Open heart surgery
Nokia Siemens Networks Services was created from parts of a former subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. T-Systems was responsible for carving out the corresponding ICT infrastructure, including all data – no small feat.
In early 2008, the Finnish-German company Nokia Siemens Networks took over the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary Vivento Technical Services. But handing over the ICT was no simple matter: its landscape was fully integrated with Deutsche Telekom’s, and all its business processes ran on the group’s software, hardware and networks.
This is why Nokia Siemens Networks Services tasked T-Systems with establishing a new ICT landscape. Robert Weißweiler, Head of IT and Processes at Nokia Siemens Network Services, likened the process to open heart surgery. “Business operations had to continue to run smoothly,” explains Stephan Pischel, Customer Business Manager at T-Systems. The T-Systems team took a step-by-step approach to establishing the new infrastructure, allowing the company’s heart to continue beating.
Anywhere access
The backbone of the business unit’s new ICT is a multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) network that connects 17 sites in Germany, plus the desktops of some 1,700 employees, to a T-Systems data center. Thanks to voice over IP, each employee can now be reached via a single number, no matter where they are. What’s more, around 1,200 Nokia Siemens Networks Services staff members use Global Corporate Access, a solution that allows them to access the company’s software and databases while on the move. “The change, which is as complex as it is comprehensive, has paid off for Nokia Siemens Networks Services,” believes Stephan Pischel. The company has reaped major savings thanks to the low costs for telephony and data transfer.
But before the company could get down to business, staff had to be persuaded of the benefits of the change – and of the new ICT solutions. To this end, T-Systems provided highly professional communications services. Today, the open-heart operation’s wounds are closed, and Nokia Siemens can concentrate on its core business processes.
Read more about the project, plus an interview with Robert Weissweiler of Nokia Siemens Networks Services on professional user communications during major ICT projects, in the print edition of Best Practice.
