Delivering Hosted Services Profitably: An NTT America Case Study

A subsidiary of one of the world's largest telecommunications companies, NTT America is a leading provider of hosting and managed services for midsized and multinational enterprises and partners worldwide. Based in New York with branch offices spread across the United States, NTT America Inc. provides corporate customers with one-stop business communications solutions combining enterprise hosting services, private network services and global IP network services.

NTT America’s enterprise hosting division aims to be the primary provider of IP services for mid-market and enterprise companies with global operations. Looking to expand its base of direct customers and resellers, the company needed a service delivery platform that would support multiple service offerings, international languages, and provide customer and reseller administration capabilities.

Initially, NTT America managed the service delivery of Hosted Exchange through a third-party provider using a homegrown provisioning platform. However, that application lacked end-user administration features or support for future offerings like BlackBerry and VoIP – essential functionality that NTT required for operational efficiency and business growth.

“For us to provide a Hosted Exchange product that was not only profitable, but what our customer base needed, we had to make sure our time and energy was spent on rolling out new features, not supporting the environment and manually provisioning customers,” said Craig Hurley, senior product manager at NTT America.

NTT America briefly considered developing its own platform. However, without in-house software development staff, NTT would need considerable human and capital resources to create and continuously maintain its own system.

“We planned to move Hosted Exchange to a new platform in six to nine months, and knew it would be very difficult for us not only to find the necessary resources to build a platform in-house, but also to put together a plan and deliver a product with the capabilities we wanted in the timeframe we needed,” Hurley said.

The company compared a variety of off-the-shelf solutions before choosing one based on its ability to interface with Microsoft’s Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) guidelines right out of the box, Hurley said. Because the commercial product stays up-to-date with current HMC versions, NTT expedites time-to-market of related services.

“We selected a solution that featured capabilities that others lacked, and that came recommended by Microsoft,” Hurley said. “The product is a nice complementary solution to Microsoft’s Hosted Messaging and Collaboration offering, providing all the tools necessary for a service provider to successfully launch and sell hosted services.”

The service delivery platform that NTT chose also provides over 15 pre-integrated and packaged IP and application service managers for services like Hosted Exchange, RIM BlackBerry Enterprise Server and SharePoint Services, enabling the carrier to rapidly deliver, bundle and differentiate revenue-generating hosted services at lower cost and with unmatched reliability, flexibility and speed.

Also important to NTT, the solution is available in multiple language versions, and provides an easy-to-use interface for reseller and end-user account administration.

NTT implemented and tested English and Japanese versions of the service delivery software in a lab environment before going live. The process went smoothly, and met NTT’s demands for a rapid implementation.

The solution allowed the company to transition its Hosted Exchange offering to the new platform about 50 percent faster than if it had built its own solution. Additionally, with the readily available solution, NTT estimates it bypassed at least six months of development time with a dedicated team, adding up to savings of about half a million dollars in development and maintenance costs.

“Without going with this commercial product, we would not have been able to deliver our service in the timeframe we targeted,” Hurley said.

Soon after launching Hosted Exchange on the new platform, NTT released RIM BlackBerry Enterprise Server in both languages, again bringing this service to customers quickly. Next, NTT plans to introduce SharePoint Services, and possibly VoIP and instant messaging. NTT creates, controls and delivers its hosted IP and application services from a central location, minimizing the manpower needed to serve customers and resellers.

“It saves us time and reduces the number of individuals we have to dedicate to provisioning and supporting these services,” Hurley said. “Because of automation of this solution, we can have our engineering and support personnel focused on other areas of the business, and provide products that are priced right and profitable.”

NTT America’s customers and resellers manage their accounts via an easy-to-use interface. The company or its resellers can add new end users in a matter of minutes.

NTT estimates that it assembled a marketable solution for resellers, with multiple tiers of support, in about half the time it would have taken to create its own platform. The company quickly ramps up new resellers, and offers them a branded portal in which to manage customer accounts.

In the short term, the platform allows NTT to sign on resellers and customers to capture revenue quickly, while keeping costs down. Moving ahead, it will provide the foundation the company needs to expand its service offerings without significant development expenses or delays. Knowing that the platform will work in virtually any country where the company acquires customers further supports NTT’s global expansion plans.

Francois Depayras is marketing director of Ensim Corp. He can be reached at fdepayras@ensim.com .

NTT America Inc. www.nttamerica.com

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