Enable real-time response with connectivity

It’s a cliché today to talk about the fast-moving business environment. Barely a decade ago, only emergency services such as fire, ambulance and the police needed real-time responses. Today, from news broadcasting to financial services and logistics, companies in every industry recognise that responding to events as they happen yields significant competitive advantage whether in reducing costs, capturing new revenue opportunities or improving customer satisfaction. A robust connectivity backbone powered by next generation technology is the foundation for all real-time enterprise services. Applications can range from fleet management to financial trading and a few scenarios are discussed below.

Fleet management:

Fleet management is a popular use case around the world for high-grade enterprise communications technology. Using a hybrid technology powered by a combination GPS and cell tower signals, companies can track and obtain updates about shipments or trucks. Staff on the road can use information on the servers and also obtain critical updates in real-time through user-friendly web-interfaces, push SMS or e-mail.

Combining high-grade digital connectivity with the latest software solutions enables the deployment of tools such as: digital maps, provision of real-time traffic information, central reporting of speeding alerts, instant call centre support, fleet data reporting and performance monitoring.

Tata Tele Business Services recently deployed a fleet management solution to a large delivery company which wanted to improve tracking of the vehicles in its network, including creating alerts for speeding or unexpected stoppages. This enhanced both management’s overall view of the business and enabled the development of increased safety features for the drivers.

Multi-venue connectivity:

In companies with multiple customer-facing sites such as banks, it may be critical to replicate the same or similar services, offerings and information across all sites – regardless of what legacy technology and equipment are in use. MPLS VPN technology, deployed in a hub-spoke configuration, can enable low-latency links to data centres and branches, and support high levels of security across multiple sites. This model creates an extremely smooth system that allows all locations to connect to central resources without compromising security. It also supports a comprehensive set of voice and connectivity applications.

Real-time business:

In the financial services sector, access to real-time information can mean a significant competitive advantage.

Karvy, one of India’s leading trading platforms, has deployed an MPLS VPN to improve the accuracy and availability of its real-time stock trading facility. Tata Tele Business Services installed multicast feeds enabling the provision of real-time data while providing separate VPNs to create a physical division between both its customer and franchisee offices. Catering to Karvy’s specific business model, six individual traffic prioritisation lanes were created to ensure the company was able supply premium services to specific customers and robust fallback for all customers. Critical traffic was also given prioritisation status to ensure trades were executed with minimal delay.

The multicast solution ensured traders received prompt and timely delivery of stock price changes, meeting the dual needs of high quality feeds and bandwidth conservation. The MPLS-VPN solution offered the customer a cost effective, secure connectivity solution with simple network management and a future-proof scaling model.

Multimedia file share and broadcast:

Real-time connectivity is extremely important for the broadcast industry, where companies use content delivery networks to simultaneously supply content from multiple connected terminals. This reduces latency for the viewer and significantly increases service availability. Cloud-based enterprise connectivity solutions offer high flexibility to broadcast companies in terms of deployment model, each offering distinct features and specific advantages depending on the company’s scale and scope. These encompass wired or wireless environments and are fully scalable in terms of number of employees, modules and addition of future solutions.

Cloud-based enterprise connectivity solutions are a straightforward, pay-as-you-go route to achieving very real business benefits through faster response. With expertise and consultancy readily available, and a range of deployments to suit every budget, there is no real reason to not explore the possibilities.