of almost $700M of integrated ICT contracts with Westpac, ANZ, UGL, Virgin Australia and the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF).

New Product and Services Roadmap

The updated product and services roadmap, announced today at Optus’ annual Vision customer event, included:

• A new Security Centre of Excellence to help organisations navigate end-to-end security from the core of the network to the end points. Optus is investing in specialist consulting resources and technology partnerships to enhance its existing security portfolio and ensure customers have increased visibility and are protected from advanced persistent security threats.

• Increased investment in Optus’ core enterprise management centre to ensure ongoing regional alignment and support for customers.

• An increased investment to enhance a new online self-service portal, currently in pilot ahead of its launch later this year. This will provide a new customer engagement channel and 24X7 access.

• Continual network investments. Optus is investing $1.2 billion on our fixed and mobile networks.  We are on target to reach 90 per cent national 4G coverage across Australia over the next 12 months, which will help to deliver greater network support for enterprise customers.

• Data sharing. New capability for customers to share data across mobile and tablet devices to increase flexibility and optimise data services investment.

• Hosted Communications and Collaboration updates. In March 2014 Optus announced its Contact-Centre-as-a-Service (CCaaS) on Cisco’s hosted collaboration technology platform and Unified-Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS), its hosted suite of voice, video, messaging and presence collaboration products.

• Increased focus on the business application services. There are currently more than 250 business application service staff in Australia and 7,500 across the region, providing development, support and management services for tailored customer application solutions.

New leadership appointments add further ICT weight

In a further boost to its end-to-end ICT services capability, Optus Business has appointed former HP, South Pacific, Managing Director, David Caspari as Vice President of Product and ICT, reporting to Optus Business’ Managing Director John Paitaridis.

“David brings a wealth of ICT experience across Australia and Asia Pacific and will be responsible for leading product and solution development of core telecommunications and ICT, as well as articulating the Optus ICT vision to customers and partners. Optus Business continues to attract strong talent from across the industry. This is great news for our customers,” Mr Paitaridis said.

Jennie McLaughlin has been appointed to the role of Vice President for Business Applications and Solutions. Jennie brings more than 20 years’ experience in applications development and security with companies including CyberTrust and VeriSign. In this new role she takes responsibility for the management of Optus’ new Business Application Services Centre of Excellence, which incorporates the NCS applications solutions business.

In addition, former Alphawest chief executive officer Ian Smith has been appointed to the role of Vice President for Managed Services and Delivery, leading an organisation of more than 1,000 telecommunications and IT professionals.

Launch of Optus’ dedicated collaboration centre to enhance customer innovation: ThinkSpace

Designed in consultation with key Optus customers, ThinkSpace facilitates a collaborative approach to developing business strategy and innovation with customers. The new centre provides Optus customers with a personalised, tailored and engaged service experience helping them derive business value from end-to-end ICT.

“The purpose of ThinkSpace is to work with customers to understand their business challenges in a collaborative environment, well before we have a technology conversation. Optus delivers innovation and technology that provides real benefits for business – not just technology for technology’s sake. By offering Optus customers this collaborative environment we can work with customer executives across all functions to map out their business agenda and align their technology strategy,” Mr Paitaridis said.

The new collaboration centre is located at the Optus campus in Macquarie Park, Sydney.

“We have listened to our customers, integrated our capabilities, and focussed our investment to ensure we meet the evolving needs of our customers and continue to lead the market through the fusion of telecommunications and IT,” Mr Paitaridis said.

For more information about Optus, please visit optus.com.au/business

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Mihika Gujral / Wendy Ko
Text100 Public Relations
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Optus Corporate Affairs

T. 02 8082 7850