Interview with Andrew Wildblood

Andrew joined Telstra Corporation in 1999, when he was appointed to the role of Business Development Manager in his native UK. In 2001, he moved with the company to Sydney, Australia where he took up various positions in sales management.

Before taking on his current role a year ago, he held the position of Group Manager, Strategic Sales for Telstra Enterprise and Government, where he focused on vertical-specific industries, including banking and finance, property and business services, insurance and health.

Andrew holds a BA (Hons) degree in Geography from the University of Liverpool. Outside of work, he is passionate about playing cricket, football, golf and marathon running. He lives with his partner, three-year old daughter Poppy and six-month old son Joseph.

What is your role at Telstra International?

As Vice President of Sales for Telstra EMEA, I am accountable for our sales team across the retail business. My responsibilities include building and fostering relationships with our existing customer base in the UK, and identifying and growing new business opportunities with European multi-national companies.

My team and I have a specific focus to deliver award-winning IT products and solutions to our customers which ensure seamless connectivity to Asia-Pacific. Ultimately this enables them to drive business growth and cost efficiencies, whilst realising demonstrable productivity improvements across their organisations.

What are the key challenges that your customers currently face?

Last year, businesses were influenced by a number of external factors, such as a shift in consumer confidence, contraction in demand for some products and services, and uncertainty on the duration and severity of the global downturn. This therefore meant decision-makers were focusing predominantly on driving cost efficiencies.

The next 12 months present significant opportunities for organisations to better manage, measure and invest in productivity improvements, which will help drive these cost efficiencies. To do this, they require clear management, improved measurement tools and strategic investment in IT. Businesses that have a clear execution plan to implement productivity improvements will be in a stronger and more competitive position for the year ahead.

Over the next year, we will continue to deliver global managed network and communication services to our customers and help them to make the right IT investments to improve business productivity and continuity – directly benefiting employees, customers, stakeholders and shareholders. We will do this by developing IT productivity roadmaps with solutions such as video conferencing, data storage, network hosting and cloud computing.

What do you think will be the biggest changes affecting the industry over the next few years?

The consolidation of service providers across the globe will fuel the most significant changes in the industry in the foreseeable future. The emergence of alliances between telecommunications and IT companies will see new competitors enter the market. Whilst competition will be strong, our customers will benefit from best of breed IT providers.

In addition to focusing on developing our relationships with key global IT providers to stay ahead of the game, Telstra will continue to focus heavily on delivering world class customer service, which will remain critical to driving differentiation in the market.

What are your trend predictions for the next year?

From a market perspective, we expect to see an increase in European companies expanding into Asia-Pacific, particularly China and India. Both countries are making a remarkable recovery from the economic downturn. Whilst the International Monetary Fund has projected that India’s economic growth rate will reach 8 per cent during 2010-2011, the latest results from the European Chamber of Commerce’s “Business Confidence Survey” demonstrated that almost a third of the 500 European organisations surveyed identified China as the most important market for them.

In terms of solutions, the cloud is becoming increasingly relevant and its impact on business will be profound. For large organisations the reliable, cost effective delivery of applications, data and services to enable their business operations is a critical need. Provided with a simpler, cheaper alternative, most of these organisations will no longer want to expend significant capital and staff resources on building, operating and maintaining vast in-house IT infrastructures.

Cloud adoption will also be rapid as IP has now become the dominant data standard for enterprise organisations. In addition, advanced networks such as Telstra’s now exist, which can handle the increasing complexity, scale, scope and the variable capacity and security demands of business’ needs across multiple locations.

How do you think Telstra International can stay ahead of its competitors in the coming year?

Differentiation continues to be key. At Telstra, we are dedicated to driving differentiation through world class customer service and intimacy. This has been fundamental to gaining our customers’ trust and support. Over the past couple of years, we have responded to the distinct customer service needs of large corporate organisations, and continually redefine our offering to make improvements. The size and scope of many of our customers means they are more complex and exposed to greater risk of disruption. They therefore have a need to assure the continuity of their operations and reduce the probability and severity of adverse events. Likewise they require flexibility and adjustments over time in the way their customer service is delivered.

We take all this into account, and as a result, we have recently been recognised with globally-recognised awards for our Commitment to Customer Service, which set the benchmark in the industry for delivering value to our customers.

In addition, we deliver award-winning products and services to our customers. An example of this is demonstrated by Telstra recently being named as the ‘Best International IP VPN’ provider by enterprise users in Gartner’s Best International Carriers in Asia/Pacific user survey. The end-user survey rates the quality of international network services in the Asia/Pacific region, and aims to help multinational companies with pan-regional network requirements select the right service provider.

Finally, no company can operate to a world-class standard without the best people – who possess the specialist skills and expertise to stay one step ahead for our customers. Telstra’s employees are among the very best in the industry and have a deep understanding of the ever-increasing challenges our customers are facing – and how best to address them, quickly and efficiently whilst demonstrating the benefits.

We’re hearing more and more about Ethernet services: tell us your views.

Ethernet services in the Wide Area Network (WAN) are growing in popularity for all the right reasons. The technology is quick to deploy, easy to manage and offers a cost effective way to enable business. Telstra International’s Global Ethernet Virtual Private Line Service (EVPL) allows our customers to establish highly resilient network connections between headquarters or data centres and branch sites in many locations around the world.

Finally, what are the key focus areas for Telstra this year?

Unlocking productivity potential for our customers
Differentiation through customer service and intimacy
Investing in the network and our people.

Contact a Telstra specialist

1.877.TELSTRA

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