BT Advise Connect Delivering intelligent network capability around the globe

BT Connect IQ Quick Start

BT Advise

BT Connect IQ Quick StartIn today’s complex market, the network and delivery of network services are increasingly critical to the efficient running of any business. This requires them to be more intelligent than ever before to cope with the ever changing and unbalanced world we operate in.

By intelligent we mean that networks must support business processes and objectives intuitively and instantly adapt to new circumstances and demands. They must be aware of threats, be sustainable in minimising an organisation’s carbon footprint and be ingeniously simple to operate, despite dealing with complexity.

Our intelligent network capabilities balance flawless performance, resilience and value for money to help you align your technological requirements with your business strategy and objectives.

Incremental traffic will force the rethinking of the network to meet tomorrow’s needs – that of an intelligent, secure, network that excels in application performance.” IDC, Top 10 predictions, World Enterprise Networking 2012 Top 10 predictions, February 2012

More than just technologyThe solution isn’t just about introducing new technology though. The first step is to establish your intelligent network vision by engaging with the experts that can help you realise it. Only then can you start thinking about the technology your network needs to meet your changing business requirements.

That’s exactly what BT Advise Connect can help you do.

BT Advise Connect is a global team of 400 professional services experts, with decades of broad industry experience and the deep technical expertise that will ensure that your network meets the growing needs of your business. Using our unique insight, analysis tools and industry leading technology partners to assess your existing infrastructure, we can help you develop your intelligent network strategy, implement improvements and provide you with the platform you need to deliver optimum worldwide service.

We are part of BT Advise Connect - our larger global professional services practice employing more than 4,500 experts drawn from a wide range of backgrounds who use their specific industry experience and knowledge to drive businesses towards network intelligence. Our team includes more than 1,400 ITIL-accredited personnel, 2,000 Cisco, 950 Microsoft, and approximately 900 Avaya certified employees.

Did you know?Sales conversion increases by 74 per cent when average page load times drop from eight seconds to two seconds.*

(*Based on analysis of 30 major retailers using BT web monitoring platform with 10 million or more page views)

Did you know?Our BT Connect Optimisation service can identify what traffic is using a TCP or UDP port, and use this information to alter its priority on the network. At times of network congestion, business-critical applications can be guaranteed the access they require while less important activities are slowed down.

Did you know?An average network attack costs $470,000 due to endpoint remediation and lost data; 144,000 malicious files are detected each day - that’s 4.3 million per month; even a tiny percentage of those succeeding result in major economic loss.*

(*Security Best Practices Survey)

How intelligent is your network?Our approach is customised to your individual circumstances using a number of strategic planning and assessment techniques to derive what you need to make your network more intelligent. There are two main routes you can take to understanding your network’s maturity and readiness for change.

Our BT Connect IQ eValuator is a short, complimentary assessment of your network and is a great starting point to understanding your network IQ.

You can also engage immediately in our fee-based BT Connect IQ Quick Start - to gain an in-depth analysis of your network with detailed improvement recommendations.

An intelligent network can help an organisation come to grips with the multifarious challenges to efficient and effective IT delivery in a world where content and access within the enterprise are being “democratised.”Ovum, The Intelligent Network and the Future of the CIO - A smarter network will enable smarter IT, December 2011

BT Connect IQ eValuatorThe BT Connect IQ eValuator involves a discussion with your account manager, a network specialist and your CIO or IT director to gain an understanding of three key areas: security, performance and business integration.

The IQ eValuator is designed to help you understand how intelligent your network currently is and how intelligent it could be if you were to make a few changes. The process takes around one hour to complete, and results in recommendations of next steps you could take to improve the business value your network delivers.

Depending on your current IQ your account manager may suggest that you’d benefit from our BT Connect IQ Quick Start programme, or one of the other Quick Starts in our portfolio. These assessments are designed to provide you with the information you need to support your network development decisions well into the future.

Find out if a BT Connect IQ eValuator is right for you - speak with your account manager or register at www.bt.com/btconnect/iq for your free BT Connect IQ eValuator assessment.

BT Connect IQ Quick StartUnderstanding your network and how it aligns with your business strategy and objectives is central to our approach. Through detailed questioning and stakeholder meetings our consultants will provide you with a detailed analysis of your current network status – both perceived and reality - and how it aligns with your business objectives.

This Quick Start is a fee-based service conducted by our global business and network consultants, which takes 10 to 15 days to complete. It covers performance and security at a high-level, with a more intense focus on business integration.

The data we capture helps us provide you with a comprehensive analysis of your network and change recommendations that will deliver real business value, highlighting the challenges you face across the following areas:

• business integration – how well is your network is aligned to the needs of your business?

• performance – how efficient is the performance of your network?

• security – how vulnerable is your network?

• network – develop a deeper dive understanding of your network?

We also understand that you want choice when it comes to selecting the technology and vendors you use. As a multi-vendor consultancy, we have strategic alliances with many technology industry leaders including Cisco, Compuware, Huawei, Ipanema Technologies and Riverbed. These relationships assist us in recommending the best solutions to meet your needs.

BT Connect IQ eValuator outcomes:

Next step: Security professional services engagement

Next step: BT Connect Applications professional services engagement

Next step: BT Connect IQ Quick Start

Each circle below highlights in red the dominant issues that may be returned from the eValuator. Circles one and two highlight only one problem area indicating that a very specific security or BT Connect Applications professional services engagement is required. Circle three however shows issues in all three areas indicating the need for a BT Connect IQ Quick Start.

The process

Step one - focus and prioritiesAn initial meeting will take place with your CIO or key sponsor to establish the business objectives, priorities and success criteria. We will also review any output from the IQ eValuator.

Step two – stakeholder review meetingA review meeting will then be held with key stakeholders based on the output from the CIO review. This meeting will involve IT and network-specific representatives, including head of networks, IT, network and strategy directors.

The meeting will explore the challenges being faced across the organisation, the current situation and your business objectives. This session will give us a balanced view of your IT, operational and business functions, and the consolidated output will be used to match the requirements of your business against your current technological infrastructure.

Step three - data captureInformation will be captured in the following ways:

• documentation reviews

• questionnaires

• face-to-face interviews and workshops.

Representatives from various functional units will be involved to ensure that the final report includes views and data from across the business.

Step four – analysis and recommendationsThe ultimate aim of any Quick Start engagement is to identify efficiencies and deliver recommendations for specific performance improvements. The outcome of every Quick Start is different; you will receive a baseline view of your current network environment with improvement recommendations. Depending on our findings we will also provide you with high-level strategic and network transformation recommendations where appropriate.

Your final report will include:

• an assessment of your organisation’s strengths and weaknesses; an outline of what you’ve told us is important to your business, and we’ll highlight areas of opportunity identified by our consultants

• graphical representations, like the ones opposite, to show your performance against assessment areas

• network improvement recommendations

• clear benefits to your business in implementing our recommendations.

Example:

Diagram (a) illustrates the importance of a series of technical strategies to this particular business, and in comparison diagram (b) shows the current status of their network infrastructure against these strategic objectives. From this you can see that capacity planning is strategically important, and yet the current status is scoring below 1. As such there is a disconnect that needs to be addressed through the Quick Start engagement.

Diagram (a)

Diagram (b)

Importance

Network design

The value of Quick StartThe benefits of engaging with our consultants to understand your network intelligence include:

• improved decision-making – providing you with all the information you need to make informed decisions about your network and network services

• cost control – highlighting where consolidation of your network infrastructure and suppliers will have a positive financial impact on your business

• increased productivity – identifying the network design bottlenecks that are impacting your business

• performance improvement – enabling you to prioritise your network traffic in line with demand.

An intelligent network has the capability to address mixed end-user and customer requirements and manage traffic across a heterogeneous set of access points and underlying transport bearers.”Ovum, The Intelligent Network and the Future of the CIO - A smarter network will enable smarter IT, December 2011

What next?

To talk about your individual journey to network intelligence get in touch with your account manager, who can advise you on the BT Connect IQ eValuator and BT Connect Quick Start. Alternatively visit www.bt.com/btadvise for more information.

Why BT?• Our combination of network professional services and industry

expertise mean that we can support the needs of any business

• We can give you the investment advice that will support your business goals and help you measure results

• We’ll take an independent view of your needs to offer the best solution. Our global capabilities and network of trusted partners allows us to provide you with the unique solutions you need, but with the advantage of a single, trusted supplier

• Our continued investment in our next-generation network and BT Connect portfolio, including BT Advise Connect and our BT Advise Connect applications value-added services, sets us apart in the industry to deliver the full mix of network services you need

• We’re very proud of the excellent service that we offer, and this has been recognised by the World Communication Awards, which named us ‘Best Global Operator’ for the second year in a row in 2011.

About the BT Quick Start seriesBT’s Quick Starts are concise, consultant-led engagements focused on key services and technologies that are critically important today. These services and technologies combine to form a wider infrastructure model, each of which represents significant advances and long-term efficiency for the organisations that deploy them. The Quick Starts can be used as an integral part of an organisation’s roadmap along their development journey.

Our Quick Starts allow you to assess, test, plan and establish the validity of each service or technology in manageable parts. Each one is formed using defined stages with clear outcomes, and will provide the necessary information not only for the technical aspects of deployment, but also for the commercial justification of infrastructure or network changes.

Offices worldwideThe telecommunications services described in this publicationare subject to availability and may be modified from time to time.Services and equipment are provided subject to BritishTelecommunications plc’s respective standard conditions ofcontract. Nothing in this publication forms any part of any contract.

© British Telecommunications plc 2012.Registered office: 81 Newgate Street, London EC1A 7AJRegistered in England No: 1800000