Business Revew Europe - August 2016

Aug u st 2017

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DATA VALLEY

GROUP DATA CENTRES MADE SIMPLE

FRED. OLSEN: PROVIDING CONNECTIVITY AT SEA

SAN MIGUEL: THE RISE OF THE SPANISH BEER EXPORT

TOP 10 WINE PRODUCING COUNTRIES

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FOREWORD WELCOME TO THE August edition of Business Review Europe.

As we’re enjoying the tail-end of summer, there’s a boozy theme to two thirds of this month’s front of book segment.

We spoke to Erik d’Auchamp, Managing Director of San Miguel, about the beer company’s recordbreaking year for sales and how it intends to keep up with the newly-established pace.

Since San Miguel’s homeland of Spain is also known for its wine, August’s list is the top 10 wine-producing countries in the world (and spoiler alert: Spain does make the cut).

For the technologically-minded, we also have a piece on wearable tech; what’s available and where the industry is heading.

This month’s exclusive profiles feature interviews with Data Valley Group, Dataplex Ireland, SAK, and Fred. Olsen Ltd. – all involving in-depth discussions with top executives and industry experts.

Enjoy your read, and as always, tweet your feedback @bizrevieweurope

Enjoy the issue! www.businessrevieweurope.com www.bizclikmedia.com

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F E AT U R E S

San Miguel and the rise of the Spanish export PROFILE

TECHNOLOGY

Smartly dressed

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LIST

TOP 10 WINE PRODUCING COUNTRIES IN EUROPE 5

C O M PA N Y PROFILES

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Data Valley Group CONSTRUCTION

46

Dataplex Ireland CONSTRUCTION

SAK

CONSTRUCTION

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August 2017

70

Fred. Olsen Ltd TECHNOLOGY

Plusnet

TECHNOLOGY

80

92

Telefónica Germany TECHNOLOGY

Surf’n’Fries FOOD & DRINK

110

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PROFILE

San Miguel and the rise of the Spanish export One of the most revered wine producers in the world, Spain is also in demand for its beer. We speak to Mahou San Miguel’s Erik d’Auchamp following a record breaking year W r i t t e n b y : T O M WA D L O W

PROFILE

“Beer is a social engagement for so many people – ‘let’s go for a beer’ is something which is recognised in many languages” ERIK D’AUCHAMP, International Managing Director

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S A N M I G U E L A N D T H E R I S E O F T H E S PA N I S H E X P O R T

THE UK HAS something of a love affair with Spanish beer. Whether it serve as a reminder of holidays in the Med or simply something different to the standard lager offerings - a premium treat - the likes of San Miguel are booming in this market.

Brewed by family-owned Mahou San Miguel, last year alone saw UK sales volumes of its four key brands jump by 9%, passing the one million hectolitre mark for the first time. While Mahou and Alhambra are perhaps less well known versus its illustrious counterpart, they contribute to an ever-popular export portfolio being sold across the world. Solán de Cabras, the company’s luxury water brand, has also performed strongly. In all, two million hectolitres were exported in 2016, accounting for 15% of Mahou San Miguel’s €1.22bn turnover.

Charged with the enviable task of selling San Miguel abroad is International Managing Director, Erik d’Auchamp.

A Danish brewing industry veteran of more than 16 years, d’Auchamp started out at Carlsberg before coming into contact with Mahou San Miguel in the early 2000s when the

two began doing business together.

Five or so years later, in 2006, he moved to Spain from the USA and has been at Mahou ever since, meeting his wife and starting a family.

“Apart from the fact it is a fun part of the job, I have travelled for most of my life,” d’Auchamp says. “I still get a rush when I step up on a plane. Beer is a social engagement for so many people – ‘let’s go for a beer’ is something which is recognised in many languages, and Carlsberg was a good opportunity to travel the world working in a category that was a lot of fun.”

Premium partnerships D’Auchamp puts Mahou’s record year down to a number of factors, including the UK’s identification with San Miguel’s brand authenticity and general palate that embraces different kinds of taste. He speaks most at length about the impact of partnerships, pointing to valuable cooperation with former employer Carlsberg which helps distribute San Miguel and Mahou, while London brewer Fullers works closely with Alhambra.

Outside of the UK, since late 2014 Mahou San Miguel has held 11

PROFILE

a 30% share of Founders, a US craft beer company that started out in Michigan. “They have been working on some fantastic products and brands in a market which has seen slower growth in the past few quarters,” d’Auchamp comments.

“The good thing about the brewing world is that there are a lot of alliances between a number of different brewers, which is ultimately raising the bar. There has to be a fit personally and on a business level, and we certainly have that with Carlsberg. Our brands complement 12

August 2017

each other and we treat each other’s brands as if they are our own.”

This leads naturally onto d’Auchamp’s views on what is increasingly tough competition, especially in the UK premium lager market where the likes of Estrella, Birra Moretti and Peroni, among numerous others, are competing for shelf and tap space.

“There absolutely is stiff competition,” he acknowledges, “and the good thing for us in the UK is that the premium lager and craft sectors are growing, and these are areas we

S A N M I G U E L A N D T H E R I S E O F T H E S PA N I S H E X P O R T

feel comfortable in. Yes, there is tough competition, but this only makes us stronger and more competitive.”

The rapid rise of the smaller craft brewer is another trend taking the beer world by storm, but is this a threat to the larger brewers? “We haven’t felt that at all,” d’Auchamp answers. “It is presenting tremendous opportunities which we have proven by meeting the fantastic team at Founders. It is inspiring innovation.”

1M hectolitres

Amount sold into the UK by Mahou San Miguel in 2016

Further afield Such innovation and maturation of the beer market is opening up opportunities for Mahou San Miguel not only in Europe, but in the likes of the US and India as well. D’Auchamp observes how people are talking about beer in a different way than just a few years ago, especially in the UK, and this shift in consumer attitude is opening doors.

In the US, beer drinkers are taking to the Spanish taste of Mahou, which d’Auchamp says hasn’t required adaptation to suit American taste buds. “We sell in the US as we would in Spain,” he adds. “What we have adapted is pack sizes as there is a tendency to buy 12-packs in the 13

PROFILE

“The Indian market is a fascinating one… if you aren’t in it for the long run you probably shouldn’t be there” ERIK D’AUCHAMP, International Managing Director

US. This isn’t to say we won’t create US-specific products, but this hasn’t been the case up until now.”

India is another long term project, and a country full of fond memories for d’Auchamp from when he headed up the team there in recent years.

“The Indian market is a fascinating one,” he says. “If you aren’t in it for the long run you probably shouldn’t be there. We have a great team in India and from a personal perspective I loved it out there, and my wife and three kids loved it too.

We have learned so much and been given so many experiences from travelling and meeting people around the country, experiences that will forever remain close to our hearts.

“From a professional perspective this is a country with a lot of potential 14

August 2017

– there may be a lot of regulation at the moment but you have to incorporate this into your plans. Indian food marries perfectly with our beer, and this is where we see massive potential to reach more Indian consumers.”

Indeed, d’Auchamp is optimistic when it comes to the global beer industry moving forward. Overall Mahou San Miguel projects a 1.4% growth to 2020, with premium and craft growing around 5.5%. The non-alcoholic segment is also set to perform well, which all adds up to a positive outlook for the years to come.

D’Auchamp concludes: “We’re a family-owned company and those values ground us every day in what we do, but the future looks great and I can confidently say that we are looking to go bigger and better.”

S A N M I G U E L A N D T H E R I S E O F T H E S PA N I S H E X P O R T

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TECHNOLOGY

Smartly dressed

Apple Watch 2 and Fitbit led the way and now wearable tech is booming. From innovations designed to keep patients out of the hospital emergency room to fabric infused with lighting, wearable technology is no longer a gimmick Edited by: ANDREW WOODS

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TECHNOLOGY SMART SHOES, WEARABLE payment rings and clothing installed with disease-detection devices, technology has revolutionised fashion.

However, while smart watches, jewelry and other fun pieces continue to be popular with consumers, the amount of movement and innovation in wearable technology in the healthcare market is equally staggering. The high rate of benefit combined with low costs makes wearable tech tempting to patients, providers and facilities.

While innovations such as heart rate monitors and other home health devices are already in use in both the US and Europe, newer innovations are coming, according to the European Academic Network for Open Innovation.

Patients are already receiving better outcomes and better quality care via wearable technology. From seniors with dementia who can be safely tracked in a geofenced area to heart patients who can be monitored from afar, wearable tech is improving lives.

The latest generation of wearable tech is more ‘condition specific’ than previous models with innovations in monitoring and treating conditions like epilepsy and Parkinson’s emerging 18

August 2017

from firms like Belgium’s UCB. Erik Janssen, Vice President Global New Patient Solutions Neurology, says: “At UCB, we have a very innovative approach to developing solutions for severe conditions like epilepsy and Parkinson’s, which places patient value at the heart of everything we do.

“For us, partnering with digital technology specialists is a key element of our mission. We recognise the neurological conditions we’re focused on are very complex and that technology and digital innovations have the potential to provide significant benefits and support to patients.

Alongside our existing innovation projects, which focus on diverse areas such as predictive analytics and wearable technologies, we’re actively looking for new and additional partners to work alongside to provide new solutions that we believe could make a huge difference to patients’ lives.”

Another leader in this area is Mary Lou Jepsen who founded health tech start-up Open Water, which is producing wearable MRIs (magentic resonance imaging). Jepsen wants to help doctors discover cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s with affordable disease detectors.

S M A R T LY D R E S S E D

‘Ringly has range of ‘wearable payment’ rings that can authenticate transactions through your unique heartbeat signature’

TEMPERATURE SENSITIVE CLOTHING Another European wearable technology start-up is focused on creating not small, single purpose pieces, but whole garments that can sense body temperature and adjust itself accordingly. Designed to keep users warm during outdoor activities, the garments use sensors to detect when the user is getting too cold or uncomfortable.

Once an uncomfortable temperature is discovered, clothing from Clim8 is designed to warm

up automatically to a safer, more comfortable level. When the user has warmed up again, the French startup’s clothing continues to regulate body heat based on the wearer’s predetermined preferences. In addition, Under Armour is producing smart athletics shoes, a market that Samsung is getting involved with, with its new smart golf shoe that can help uses perfect their swing.

FABRIC FLOODED WITH LIGHT Swedish wearable technology firm Light Flex integrates light 19

TECHNOLOGY and fabric; resulting in activewear and accessories for sports and activities. By fusing light with fabric and garments, the company makes wearable technology in clothing form.

While most innovations are focused on gadgetry, Light Flex has taken a different approach, creating larger pieces and full garments infused with technology, such as the Expedition Parka it created with Helly Hansen – with life-saving light pads – which was the winner of the 2017/18 ISPO Award.

VIRTUAL REALITY GLASSES After a false dawn in the 90s, VR headsets are now making sense.

The ability to connect to a phone, laptop and games console was the missing link that moved headsets on from merely allowing consumers to walk aimlessly around a computergenerated room. Samsung, Google, HTC, Oculus and Sony are going big on VR, while Finnish start-up Varjo has developed a set that is 70 times faster than HTC’s Vive.

HIGH STYLE MEETS WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY Since most wearable technology is spare and unadorned, companies 20

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like Ringly and EJOY are giving this technology a much-needed makeover as handcrafted, high-stWyle jewellery meets wearable tech. Ringly has range of ‘wearable payment’ rings that can authenticate transactions through your unique heartbeat signature.

Italian brand EJOY is one of many companies approaching wearable technology with an eye on the

S M A R T LY D R E S S E D

style. ‘It will be possible to wear a designer product that integrates into a real jewel two basic functions: the notification of the activities of the smartphone and different types of reminders, and the monitoring of the physical activities related to the wellbeing of our consumers,’ the company says. Meanwhile, Google is preparing to wade into the smart watch sector

with pieces carrying GPS and LTE. WEARABLE TECH FOR PETS From the ability to track your pet from afar to collar-based monitors that assess your cat or dog’s activity level and general health, innovations for pet owners continue to gain traction in the wearables market. In the UK, PitPatPet has produced a monitor 21

TECHNOLOGY that will help you track a dog’s level of fitness and activity; users get alerts when pets need more exercise or aren’t up to their usual level of activity.

In the US, PetPace aims to help owners track their cat – not only their whereabouts, but their current state of health, from their heart rate to their other vital signs and even their activity levels.

By tracking a cat’s physical health and location, owners can have peace of mind that their pet is fine, even if they are not at home. Real time updates and information ensure owners can always know what their pet is up to.

As wearable technology becomes more commonplace and more acceptable to consumers, the desire for better looking, more fashionable pieces is on the rise as well; companies like EJOY fill this previously overlooked spot in the market.

From innovations for pets to clothing that adjusts to suit the wearer’s preferences, the latest innovations go beyond the simple fitness band. By focusing on health, safety, peace of mind and comfort, these innovative companies are bringing new and exciting products to consumers and ensuring that wearables continue to surge in popularity.

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S M A R T LY D R E S S E D

‘By focusing on health, safety, peace of mind and comfort, these innovative companies are bringing new and exciting products to consumers’

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TOP 10

TOP 10 WINE PRODUCING COUNTRIES IN EUROPE Europe makes around two thirds of the world’s wine and the recent figures for global wine production in 2016 reveal a staggering 267mn hectolitres, or 26.7bn litres, of vino was squeezed from the humble grape. That’s just 3% down on 2015 but some way off the bumper worldwide harvests of 2013 which saw production peak at 290mn Wr it te n by : DA N B R I G HTM O R E

Amazingly, Europe’s top trio of producers (Italy, France and Spain) make almost half of this global total between them and over 75% of the continent’s wine.

Global wine production fell by 7% in 2016 due to climatic events. The most precipitous declines were seen in South America. Here, the El Nino phenomenon (which occurs every four to five years affecting rainfall patterns and causing both drought and flooding) saw the wineries of Argentina and Chile hit the hardest.

Meanwhile, in Europe - Italy, Spain and Greece were three of the few countries to experience a growth in production.

Here is a rundown of the top 10 from Europe based on the latest complete figures for 2016.

TOP 10

10 HUNGARY 1.9MN HECTOLITRES Global Rank:

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Production here experienced a steep fall of 3% (down from 3mn hectolitres) which sees Hungary drop from seventh place in the chart but cling on to its position in the top ten, just ahead of European rival Bulgaria in the global chart.

Hungary also suffered from the climatic pressures felt across Europe which combined negatively with the traditionally late November harvest of many Hungarian regions.

The Romans first brought their vines here in the 5th Century.

Among Hungary’s most famous wines are the white dessert wine Tokaji (grown in the far north foothills of the Zemplen Mountains) and the fearsomely monikered red, Bull’s Blood of Eger which comes from the Kadarka grape, introduced to the country by the Serbs in the 16th Century.

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AUSTRIA 2MN HECTOLITRES Global Rank:

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Austria’s wine production may have fallen by 1% (down from 2.3mn) but experts are applauding quality over quantity. A late April frost in some regions, such as Steiermark and Burgenland, saw their yields drop by as much as 80%. However, the harvests in large parts of Niederosterreich were above average following an unseasonably warm and sunny close to the season in September.

Austria is known for its prime red grape varieties including Zweigelt and Blaufrankisch and the internationally harvested Pinot Noir. But these only accounts for around 30% of production with the country more famous for its dry white wines often made from the Gruner Veltliner grape. Austria is also home to Riedel, makers of some of the world’s most expensive wine glasses.

GREECE 2.6MN HECTOLITRES Global Rank:

8 SERBIA 2.3MN HECTOLITRES Global Rank:

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With nearly 70,000 hectares of vineyards, production holds steady in Serbia which achieved the same yield for the fourth successive year.

The country has nine winemaking regions with one of the most important vineyard areas situated in Negotinska Krajina (250km to the east of Belgrade), a sub region of the river valley of Timok where wine making dates back to Roman times.

Indigenous grapes like Prokupac (red) and the Muscat-like Tamjanika (white) date back to the Middle Ages.

International grapes grown include Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

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The Greek harvest was up 2% thanks to an absence of heatwaves and consistent cool night temperatures.

Assyrtiko is one of Greece’s finest multi-purpose grape varieties, first cultivated on the volcanic island of Santorini. It now thrives in the terroir of Macedonia delivering a dry white wine with citrus aromas. Xinomavro (meaning ‘acid black’) is the leading native red noted for its rich tannins and complex fruit aroma with hints of olive and spice. Greece was one of the first wine-producing territories in Europe.

The earliest evidence of Greek wine making dates back 6,500 years when it was produced on a household or communal basis.

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TOP 10

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ROMANIA 3.3MN HECTOLITRES Global Rank:

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Following a bumper year for production in 2013 (5.1mn) Romania has returned a third successive poor harvest with production falling by 8% due to challenging climatic conditions seen in many regions across Europe. However, Romania still produces more wine than New Zealand with around 85% of vineyard space dedicated to the growth of white varietals. Feteasca Alba and Feteasca Regala feature prominently, followed by Riesling, Aligote and Muscat. The leading red varieties grown here include Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

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PORTUGAL 6MN HECTOLITRES Global Rank:

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Wine production here fell dramatically by 1mn hectolitres (15%) due to a damp spring triggering widespread mildew and cooler flowering conditions which, along with a summer drought, reduced yields considerably. Red and rose wines account for around 70% of all production. Portugal is home to the Douro valley, one of the world’s oldest wine producing regions with a tradition dating back to 1758. Dao is famous for its port while the Vinho Verde region’s name literally means ‘green wine’. This actually translates as ‘young wine’ and describes the distinctive slight effervescence on the pallet due to the fermentation taking place in the bottle.

SPAIN 39.3 MN HECTOLITRES Global Rank:

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GERMANY 9MN HECTOLITRES Global Rank:

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Following perfect late summer weather Germany was able to consolidate its position in the global top 10 as production rose by 1%. Experts say wine lovers can look forward to a classic year with the 2016 vintage promising aromatic, elegant white wines with a harmonious interplay of fruit and acidity allied with intensely-coloured velvety reds. Around 60% of wines made in Germany are white wines.

The top five white varieties are Riesling, Mueller-Thurgau, Silvaner, Pinot Grigio, and Pinot Blanc while the most popular red varieties include Pinot Noir, Dornfelder, Portugieser, Trollinger and Black Riesling.

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It’s a giant leap up the chart to Spain where wine production increased by 4% following one of the mildest winters in the country’s recent vintages followed by spring rains, which increased underground water reserves. Spain still has a long way to go to beat its record breaking tally of 45.3mn in 2013, but globally the Iberian country is well ahead of its nearest competitor the United States (23.9mn). Major regions include Rioja and Ribera del Duero, known for their Tempranillo production in both red and white variations. The country has also seen high yields of Garnacha and Monastrell in the Navarra and La Mancha regions.

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TOP 10

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FRANCE 43.5MN HECTOLITRES Global Rank:

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Falling from 47mn, French wine production drifted by 7% due to unseasonably savage spring weather with a freeze that hit vineyards in Beaujolais, Bourgogne and Charentes. A recent report by the Wine Economics and Policy journal warned rising temperatures worldwide, and the loss of the Gulf Stream, could lead to a potential chilling of the Bordeaux region, while other regions, including Alsace, are expected to get warmer and experience shorter growth seasons. French wine production can be traced back to the 6th Century BC, with many regions dating their wine-making history to Roman times.

Famous for Champagne (where the title can only legally be assumed for wine made within the region) other popular varieties include Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

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TOP 10 WINE PRODUCING COUNTRIES IN EUROPE

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ITALY 50.9MN HECTOLITRES Global Rank:

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Remaining at the top of the chart for a second successive year, and with production up 2%, Italy has enjoyed better growing conditions than its European counterparts.

According to industry experts, in Tuscany, the harvest conditions for Pinot Grigio were excellent and the quality outstanding. However, there are some concerns for the future. In the Italian region of Chianti, grapes have begun ripening too early, leading to possible changes in wine varieties going forwards. The most popular grape varietals for red wine are Montepulciano, Barbera, Sangiovese and Merlot. Tocai is the leading choice of white wine, ahead of more wellknown staples such as Prosecco.

Source: www.oiv.int (International Organisation of Vine and Wine) 31

DATACUBE

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An innovative, scalable and energy-efficient data centre Written by: Dale Benton Produced by: Lewis Vaughan

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Through the innovative DataCube®, Data Valley looks to break down the complexity of data centres and transform the marketplace

“

If I can’t explain the DataCube concept to you in under five minutes, then we have failed,” says Jef Gorissen, COO and Founder of Data Valley Group.

For what it’s worth, Gorissen completed it under four.

DataCube® is a patented concept from Data Valley Group. The ambition? To create a data centre that caters to customers’ current and future data solutions requirements.

Data Valley as a company was born in the mind of Jef Gorissen, Janine Wildschut from by Minga and their business partner Gerard Kuijs, following 20 years working in industrial and technical automation.

In this role, Gorissen had one particular task – removing the element of a large process control system stored on an oil relay terminal.

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This is where Gorissen first began looking into the world of data centres.

“I began to investigate the data centre market in Europe. I visited the Netherlands, England, Spain, Switzerland, just looking at a lot of data centres. This was the first time I thought about building one of my own,” he says.

Over the course of the next few years, Gorissen left his role and started Data Valley Group, focusing on the development of a new kind of data centre – the DataCube®.

It is because of Gorissen’s work throughout industrial automation and processes that he could “remove the complexity” of data centres. This was the mentality that he wanted to inject into Data Valley moving forward.

For any start-up company, particularly in the data centre

CONSTRUCTION

space, the first obstacle that anyone must overcome is locating and securing investment.

“You need lots of it to build,” says Gorissen. “Experience is all well and good but you need a track record and cash flow for investors.”

In the first 12 months, Gorissen sought out private equity organisations for investments as well as seeking companies that could

partner with Data Valley to realise the DataCube. He had the basic concept, but he needed 3D detailed drawings, prefabrication and companies that were capable of meeting a threefour month build time. He admits it took time finding the right people.

Gorissen, of course, was not alone.

His business partner Kuijs had sold his company previously to join him, and so he made the initial investment

“Experience is all well and good but you need a track record and cash flow for investors” JEF GORISSEN, COO

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The right solution

for every data centre project

Water Usage Effectiveness 1.0 Power Usage Effectiveness 1.05

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- Global availability and supply with 19 manufacturing sites.

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CONSTRUCTION

2014

The year that Data Valley Group was founded

on which Data Valley Group could build. Over time, the two secured an investor who pledged to fund the first five locations for the company’s data centres. The first step then was to secure a location.

“The first location I wanted in Eindhoven.

It’s one of the most high-tech regions in the world,” he says. But finding the location was not without its problems.

It took Gorissen and Kuijs almost two years to find it and the reason as to why it took so long is a simple one, connectivity.

“The advantage of data centres in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt is that they are all well connected. Outside of cities? Not so much. We found three areas of connectivity good enough for a

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D ATA VA L L E Y G R O U P

“The actual building is part of the equipment; it’s not just a shell but very much a part of the cooling system”

JEF GORISSEN, COO

commercial data centre, so we lost a lot of time in the beginning,” he says.

During this downtime, the company was able to work on and continue to develop the DataCube concept.

This included a number of elements, but there was one that was key: a cooling system like no other. Gorissen spoke with local and international companies to try to develop a cooling system that would make Data Cubes

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unique before finding two Germanbased company to work with.

“90% of energy usage in a data centre is computers and storage.

When you put one megawatt into a data centre, you have 90% waste through heat,” he says. “Data centres need cooling and we want the heat of our PPUs in our servers to be reused to produce cold for our cooling system. We want to generate

CONSTRUCTION

VIDEO: Explaining the high level vision of the DataCube® facility our own cold from the heat.”

Data centres are very much affected by external temperatures and so the DataCube concept is built with 200mm of uninsulated prefab concrete, an idea of Kuijs and Gorissen that points to a cooling advantage realised through using concrete in excess of 25%.

This is just by using convection of outside cold through the concrete,

additional low speed ventilation and indirect adiabatic cooling.

This cooling element, rooted very much in the makeup of the DataCube itself, all comes together under a patent that Data Valley Group only recently obtained. But this is no regular patent, as Gorissen points out.

“It’s actually really strange.

We applied for the patent in

w w w. d a t a v a l l e y g ro u p . c o m

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CRITICAL POWER: CREATE YOUR OWN GUARANTEES Business processes need power. But how reliable are these types of deliveries actually?

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CONSTRUCTION

2012, but immediately we were greeted by questions about what really makes it new? Unique? Different?” he says. “It’s the building. The actual building is part of the equipment; it’s not just a shell but very much a part of the cooling system.”

The patent was formalised in October 2016 and Gorissen has already begun to see the benefits that it can bring.

“When you have a patent, investors are not only investing into you but investing into that patent,” he says.

“They begin to see the added value of their investment as they own a part of that patent,

2016 The year the patent for DataCube® was granted

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D ATA VA L L E Y G R O U P

that USP.” It’s not just the physical makeup of the Data Cube that Data Valley Group is extremely proud of. DataCube’s offer flexibility, as the company’s vision is to provide a data centre that is flexible enough to grow with customers as customers grow.

The Data Cube is a building of only 30 by 30 sq m with a data room of 600 sq m. This makes it a very small

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area. Data Valley Group builts its first cube with only 50% of its power.

The second space is built only 10m away without any equipment in it.

This is where the flexibility comes in.

“When a customer wants to work with us, we have the space for them to move in to as opposed to agreeing and then waiting to build a new space,” he says. “They tell us what they want for cooling options and we

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“When you have a patent, investors are not only investing into you but investing into that patent... They begin to see the added value of their investment as they own a part of that patent, that USP” JEF GORISSEN, COO

put in the right containers and can be operating effective immediately.

That’s very different to other data centre providers. Customers don’t have to move to other data centres when their IT equipment changes through the years, but we change the data centre.”

Data Valley Group is a colocation data centre provider with a vision of establishing a connected network of

data centres across the University cities in the Netherlands and Europe.

This network fully utilises that flexibility of the DataCube. Customers can pay a licence fee and own the data centre. Data Valley can work with the customers to tailor the data centre to specific changing needs.

Customers can then either choose to work with Data Valley to arrange maintenance and operations or

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allow the company to establish maintenance and operations contracts with companies in the region and those companies then work directly with the customer.

For Gorissen, this network will be made up of regional IT service providers, companies looking for colocation capacity and start-up companies. The start-up element is something very close to Gorissen’s heart.

“Our biggest goal is to create a community of intelligent companies, full of innovative people, pushing our company further,” he says. “We work with start-ups, drive them and enable them. They are the key to the future of our economy and our industry.

“I remember the challenges we faced in creating this company.

Through Data Valley Group, we can help others grow and continue to grow with them.”

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DATAPLEX IRELAND THE DIGITAL LANDLORD Written by: Nell Walker Produced by: Lewis Vaughan

> Dataplex Ireland’s CEO, Eddie Kilbane, describes the ways in which the business overcame adversity to become a recognised choice for global giants, with simplified IT and strong partnerships

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ataplex Ireland is a newcomer to the data centre world and is already making itself known, having acquired worldleading businesses as clients and becoming the greenest data centre company in Ireland.

Eddie Kilbane is the CEO and co-founder of the company, and has watched Dataplex flourish since 2009; the business signed its first client in 2012, in the B10 Data Centre in North west Dublin. Among other things, this signing allowed it to showcase its Green Energy cooling solution, a deployment that was years in advance of any other data centre in Europe.

A turning point for the visibility of the business came when Dataplex won a contract in 2015 with a large global operator. “Having somebody on board with an internationally recognisable brand name gave it the validation through the global operator’s due diligence which we were struggling to get elsewhere,” says Kilbane. “The global operator’s data centre team was extremely tough and thorough in terms of their processes, so by winning that contract, we had an

example to show other customers.”

Kilbane has a long history in the construction industry, as part of a management team on large projects such as Chelsea Harbour, Canary Wharf, and the Channel Tunnel.

Whilst developing vast amounts of construction and communication network experience and gaining contacts, Kilbane saw the deregulation of the telecommunications market in Ireland as an opportunity to establish a company that would provide a turnkey solution of design, wayleave, construction and commission for the new telecomunications carriers.

More companies would be moving to the country to build a new cable and telecoms industry, and in 1998, he moved his family there from the UK to become a part of it.

While the inclusion of a global operator as a client did provide Dataplex with much-needed weight in the industry, it is elements of the company from within that have created the rising star it is today. For example, thanks to the temperate climate in Ireland, Dataplex maintains and operates the greenest data

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‘The company people want to work for and with’ Established in early 2005, Ethos Engineering is Ireland’s largest dedicated MEP consultancy. An award winning practice, winning Ireland’s Consultancy of the Year Award for three years running (2015, 2016, 2017), CIBSE’s coveted Employer of the Year Award and winner of the ACE European CEO Award 2016.

Ethos Engineering is recognised as the leading MEP consultancy for Mission Critical projects. To date, we have over 550 MW of Data Centre designs completed in Ireland and Europe for a range of the world’s top software and colocation providers.

Ethos Engineering is the Irish member of the First Q Network with direct access to over 2,500 engineers and technical knowledge sharing across 12 European countries “Ethos Engineering is a solid, trusted partner for design, pre and post contract” Dataplex Ireland’s CEO, Eddie Kilbane

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D ATA P L E X

centre business in the country.

“We’re using a system to bring the cold air into the server room to cool it,” Kilbane explains. “In the middle of June it’s still 14 to 19 degrees outside, and these are not temperatures you’re going to see in many other parts of Europe. We’re lucky to have this weather for our business.”

Sustainability is an ever-present issue and a factor that can make or break a choice for a customer, and Dataplex’s green status certainly allows it a competitive edge, “but ultimately it’s a combination,” Kilbane says. “Certainly, green capabilities are important to hyperscale companies who are looking at Ireland because the power availability and climate mean they don’t have to run very large cooling solutions. So it’s definitely a factor, but it’s no one thing that brings companies to Ireland.

They make a huge difference to our economy by providing resources, and they become a catalyst for other companies to move closer to the source of these data centres.”

“We’ve seen a rise in technology companies coming in and clustering

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“We’ve rolled back what our technology does, switching to a simpler method.

We’ve got to make sure our clients can’t get touched, and that they know there’s no chance of someone hacking in and shutting us down” EDDIE KILBANE, CEO

around data centres. In this business park, we have PayPal, Xerox and Vertis, amongst others: all very good, strong breeds of companies who then feed off having this data centre local to them.”

Simplified technology Another huge aspect of what makes Dataplex an attractive choice is

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Currently EDPAC are on site with some of the global industry’s largest and high profile Datacentre and collocation providers implementing large scale custom built Free cooling solutions.

In recent years we have diversified into carrying out large scale Legacy datacentre CRAC unit and AHU upgrades. And have retrofitted modern components including EC Fans, VSD Compressors and Controls upgrades.

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its stripped-back approach to technology. In Kilbane’s words, “we’ve made our systems dumb,” meaning that the business offers a solid and reliable ‘vanilla’ service.

“My business is purely to support the real technology, which is the client’s business,” he continues.

“We are a technical landlord – as data centre operators, we don’t operate any data.”

Dataplex simply offers the infrastructure which allows the data to flow. Its data centres sit in a silo; no information can be broadcast, ensuring a safe haven for customers.

In the event of a malware attack, Dataplex doesn’t have to worry about vulnerability because its building systems and servers are not connected to the internet.

“If we don’t connect to the internet, the internet can’t talk to us,” says Kilbane. “We’ve got to make sure our clients can’t get touched, and that they know there’s no chance of someone hacking in and shutting us down. We’ve rolled back what our technology does, switching to a simpler method. This is one

Dublin The location of Dataplex Ireland HQ

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“My business is purely to support the real technology, which is the client’s business, we are a technical landlord – as data centre operators, we don’t operate any data” EDDIE KILBANE, CEO

aspect of the business clients don’t have to worry about, so they can concentrate on their own data.”

To allay any concerns regarding this process, Dataplex even allowed its larger customers to send their security teams to validate the security process put in place by Dataplex.

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As an extra level of support, Dataplex offers resilient N+1 specification, meaning that for every single plug a client requires, a second plug that matches it is independently cabled and wired back the main power. Everything becomes dual-powered, and that service is

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enabled at all times, even during a service, meaning no downtime.

Dataplex’s youth as a company is among the reasons it has thrived so well even after a slow beginning.

With the lack of the ball-andchain of legacy systems behind it, Dataplex can be especially flexible.

“We’re not carrying any baggage, so we’re able to be a bit more daring,” says Kilbane. “We have to be different and push small buttons – enough that attractive companies come to us.”

In some ways, Dataplex has already proven itself to have industrychanging potential. In terms of the

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cool air technology the company uses to save energy, “there was nobody doing that in 2012 when we started off, so we were quite ‘out there’, and we’ve continued to stay out there in terms of innovation with our suppliers. As a small company, that’s one of the differentiators we have in the market that attracted clients like the global operators to our front door, as opposed to our competition which may be more traditionalist.”

Concrete partnerships None of this would have been possible without Dataplex’s trusted internal partners. Dornan Engineering enables the business to build what it needs to precise, well-negotiated specifications, allowing the best possible flexibility and speed to market.

“Dornan even represented us at meetings early on, pitching business and working with our customers,”

Kilbane says. “They’re very much a partner rather than a contractor, and clients can be assured that they don’t have to wait three to six months for us to find a contractor – we already have one on board. It creates a very strong partnership.”

Anord is Dataplex’s panel manufacturer and has also been working with the business since the start, ensuring deliveries are simple and smooth. EDPAC is the cooling partner creating bespoke solutions to a consistent quality, Schneider provides UPS’s and goes the extra mile for Dataplex regardless of its size as a company, and Ethos Engineering is a solid, trusted partner for design, pre and post-contract.

This combination of reliable partnerships, high levels of innovation, and stable, simplified service will undoubtedly serve Dataplex well to create a bright future for Kilbane and his team.

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: K SA GY R Y, E C N E IEN ED C N I I F F F E E ED R

ton ghan n Be Vau e l Da ewis : y n b by: L e t d it Wr duce Pro

// ST. GALLISCH-APPENZELLISCHE KRAFTWERKE AG (SAK) IS CURRENTLY CONSTRUCTING A DATA CENTRE IN SWITZERLAND THAT COULD BECOME THE GREENEST DATA CENTRE IN EUROPE

F

or data centres, sustainability and being “greener” is fast becoming one of the more pressing issues across the industry.

In a data centre one of the largest outputs and wastes is heat – heat generated through power. A number of data centre providers across the world are looking for ways to reduce that heat and ultimately the power consumption and energy efficiency of the building. Some companies choose to reuse the heat and utilise it as cold air for the cooling system.

For St. Gallisch-Appenzellische Kraftwerke AG (SAK), the company has found a much more unique way.

“Around 20m away from our data centre, a local cheese factory is building a new facility and we can bring in 1.5mn KW of heat energy that they can then use to heat up 10mn litres of milk every year,” says Christoph Baumgärtner, Head of

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Business Customer Services at SAK. 1.5mn KW may sound like an incredibly significant amount of heat and energy, but if SAK’s data centre was at full capacity, it only represents 10% of what the company could deliver.

“That’s part of our business. Heating networks, wind parks, solar power, fiber to the home network, data centres. Our entire core business is changing, slowly, but surely,” he says.

SAK is a colocation data centre provider and a fiber network provider based in Switzerland. Baumgärtner comes from a background in electrical engineering and working on connectivity as a manufacturer of cables and connectors. Quite literally, he knows the makeup of a data centre inside and out.

This provided Baumgärtner with an opportunity to grasp the major issues that each and

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every data centre provider must face when building a facility.

“Power and efficiency, heating and cooling,” he says. “There’s also security and agility. These really are the key issues and headaches for companies and operators of data centres.”

It was this understanding that brought SAK and Baumgärtner together as he could, at the very first step of designing a data centre, look at what would make an efficient and effective data centre.

“If you build a very efficient data centre, automatically you use less power and that helps the cooling problem. From the very start the goal was to build an efficient data centre, one that stands on the edge of the possibility for colocation data centres,” he says.

SAK is building a data centre with the aim of having a power usage effectiveness (PUE) below 1.2, and this meant that the company could achieve this through a free cooling concept, using low external air temperatures to assist in the cooling of water.

SAK partnered with a company

called Hoval and designed eight cooling machines to be used as part of the data centre.

“They are really huge – we designed our buildings around these cooling machines. Around a quarter of the building is used just for cooling,” says Baumgärtner.

The design of the build, centred around this cooling mechanism, significantly altered the design and build process.

“It made it more expensive in places, more difficult,” he says.

“But it also took away some of the complexity in cooling, such as water pipes that we no longer need.

Quite literally, you are never going to run out of air for the cooling.”

The culmination of these cooling elements provided SAK with freedom as the company had ultimately found a solution to one of the major problems right from the start. Looking at the energy usage perspective, SAK uses a fly wheel concept from Caterpillar, together with the company’s diesel engines. Flywheel energy storage uses a rotational system, which lowers in speed as energy

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SAK

“WHEN YOU FACTOR IN THE COMBINATION OF OUR ENERGY EFFICIENT BUILDING, MAKING OUR OWN POWER THROUGH SOLAR PANELS AND REUSING OUR HEAT THROUGH A THIRD PARTY, IT’S VERY UNIQUE. I DON’T KNOW ANY OTHER DATA CENTRE IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW DOING THIS” CHRISTOPH BAUMGÄRTNER, HEAD OF BUSINESS CUSTOMER SERVICES, SAK

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is extracted, to conserve energy.

Reversely, adding energy to system will increase that rotational speed.

“Through these flywheels, in 15 seconds we can have enough power to power the building before the diesel engines have even started,” he says.

“We are saving around a half of the energy that a battery would use.”

As a colocation data centre provider, SAK is ahead of the game.

The company is the only colocation data centre in East Switzerland, with the nearest colocation data centres being in the city of Zurich.

As the data centre market in Switzerland begins to set its sights on colocation, Baumgärtner is all too aware that for bigger companies, choosing a data centre in Zurich is the preferable choice. It is the smaller companies that SAK looks to work with.

“These smaller companies don’t want to drive to Zurich just to change a hard drive and maintain IT equipment,” he says. “That’s why we started with just a 900-sq. m area of white space, which in

essence is just a server room.”

That white space is part of the sell for SAK. As companies choose to work with SAK, the company will continue to sell its server space but leave 10% of that space spare. Why? So that when these existing customers look to expand, they can do so in their current data centre space and not pack up and seek a different location.

“Companies here can either restructure their entire IT infrastructure, or choose to build their own DC and outsource it to an IT company based in Zurich,” says Baumgärtner.

“Or they can run their own data centre in a very professional, local, colocation data centre. We could be that data centre.”

The other major issue for any data centre provider is efficiency. SAK set out to create an efficient data centre from the outset and other data centre providers struggle on this front. Most data centres are built and operating before the owners look to change that efficiency, which proves to be a challenge.

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SAK

“Redesigning that entire concept, in operation, is practically impossible,” says Baumgärtner.

“New data centres should take as much care as possible to prevent high power consumption in the beginning, so cooling efficiency and UPS efficiency, the most power consuming parts of the infrastructure must be taken care of.”

This is where SAK differentiates itself. The company has incorporated a number of solar panels to help with power generation. But this in

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itself is not enough, as solar panels experience peaks and dips – where will the power be coming from overnight?

“Solar power will assist with those peaks,” he says. “But for us we don’t only generate power through the heat we reuse, such as with the cheese factory. We use 100% natural electric power, from natural sources. We generate power through water.”

With a construction completion date set for August this year, and the implementation of the technical elements for November and an

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eye for the first customers to come early 2018, SAK looks ready to make its mark on the data centre industry.

“I believe we are the greenest for sure in Switzerland, but also in Europe,” he says.

“When you factor in the combination of our energy efficient building, making our own power through solar panels and reusing our heat through a third party, it’s unique. I don’t know any other data centre in the world right now doing this.”

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ONLINE SAFETY AT SEA WRITTEN BY: JAMES HENDERSON PRODUCED BY: ANDREW LLOYD

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Fred. Olsen’s UK Group Head of IT, Damon Impett, tells us how the company is upgrading its internet services and investing to stay ahead of the game when it comes to cyber security

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he job of an IT Director is hard enough at the best of times, especially when the organisation is working across a number of locations. But most will at least be able to rely on their points of interest being fixed. Not so at Fred. Olsen, where IT staff have to contend with offices that travel back and forth across the oceans.

The organisation has interests in a number of sectors including renewable energy, marine power, and wind technology. But it is with the company’s cruise business – offering travellers holidays at sea, from the snowy wilderness of the Arctic Circle to the white sand beaches of the Caribbean – where Damon Impett, Group Head of IT in the UK, and his team take on some of the toughest challenges.

One such example is the demands of cruise guests, who expect the

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same ultra-fast wifi speeds they enjoy at home to be replicated out at sea – and for free. That demand has seen Fred. Olsen invest in faster speeds on its ships with a view to implementing further improvements in the near future.

“Three years ago we were operating on about 800Kbps, covering the guest wifi and corporate productivity,” says Impett. “We recently upgraded to 3Mbps, which included a significant upgrade to our ships. We had to carry out a retrofit to all of our ships to enable fully-pervasive wifi throughout, involving around 56 miles of cabling and hundreds of access points (APs).

“While that upgrade was

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Speed to create one force To further ensure critical operations around the globe, Speedcast has now unified a leading team of over 1000 experts in 100 countries.

Combining our deep expertise, fast reliability and relentless passion, we always look to advance the industries and customers we serve through one defining force.

Speedcast. The Critical Communications Company.

THE CRITICAL COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY

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Communications

|

IT Solutions

|

Consulting

EUROPE

cases where there is additional capacity available on the satellites we are using.”

The capability of bouncing from one satellite technology to another taking advantage of extra capacity is an example of providers becoming more proactive, says Impett, adding that a number of new satellites are due for launch in 2017, with more to come in the following few years.

“I expect the overall cost for bandwidth to come down over Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines the next two or three annual guest turnover substantial, we years,” he comments. have just signed “I think we’re seeing a a contract with trend towards providers Speedcast to update that using their bandwidth more sensibly offering to 10Mbps per ship to offer and effectively than in the past. more - although, as all operators There is also new technology will know, it doesn’t matter how that will help us utilise C-band, much you increase your speeds by, Ku-band and cellular frequencies as customers will always take your automatically, all of which offer their offering to the limit. What we’ve got own advantages. All of this will help to try to be is a little bit smarter about us with the capacity that we need.” how we manage the networks.

The organisation has also invested “That 10Mbps is actually in the latest generation of behaviourexpandable to 20Mbps, in based software technology in a bid

100,000

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“I think we’re seeing a trend towards providers using their bandwidth more sensibly and effectively than in the past�

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to keep the ever present danger of cyber-attack at bay. The ‘Bitdefender’ product was chosen from a number of next-generation solutions after a “rigorous evaluation of all of the next-generation products that are available,” Impett reveals.

“It’s very easy to alter a piece of virus software to then be slightly different to get through defences, which is why next generational machine learning is key. It looks at a machine and recognises when something is not right or something unexpected happens. Traditional anti-virus technology is based on known viruses that can then be blocked, whereas on ‘Day Zero’, it has never been seen. The idea is that unexpected behaviours can be recognised and blocked until the purpose of that change is known.

“There is an inevitability when it comes to attacks; it will happen at some point. What is more important is how you can react and stop the spread across a network or networks. It’s about knowing that you can halt the problem at an end point and ensure it doesn’t spread any further. If you take the recent spate of global cyber-attacks, the problem – apart from the outdated software – was that they struggled to limit the attack, so it spread quickly across the network. It’s also about knowing what has been lost, and how information can be recovered.”

The investment adds to the outlay spent on ‘Nexthink’ earlier this year, which allows Impett and his wider team to monitor all end-user machines

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across the group, helping to flag up issues in real time. It is, he says, all part of the ongoing effort to keep the organisation’s network and devices as secure as they can possibly be.

Impett also oversees a hybrid system where some of Fred. Olsen’s systems, programmes and processes are held in the cloud, while others are on premise, although he believes it is inevitable that more and more organisations will have to migrate

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to the cloud, as the likes of Microsoft price their services at a point where customers have to make the jump.

While advancements in technology have brought some challenges, Impett says that developments such as the Internet of Things will be embraced by the business in the years to come. “We are looking at smart cabin capabilities, from being able to switch off lights to controlling the air conditioning. One of the biggest

S U P P LY Damon Impett

CHAIN

UK Group Head of IT challenges with a cruise ship is the fuel we burn, so being able to be more intelligent with utilities, such as air conditioning is a really important issue. If we can look to use software, to connect customers with their rooms and control air conditioning, lighting and other services, that’s going to really help us reduce our footprint. Any ships we go on to invest in will likely have those capabilities.”

Damon Impett was appointed UK Group Head of IT on 1st June 2013.

Impett joined Fred Olsen Ltd as the only Computer Projects Manager in 1999 and started to encourage the notion of ‘business solution’ design and development, probably now better recognised as digital transformation. In 2010 promoted to Business Solutions Manager, he managed a small team of solutions development specialists, nurturing growth and innovation through an ‘anything is possible’ approach. Impett is a strong believer in identifying potential talent that fits the role/team, rather than obsessing over qualifications, preferring to focus on cultivating, training and mentoring to get the very best from individuals.

From 2013, Impett has overseen a complete overhaul of the UK systems at Fred. Olsen from the network foundation through to the communications backbone and legacy business applications. In the fast-paced world of IT this work is an ever evolving process and is a challenge Impett and the team at Fred. Olsen thrive to excel in. w w w. f re d o l s e n . c o . u k

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Keeping the customer close to the heart Written by: Dale Benton Produced by: Danielle Harris

PLUSNET HAS CONTINUED TO DELIVER CUSTOMER FOCUSED SERVICE OFFERINGS. FOLLOWING AN AWARD WINNING 2016 AND WITH AN EXPANDED PORTFOLIO, THE COMPANY LOOKS SET TO REACH NEW HEIGHTS.

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lusnet has a simple goal: to think and act differently from other communications providers, to save customers money and to provide unrivalled customer service. It’s unsurprising then that the company brand promise of “We’ll do you proud” is at the forefront of its business strategy.

Coming off the back of an extremely successful 2016, including an impressive 21 award wins and the launch of Plusnet Mobile which firmly established the provider as a quadplay contender, David Leather, Chief Operating Officer at Plusnet, is keen for the company to continue momentum.

“The last year has been really strong for Plusnet and the launch of Plusnet Mobile was a particular highlight for the whole company,” he says. “I’m eager that we continue to push ahead and achieve even more this year.”

For Leather and Plusnet, the

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company must continue to scale and develop its offering in order to continue to meet and exceed the demands of its customers.

Astronomical change The challenge for Leather lies in that development.

“Customer expectations have changed astronomically with regards to product performance, the usage of those products and what customers expect in relation to the money they are spending,” he says.

“As an industry, we have a long way to go to match those expectations, and I think the danger for us is that that is where the benchmark is.”

Leather believes that the needs of the customer should form the basis of any improvements the company makes and is part of the company’s strategy for scaling its services and capabilities.

“Being a smaller company

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FROM STRATEGY TO EXECUTION: DRIVING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION WITH PLUSNET It’s really important that we build strong partnerships with our suppliers who are as passionate about customer experience as we are. Working with Virtusa we have a partner who thinks the same way, starting with the customer intent and working back from that point” David Leather COO, Plusnet

Our business relationship with Plusnet goes back 10 years. Since then, we have worked on significant programmes of work to streamline operations and optimise costs in areas such as Network Assurance and White Labelling Platforms. Our expertise in working with our customers to create streamlined platforms with reduced complexity and cost of operations has been a cornerstone of our work together.

In 2015, our Pegasystems practice started working with Plusnet to transform the way billing systems were operating. That work focussed on providing a superior user experience for both customers and customer services agents. Since then, our teams have worked on automating provisioning and building a world class model for helping Plusnet customers when they have a service problem. Using the Pegasystems platform, we created a seamless multi-channel journey where customers would, by responding to questions about their problem, trigger sophisticated diagnostic tooling at BT Wholesale in real time to rapidly resolve faults. Meeting the business need to manage and change both the digital assets and the diagnostic journey without IT support was also straight forward using the Pega platform.

More recently, our teams have engaged on strategic innovation projects such as the end to end customer experience re-design and a simplified CRM system to enable customer services teams to focus on customer engagement, providing even better service more quickly. At the heart of the working relationship between the two companies is the recognition that competency already exists in Plusnet to carry out many improvement projects. Those skills and competencies need support and growth during business improvement initiatives and so teams are frequently formed from Virtusa, blended with core business and technology functions at Plusnet.

There is an uncompromising and determined culture at Plusnet to do the very best for all their customers and to embrace contact, that culture is shared and visible right from the top of the organisation. We are all proud to work with a multi award winning brand to relentlessly deliver the best possible customer service.

Learn how Virtusa can help transform your business at: www.virtusa.com

Operationalise

Keeping customers happy means being proactive. Pega empowers you to transform the customer experience – reducing churn, increasing lifetime value and maximising satisfaction every step of the way.

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TECHNOLOGY

makes you think differently in order to compete with big corporate businesses,” he adds.

Customer centric Despite its successes, totalling 21 awards throughout 2016, Plusnet is very much undergoing a journey about understanding and continuing to put the customer at the forefront of everything it does. In order to grow in line with customer demand, the company invests heavily in research insights, sentiment analysis and customer feedback.

Leather wants to understand what the customer is actually saying about the company.

“In my view, customer experience is a feeling.

It’s hard to measure and not just a number,” he says.

Plusnet is on a mission to redefine its customer service and ask one simple question: is that in the best interest of the customer?

“Contact is not a bad thing. It’s an opportunity for us to fix things and better serve our customers,” he says.

“If they want to contact us, then let’s make it as easy as possible for them. Why make it harder?”

It is through this approach that Plusnet works to three main principles of customer management.

The need to get personal In order to better serve customers, Plusnet must understand who they are, what products they have and what events are happening within their lifecycle with the company.

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“There’s a balance to be had in keeping customer validation both secure yet simple. People don’t want to jump through hoop after hoop in order for us to help understand their problem however we also need to keep our customer data protected as an absolute priority,” adds Leather.

Technology will play a major role in this situation, with Plusnet using information and technology to make

information to video self-help information. Mobile and the customer is a transformation that will only continue to get bigger,” he comments.

On your time A major challenge with customer service has been the inability to separate a customer in need of immediate support from a customer who is just making an

“Mobile and the customer is a transformation that will only continue to get bigger” decisions quickly and to provide better support to the customer.

On the move The second principle is the response to the proliferation of mobile and smart phones. Leather admits that Plusnet must recognise that the way to get through to this generation of customer is through mobile.

“It could be everything from rendering web pages, simplified

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enquiry. Ultimately, both customer types will need to queue for the same amount of time.

“This isn’t consistent with the way we operate in everyday life. We require information on the move, so why should we make people pause everything to obtain the information they need?” he says.

The three principles of customer management represent the customerfirst nature of Plusnet. It all serves to

With the power of true partnership, Capita helps Plusnet brings its customer promise to life.

Phil Hoggarth, Director of Divisional Trading Capita Customer Management

Capita Customer Management has had a strong presence in the telecoms customer service market for more than four decades, and so our growing relationship with Plusnet could be seen as relatively young.

But what began in 2015 as a short-term contract to help deliver customer service agents at a time of growth for Plusnet has rapidly evolved into a true transformational partnership.

Growing to around 100 insourced customer service agents, Capita’s focus has been to help enhance and transform Plusnet’s customer experience and the results have been speaking for themselves. In fact, the team at Capita have been continuously exceeding benchmark targets set by Plusnet by 15-30%. This ‘champion challenger’ model has proved hugely successful in unifying staff and ensuring customers are getting an enhanced service.

Crucially, we aim for real integration with our clients’ teams, so there is no operational difference between a Capita agent and their Plusnet colleagues.

All the agents work to the same targets and KPIs – set by Plusnet – and we use the same communications, incentivisation and management across all contact centre staff. There can often be a worry that insourcing can result in a ‘them and us’ culture among staff – Capita works hard with all its customers to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

“Collaboration and communication are key to Capita’s partnership with Plusnet. We are not reinventing the wheel, but getting more of the basics right, and we are always talking with the client to ensure the insourced team is an extension of their own team”, says Capita’s Director of Divisional Trading – Phil Hoggarth.

“We have placed a great deal of value on engagement at all levels of the partnership, from the agents up, and we regularly share feedback and best practice across all aspects of the transformation,” “Not only are we now in a position where Plusnet trusts Capita with their customers, we are working with Plusnet to leverage Capita’s extensive experience and depth of capabilities in customer management solutions to drive better customer interactions.”

“We do this by bringing our best practice to the partnership on how best to design and build and deploy optimal digital communications channels including mobile applications, social media, and webchat amongst others.”

Plusnet will undoubtedly continue to build on the growth it has experienced over the past 12 months and Capita is excited to be working handin-hand with our client to ensure that together, we deliver best-in-class service for both new and existing customers.

Learn more about how we could support your transformational journey at www.capitacustomermanagement.co.uk

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one single philosophy; how can the company make it easier for the customer to get the service they need?

Plusnet Mobile With the launch of Plusnet Mobile in November 2016, the company made the move into becoming a full-service quad-play provider.

Plusnet Mobile has built on the company’s ongoing commitment to offer customers great value deals without compromising on the excellent service the brand is famous for. The Plusnet Mobile network offers a range of tariffs, combining generous data, minutes and text bundles at great prices.

“Customers have responded incredibly well to our latest offering proving that there is definitely an appetite for it,” Leather expanded.

Future foundations Over the last 12 months, Plusnet has gone from strength to strength and while Leather admits that there is still a large amount of work ahead for the company, he fully believes that Plusnet stands in the perfect position to continue to deliver market leading service to its customers.

“Right now, I feel Plusnet stands at the forefront of innovatively thinking as to how we support customers. We are very much focused around customer expectation and customer need,” he says. “I hope we will continue to be recognised as number one in our industry for customer experience and service, but also recognised on a wider industry forum for our offering.” w w w. p l u s . n e t

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Ready for a data growth Written by: John O’Hanlon Produced by: Danielle Harris

TELEFÓNICA GERMANY

Telefónica Deutschland, having outsourced its day to day network management, is taking steps to outstrip its rivals through proactive customer service. The company will know if there’s a problem, and will come up with a fix or an explanation before the network user even knows about it

S

ince it entered the German market in 2005 with the acquisition of the O2, Telefónica has become one of the three leading integrated telecommunications providers in Germany. In the mobile segment alone, Telefónica Deutschland is the market leader. In 2014 Telefónica Deutschland acquired E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH. Now the company is working on a simplified management structure across Telefónica Deutschland’s entire mobile access, core and fixed network operations.

Quality monitoring and surveillance this extensive network has been the responsibility of Marcus Thurand, VP of Network Operations since 2013, but his job has evolved almost out of recognition. The networks not only have to be reliable; they have to be smart enough to cope with a new era of communications. As the CEO Markus Haas pointed out in March at CeBIT,

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Marcus Thurand VP of Network Operations

building a better connected world Huawei Technologies is one of the world’s leading providers of information technology and telecommunication solutions. More than a third of the world’s population and more than half of the German population use Huawei technology directly or indirectly. Headquartered in Shenzhen, China, the company has 180,000 employees and operates in 170 countries with its three business units, Carrier Network, Enterprise Business and Consumer Business. Huawei employs 79,000 people in research and development, and operates 16 research and development clusters worldwide, as well as 28 partnerships with partners. Huawei has been operating in Germany since 2001 and employs over 2000 people at 18 locations. The headquarters of the European Research Center of Huawei is located in Munich.

TELEFÓNICA GERMANY

Hannover: “Due to the continuous progress of network technology, I have unlimited possibilities of using digital means to make life easier. Regarding the internet of things, we will see an enormous growth in connecting devices via Narrowband IoT. For instance electricity and water meters. Also with applications for consumer the internet of things will open entirely new dimensions in core areas such as mobility and health. This can only be beneficial for all of us.

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In order to meet all the increasing requirements the network has to be very resilient. Thurand and his team look after the 24-hour surveillance of the entire network, as well as configuration and integration and all new hardware and software affecting it, and providing network support to large business customers.

His department’s emphasis has radically shifted with the setting up of a new Service Operations Centre.

The company brought in Accenture to help define the shape of the

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innovative network organisation and the process of transitioning from the former model to the new SOC organisation. Launched on April 16 2017, the Munich-based centre has its own premises and staff. Its very existence shows how significant both perspectives are.

The customer engagement is as much important as the inwardlooking network management, he says. “These days we’re looking at the network not only from a technical point of view but stronger

from the user experience by trying to understand what the customers are really doing with our services.”

The Service Operations Centre uses custom built software. The system technology is mainly made available by long-time Telefónica partner Huawei. “Using this software we are able to look into the customer experience from interactions on the network and assess whether it was good or not,” says Thurand.

We all know that checking out a YouTube clip, for example, can be a

“These days we’re looking at the network not so much from a technical point of view as trying to understand what the customers are really doing with our services”

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Š 2017 Accenture. All rights reserved.

CAST A WIDER NETWORK

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Munich The regional HQ of Telefónica Germany

very different experience. Sometimes it’s perfect, sometimes it stalls or distorts. We are unlikely to know why, but now Telefónica can tell us.

“We aggregate anonymous user experiences to see whether certain services in a certain region are behaving well or poorly and deduce whether we can do something about that and help the customer have a better experience,” Thurand explains.

This is just a starting point. The next step is to use the information to interact with the customer.

“Perhaps a customer had a bad experience from our data service for example, and wants to complain,” Thurand continues. “We can provide information up-front to customer service, tell them the performance in an application was not as it should be and there really was something at fault in the network. In that case we can work out with customer service any incentives we can give the customer in compensation.

Going further we can be even more proactive because we already know about the issue. If the customer complains, we can tell them we’re

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“Using Huawei’s software we are able to look into the customer experience from interactions on the network and assess whether it was good or not”

Telefonica Puts Customers First Via Datameer “IP networks and services create major challenges to measuring the true customer experience. Datameer broke down the data and analytic barriers, letting us find insights faster to ensure we deliver the utmost experience and best services for our customers.”

Marcus Thurand, VP Network Operations, Telefonica Germany

At Telefonica, creating a “customer first” atmosphere required a cultural change of fostering new ideas through data. This required a nimble analytics platform that could bridge customer and network data, and democratize that data across the company for rapid data discovery. Telefonica partnered with Datameer to create an analytics environment that broke down silos of information for

Results Improved customer experience based on data-driven insights

customer and operational insights. Through Datameer, Telefonica generates new ideas to continuously deliver better networks and services for their customers.

Over 20 use cases discovered and acted on

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Using Datameer, organizations like Telefonica deliver insights in hours instead of months and operationalize them rapidly, increasing business agility and market responsiveness.

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Single view of customer and network data achieved

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aware the service was not good on run applications on systems with that occasion and suggest what thousands of commodity hardware we can do to make it better.” nodes, and to handle thousands of The new organisation shifts terabytes of data, means it can not Telefónica’s focus away from only manage the requirements of the purely technical, bringing Telefónica’s existing network but customers into the discussion potentially the exponential increase from the standpoint of what they that will result for the growth of IoT as are really doing foreseen by Mr Haas. with the network Currently Marcus and experiencing Thurand and his it. No out-ofteam are engaged in the-box software analysing anonymous could do what was customers’ activity needed, so over a such as browsing, 12 month period a file downloading new platform was and uploading and The year Telefónica developed with popular applications Germany was Huawei. It’s so much like WhatsApp founded more than a matter and YouTube. “We of simply trawling for started in April and information. A key part of the mix is we need to see what applications advanced analytics that will extract our customers are using, and trying more information from the big data. to bring new applications such The Huawei software is built around as mytaxi which are very German a Hadoop cluster, a framework market specific. The idea is to that supports the processing and measure whether the app is working storage of extremely large data well for customer groups, provide sets in a distributed computing feedback to these groups and offer environment. Hadoop’s ability to help if we detect a problem.”

2005

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Once the system has been trialled for a reasonable period, he would like to collaborate with the companies that make the apps people access on the network. “In the future I’d like to have service level agreements (SLAs) with these companies and agree on certain key performance indicators (KPIs). After all we must surely collaborate to give the best service to our mutual customers. When we find a problem then we could call them, or they us, and say there is an issue.”

Perhaps surprisingly, this sort of cooperation is rare between network service providers and large software developers such as Google. “But why not start now?” Thurand says.

Telefónica Deutschland is the first group company to roll out this software. By correlating customer behaviour, customer complaints and customer churn it can help identify regional anomalies like poor data throughput, cut the numbers switching away and encouraging more to switch to Telefónica. “But we don’t just want them to stay,” says Thurand, “we want to get new customers on board and let them

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see the value we can give to them.

It started with my organisation at network operations but we are going to involve customer service, marketing, communications, and other departments. We want to roll it out into different areas of the company so we can all use this information we are now getting about our customer’s real-world experience.”

It’s been a busy year for Marcus Thurand and his team, who have had to expand their centre of attention from the system to its users. “We are investing a lot in the change management and training so employees have a better understanding of their future role,” he continues. “It has also been a challenge to set up the software, which for every single interaction on the network has to analyse and put an evaluation marker on it – assessing it, noting any problems and their severity and where they originate.”

Customers will quickly see the benefits in the form of fast responses to problems, even ones they may not

Customer Experience Assurance Empirix is the recognized leader in delivering solutions to optimize customer experiences. Using technologies for monitoring and analytics, Empirix empowers organizations to overcome challenges and promote informed decision making. We help clients around the world redefine their mobile business by accelerating new business models, improving customer loyalty, reducing operational costs, increasing revenues, and providing a holistic view of subscribers and devices.

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have been aware of. In a business with so many employees it can be harder to spot problems. The SLAs Telefónica has with customers may be comfortably achieved, yet small groups, senior executives or frequently travelling salespeople for example, may still have problems.

“With the new tools, we can quickly break down the macro information and see where problems lurk. That gives us the opportunity to revisit the SLAs and provide these customers with a better level of service.”

Thurand remains confident that the system will yield benefits in customer satisfaction, retention and acquisition as well as fitting Telefónica’s network for the exponential data growth that will come when everyone’s refrigerator is jostling for bandwidth.

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Surf’n’Fries: riding the wave to franchisee success Written by: Dale Benton Produced by: Ryan Day

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Surf’n’Fries successfully reinvented the fries market in small town Croatia and through drive, innovation and enthusiasm, looks to deliver continued success in markets all across the globe

I

t could be argued that any attempt to create a new and innovative way of consuming fries could be seen as trying to reinvent the wheel. Fries have been consumed in essentially the same way throughout history, but in 2008 the little-known Croatian based Surf’n’Fries set out to do exactly that, completely reinventing the way we eat fries through innovation, drive and unrivalled enthusiasm.

For Andrija Colak, Co-Founder of Surf’n’Fries, the first step was to solve what he described as an age-old problem – the boring, and impractical, old packaging “The old school fries are often sold in a paper cone, or even a flat tray with the fries sitting on top,” he says.

“Any sauces that you would elect to put on would sit on top of that first layer of fries, meaning the bottom layers would be without.”

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create an incredibly unique, but equal parts simple, solution. This new packaging could hold not only your fries, but multiple tubs of sauce as well as two drinks.

Simple, and incredibly effective.

This was a design choice that sat perfectly with the new millennial generation of consumers, ones who are very much on the go.

The packaging also represents the purest form of marketing that any company would die for.

“People stop and see people walking down the street eating fries in our innovative packaging and they immediately want to find out more,” he says.

A brave new world With an innovative packaging solution, it was time to build a

FOOD & DRINK

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McCain Fry’ n’ Dip fries.

GIVE A TWIST TO YOUR MENU. Half-pipe shape perfect for dipping.

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Soft potato inside

Thin crispy edges

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“We didn’t plan to franchise, but with the level of interest we needed a solution” store front. The very first Surf’n’Fries store was built in Colak’s home town of Rijeka, a mere 27 square meters.

There were initial doubts from the wider market, Rijeka is only a small town in a relatively small country how could it possibly tap into, let alone reinvent, the multibillion global QSR Market?

Colak saw almost immediate success for the store (to the tune of an average of 1,000 transactions per day).

Within less than a year, the Surf’n’Fries tale was in full swing, with Colak already laying down the foundations of becoming an unrivalled franchisor.

“We generated a lot of interest from tourists in Croatia, wanting to open their own Surf’n’Fries in their home countries,” says Colak.

“We didn’t plan to franchise, but with the level of interest we needed a solution. This is where the franchise of Surf’n’Fries was born.”

Before success though, came challenges.

An innate challenge for Colak was born out of his roots in Croatia.

“It’s challenging to grow international business from Croatia.

You have to prove yourself and build international credibility.”

Just 12 months after opening the first Surf’n’Fries store in Rijeka, the franchise concept cemented itself within the capital, Zagreb, and in a surprise to no one customers craved the signature taste and feel of Surf’n’Fries.

SURF N FRIES

Surf’n’Fries developed its franchise concept further and fully embraced the tourism market of Croatia, creating the very first Surf’n’fries Mobile concept in 2009.

This versatile bitesize rendition of Surf’n’Fries was placed along the beaches of Croatia and became an overnight success.

The Surf‘n’Fries Mobile asset continues to be the most successful concept, which is no small feat considering it is the smallest point of sale for fries across the whole company.

Naturally, the tourism boom of Croatia generated even more interest in adopting the Surf‘n’Fries Mobile and in 2011, Surf’n’Fries had landed Austria, Germany and Ireland.

Germany in particular has been an incredibly successful base of operations, with the festival and sports event market.

In just a few years that small store front in Croatia was making waves up and down the country, and riding that wave of success into new and uncharted markets.

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Making waves As we speak, the delicious taste of Surf’n’Fries is being enjoyed in 15 countries and around 60 stores throughout the world.

“People would see it in Croatia and want it in their own countries,” says Colak.

And want it they did.

The German franchisee, through Surf’n’Fries Mobile, recently sold 1,142 portions in one 90-minute soccer game.

Proving that through innovative concepts, and a really great product, Surf’n’Fries could tap into any market.

“Germany is quite literally kicking ass on that front,” beams Colak.

This incredible response saw Surf’n’Fries develop new concepts, the Surf’n’Fries Trailer and the ShopinShop Concept.

“The ShopinShop Concept is ideal for the German franchisee. Their core business is in gas stations, with a lot of people heading to gas stations for lunch. This concept slots perfectly into these gas stations, and into the lifestyle of German consumers,” says Colak.

With plans to expand even further

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into Dubai and more recently Russia, one could argue that Surf’n’Fries is a sure fire hit wherever it lands, but Colak stresses the challenge in franchising.

“At the beginning, you find yourself saying yes to everyone, but its only later that problems emerge that can compromise the entire brand.”

One such example that Colak cites as franchisee in Turkey. The entire concept of Surf’n’Fries is consuming food on the go, but this clashed with the cultural differences of Turkey and the franchisee simply did not work.

“We will probably endure more challenges in the future, but it’s important as a business to experience them and become a better business in the long run.”

Whatever challenges that will come its way, Surf’n’Fries continues to make its mark in markets all over the world.

Markets, that you wouldn’t immediately think of when it comes to French fries.

“Some of the countries we are operating in, some of the craziest ones were certainly Vietnam and Iran. Which is something I’d never dreamed of back in Rijeka.”

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Guidance from above As a franchisor, Colak plays a key role at the beginning of a new franchise, overseeing quality control with regards to overseeing the direction of the franchisee. This is a position that sees initial training, verification of location and guidance with regards to rent and supply costs, before backing off and allowing the franchisee to grow.

“The company will support them in terms of promotion of new products or incorporating new technologies, as well as quality control through mystery shopping,” says Colak.

“It’s not about imposing what

“It’s not about imposing what we think is right, but welcoming opinions as to what they want and the customers want” – Andrija Colak, Co-Founder

FOOD & DRINK

we think is right, but welcoming opinions as to what they want and the customers want,” he says.

“We don’t want to have the same Surf’n’Fries in every country in every market. We want to be different and blend into local markets.”

Targeting a millennial market requires an eye for technology and innovation.

As more and more people are consuming products on the go, Surf ‘n’ Fries has had to respond to the ever-growing role of technology in the modern world, and think outside of the box.

Across the food industry, health

issues represent a major obstacle, one that all food companies are trying to overcome. For Surf’n’Fries, reinventing fries didn’t stop with reinventing the packaging.

“Around 2/3 years ago, we had our first concept store that actually makes fries and our chicken and mozzarella sticks, all without a drop of oil,” he says.

This truly innovative technology that uses hot air to fry the products and will play a significant role in reducing the health issues of the food industry.

This is only one example, with Colak stressing that innovation and creativity is really the secret to the

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recipe of the company’s success.

“As a company, we definitely emphasise innovation and creativity, as these really are the two things that have kept us afloat,” says Colak.

You say potato Rolling back the clocks to 2008, with a small store in Rijeka and no idea as to the unbelievable success story that was about to happen. Colak was approached by a representative of McCain, one of the world’s largest manufacturer of French fries products, to bring together the drive of Surf’n’Fries with the experienced hand of McCain.

For Colak, McCain married perfectly with one simple element of Surf’n’Fries offering, dipping sauce.

“You have to be lucky, because this product is very special and is suited for scooping the sauces. So, this potato is perfect to realise that,” he says.

“On the other hand, people say it’s so smart your chips are shaped like a surfboard – this wasn’t planned, it was purely coincidental.”

McCain has paved the way for Surf’n’Fries growth across

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the world, with factories in 56 countries and locations.

“They really have been our biggest supporters and it helps us have the same quality product, anywhere in the world.

The only way is up For Colak, it really has been wave after wave of success for Surf‘n’Fries and the company certainly shows no signs of slowing down.

With the aforementioned store openings in Russia and Dubai, Colak has his eyes set on further expansion into South Africa and the U.S, something of a longterm goal for the company.

“We were actually recognised by the International Franchise Association, which meant the world to us. Those are some of the biggest movers and shakers in the food industry recognising our small company from Croatia,” he says.

“It shows we have the capability to enter that market and really cement our presence and it is something I hope we can achieve over the next few years.”

FOOD & DRINK

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