Cisco has announced that it has signed a three-year managed services agreement with the Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and to deliver the full functionality of a Service Provider-grade Network Operating Center (NOC).
A major focus of STC’s business strategy has always been to meet the needs and expectations of its customers in various business sectors. Expanding and maintaining the Broadband Data Services portfolio is one of the key initiatives by which STC aims to deliver the highest possible levels of network availability, performance, security and resilience.
According to Cisco, the key goal of this agreement will be to dramatically transform STC’s customers’ experience by maintaining very aggressive levels of performance (SLAs and KPIs) with a clear emphasis on staying ahead of the market whilst also delivering the results that serve as STC’s main business drivers.
Mohammed Alabbadi, general manager, Cisco Saudi Arabia, said: “By switching to Managed Services for value-added IP-based services, STC will see benefits in four primary areas in which they can realize savings namely traditional service fees, hardware, IT costs, and transport. An organization like STC will immediately be able to reduce service fees by 49 percent; IT costs by 21 percent, hardware costs by 20 percent, and transport costs by 10 percent after adopting Cisco Managed Service. These savings can then be passed on to STC customers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia thereby ensuring satisfaction all round.”
Cisco Managed services will deliver comprehensive, higher-quality IT services for STC resulting in a managed network that is larger and more robust, leading to greater reliability and availability, with service-level agreements (SLAs) promising up to 99.999% availability.
Abdullah A. Alzmame, Network VP at STC, added: “Contracting Cisco for Managed Services will enable STC to reduce or reallocate IT resources, relieving our highly skilled, expensive staff of routine tasks such as monitoring routers, responding to help-desk inquiries, and resolving user problems. The result will be increased IT staff productivity enabling STC staff to focus on strategic projects thereby improving service quality, enabling employee mobility, and integrating new technology-all proven productivity-enhancing services. The agreement represents a major milestone for both STC and Cisco that will undoubtedly help STC maintain its leadership position by delivering best possible network performance”
