Macquarie Telecom Future-Proofs its Network & Injects AI-Driven Innovation | Juniper Global Summit

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0:07 Hey everyone, my name is Mike Marcellin.

0:09 I'm the Chief Marketing Officer at Juniper Networks.

0:11 Joining me today are my good friends from Macquarie Telecom.

0:15 We have Luke Clifton Group Executive

0:17 and David Flanagan, who is the Chief Product Officer.

0:19 Luke, David, welcome and thank you for joining us today.

0:22 Good morning, Mike. Really good to see you.

0:25 Good to see you, Mike. Good to be here.

0:27 First things first,

0:29 Juniper and Macquarie have been working together for some time.

0:33 Recently, we work closely on the overhaul

0:37 and future proof of Macquarie's network.

0:39 Maybe you can start by just giving those

0:42 who don't know an overview of your business.

0:44 I love the fact that you're on telco in the [?] and market.

0:47 Maybe you can describe a little bit about

0:49 your business and your strategy.

0:51 We've been in business in the Australian

0:53 and Zed market now for, coming up to 30 years.

0:57 We've built a business entirely around customer satisfaction.

1:00 I know that's a thing that you probably don't hear a lot

1:03 in the telecommunication space globally.

1:06 We think we operate in a market where

1:09 a lot of our competitors underserve and overcharge their customers.

1:14 We've built a business around entirely on customer satisfaction,

1:18 delighting our customers.

1:19 We've got our NPS score that most recently is hitting plus 74.

1:25 We've built a business entirely around doing the opposite

1:30 to what the traditional telcos would do.

1:32 David would well know that we start

1:34 most of our management meetings

1:36 looking at what our competitors are doing and saying.

1:39 If we did the opposite to that,

1:41 A, would our customers like it, and B,

1:43 can we make money out of it.

1:45 That's what we mean being so on telco.

1:49 Juniper has been a really strong part of that journey

1:52 for us over the last 25 to 30 years.

1:56 Wow.

1:57 That's certainly an amazing Net Promoter Score for sure.

2:00 Anyone who follows that metric, that's truly impressive.

2:03 I want to piggyback a little bit off of something that you said,

2:05 which is around creating that great customer experience.

2:09 Juniper is True North, is experienced first networking,

2:13 so maybe are the other side of the same coin.

2:17 Tell me how you focus on

2:19 that great user experience for your customers.

2:21 There's two things that we're always looking for

2:25 when we're engaging with a customer.

2:27 The first thing is to have something we call radar on,

2:31 always be carefully listening to what

2:34 the customer is really asking for,

2:36 spending time to understand and unpack

2:39 what the customer is trying to achieve.

2:41 They're not only looking to service

2:43 that need but to delight the customer.

2:47 Looking for those sometimes unknown requirements.

2:52 If you think about it, trying to anticipate

2:55 what problems the customer is going to have,

2:57 trying to put a solution into place that the customer might

3:00 have not even anticipated,

3:02 that delights them in terms of the engagement they've got

3:05 with a telecommunications company.

3:06 It's very rare in our industry to see people who'd do that,

3:09 built a whole business

3:11 based on the back of that type of engagement.

3:14 That's why we think about engaging with our customers.

3:17 Well, I think that unique approach is one of the reasons why

3:19 you were recognized with the Juniper Elevate Award,

3:22 if I'm not mistaken.

3:23 I think you've won a few other awards too.

3:24 Maybe you can share a little bit about that.

3:27 Well, last year.

3:29 Thanks for mentioning it Mike, we're really proud of it.

3:31 Last year, we got recognized

3:34 for the global World Communications Award for customer service.

3:38 We went up against 400 entrants from across the globe

3:43 to win the award.

3:45 That recognized our ability to

3:48 not only service customers, not to delight them,

3:52 but also get their referrals to other customers.

3:55 The vast majority of the business that we win

3:57 is based off the back of customer referrals,

3:59 like do you really recommend Macquarie Telecom

4:01 to a friend or a colleague.

4:04 Off the back end of that,

4:05 last year, we were recognized

4:06 with the World Communications Award globally

4:08 for our service to customers.

4:11 That's amazing. Well, congratulations on that.

4:13 That's impressive.

4:15 Maybe David, over to you.

4:18 That's the challenge that you put out

4:22 into the market into your company.

4:24 Talk a little bit about how Juniper has played a part

4:27 in helping you achieve your objectives.

4:30 Juniper has been a really strong core networking

4:33 partner of Macquarie Telecom since the early 2000s.

4:36 Our core background network has always been a Juniper core.

4:40 We've grown and evolved our backbone over the last 20 years.

4:45 We've got to the stage a couple of years ago where,

4:48 the NBN, which is the National Broadband Network in Australia,

4:52 started to reach critical mass.

4:55 The NBN gave our customers an access network solution

4:58 that was multiples of what they had previously.

5:01 Combined with growth and subscriber capacity,

5:05 customers choosing more bandwidth,

5:07 leveraging other SDs and solutions for their networking.

5:12 We saw a need to change our core network

5:14 and grow that core network substantially.

5:17 We implemented 100 times increase on interstate capacity

5:22 at 10 times increase into capital capacity.

5:25 As you know, the core networking part of the business

5:29 is the product that really underpins

5:30 every other product in our catalog.

5:32 Whether it's UC or an SD-LAN, VPN solution,

5:37 that's the core backbone of everything we do

5:39 has to be absolutely up reliable, up 100% volt tolerant.

5:45 These are some of the things that we leveraged

5:47 through the Juniper engagement with our core network.

5:48 We implemented a homogenous code network

5:51 across eight capital cities in Australia.

5:53 That's pretty much all of the capital cities in Australia.

5:55 That particularly the modern's aspect of the network

5:59 gave us the ability for future automation,

6:02 simplifying our network down to

6:04 common architecture structures across the network

6:07 was really critical to our future in terms of automation,

6:11 and that automation, in turn,

6:12 drives out customer experience even further,

6:15 eliminates errors.

6:17 It eliminates design mismatches across the cities.

6:21 It's a really fantastic opportunity to clean the entire network out.

6:25 We did it in a big bang,

6:27 so we basically just rolled out

6:29 the brand new network across every capital city.

6:31 We cut across all of the capital network backbone links

6:34 and all the access links as well.

6:36 I'm really pleased.

6:38 It was a relatively short project for telecom,

6:40 which took us about six months to implement

6:43 and we engaged Juniper professional services,

6:46 and that was a really critical part of the project.

6:49 Juniper professional services gave us

6:52 the world's best architectures and designs.

6:55 They challenged our engineers, we challenged their engineers

6:58 and we really had a great outcome at the end of it.

7:00 Outcomes are next to none on their availability target,

7:03 having poor network,

7:04 switchovers not even noticed by our customers.

7:08 It's a really sensational outcome from an uptime

7:10 and performance perspective,

7:11 but more importantly, it's a platform for the future

7:14 of our products and services

7:16 Well, it's truly impressive.

7:19 Short, compressed timeline,

7:20 which means high stakes, high pressure to get it right.

7:23 I'm glad we could play a part in making you all successful.

7:28 Absolutely.

7:29 Let me actually double down a little bit

7:31 on an item that you talked about, David, which is around automation.

7:34 Obviously, you can upgrade the network from more reliability,

7:39 more capacity, and that's hugely important,

7:42 but talk a little bit more about

7:44 how you're trying to focus on automation.

7:47 What benefits that brings to your business, to your customers,

7:50 and how Juniper has helped with that.

7:53 Over the past 12 months,

7:55 we've focused on automating certain customer products

7:58 and as the core network rolled out,

8:01 the next phase of the automation project

8:03 is to really focus in on those transport products

8:05 that support the rest of our product catalog.

8:07 We're focusing first on the core transport products,

8:11 and the core transport products support SD-LAN,

8:14 Mist WiFi Solution that supports our SD-LAN solution.

8:18 It supports all that UC collaboration solutions as well.

8:21 Getting the core transport right in terms of automation,

8:24 really sets and delivery teams and our customer activation teams up for success.

8:28 Just thinking into the design right now

8:31 and getting focused in on the best outcomes and the equipment as well.

8:36 Maybe Mike, I might jump in there just very quickly,

8:39 but really we've built a business on servicing customers.

8:42 The more I can get the majority of stuff out would facing,

8:47 looking at our customers and how to delight them

8:49 whilst not necessarily having to look after

8:51 our own network 24 hours a day, even though, of course, we will,

8:55 that automation, that self-healing networks,

8:58 the ability to drive more productivity into our engineering teams.

9:02 Whilst not necessarily having to make sure

9:04 all the lights are green all the time,

9:06 just means that we can spend more time servicing our customers

9:08 and that partnership and that joint vision

9:12 between Juniper and Macquarie

9:14 about what you do and what we do well

9:16 is really beginning to come to the fall

9:17 with the top of work that we're doing together here.

9:20 Yes. That makes a lot of sense.

9:23 Speaking of trying to deliver

9:27 the great experiences for your customer.

9:29 I know managed services are a big part of your business.

9:33 David, you touched a little bit on Mist WiFi and SD-LAN,

9:37 which I know are some of the managed services that you offer.

9:40 Talk a little bit about

9:42 the importance of managed services to your business,

9:44 but also some of the interesting

9:46 and forward-looking things you're doing

9:48 around AI to support those managed services.

9:52 Many services are critical to every part of our product catalog.

9:55 Everything we do is managed.

9:57 We service the midsize business market in Australia.

10:00 The midsize business market in Australia have smaller IT teams.

10:04 Those IT teams want to focus on their business and their applications,

10:08 they don't necessarily want to focus on the network and the planning.

10:11 Our business is to make sure that the network supports their business

10:15 and keeping that network up, keeping it configured and optimized,

10:19 that's the core part of the value that customers choose Macquarie for.

10:23 One of the areas which we've grown over the last six months

10:26 is we've launched an SD-LAN product based on the Juniper Mist

10:30 and Juniper switching environments

10:32 which has been a sensational change to the traditional telecoms.

10:36 The traditional telecoms tend to stop at the router edge.

10:40 Getting into the LAN is also about customer experience,

10:44 having those user-level metrics from the edge device

10:47 whether it's a phone or a laptop and a service,

10:50 having those performance metrics all the way

10:51 through to the cloud services we provide gives us the ability

10:55 to provide that outstanding customer experience.

10:57 We can find much quicker where the issues might be,

11:01 we can leverage the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant

11:04 to diagnose and solve problems before they occur.

11:08 The AI operations capability, the AI-driven enterprise

11:12 has really given us the confidence to service our customers more

11:16 all the way from the client devices, all the way through to the cloud.

11:19 It's a really exciting time.

11:22 In terms of the product,

11:24 we signed a large tire and auto company in Australia

11:27 and we're halfway through that roll-out now.

11:30 We signed that before we launched the product

11:32 and it's really exciting to see that roll out

11:36 much faster than we would roll out even the LAN network.

11:39 Our teams are rolling five or six slots a day which is sensational,

11:43 and that's all due to the capabilities that you've got there on

11:46 zero-touch provisioning and the activation experience.

11:49 The customers it's, it's breathing fresh air.

11:53 I imagine as a challenger,

11:56 you're generally walking into customers or prospects

11:59 that have an incumbent provider potentially.

12:03 How does that AI-driven solution help you differentiate

12:08 and ideally break into competitive environment?

12:12 With the Mist solution and the visibility and the analytics,

12:16 just the demonstration is enough

12:18 to show the capabilities we're capable of

12:21 in terms of the end-to-end management.

12:24 Giving customers the confidence that choosing Macquarie

12:27 and choosing Juniper Mist AI Solution is a great solution for them.

12:32 In fact, we've turned around a lot of Meraki networks quickly,

12:36 leveraging the solution just by demonstration.

12:39 This is fantastic.

12:41 David really touched on it but

12:45 as much as Juniper's helping us concentrate

12:48 on what we do well which is servicing customers,

12:51 if you think about our customers that we're trying to sell to,

12:54 they don't really want to worry about the WiFi

12:56 or they don't really need or want to worry about

12:59 whether the application is working well on the edge,

13:01 they want somebody to take care of that.

13:03 Especially for the mid-marke t here in Australia,

13:05 we've got a resource-poor and time-poor IT teams

13:09 and they're looking for partners like us that help them do what they do.

13:13 Solutions like AI-driven Mist looking at uptime

13:18 in terms of the network performance,

13:20 Essentially, the customer is looking for an application

13:22 to run just as well as the cloud

13:24 all the way through the network and then to the edge.

13:26 That's what they want a partner to do and that's the reason why

13:30 we think we've been very successful in the Australian market,

13:33 taking to the incumbents that really like to

13:36 talk about their demarcation lines

13:38 and what the customer is responsible for or we're responsible for.

13:42 We take a more holistic view

13:44 of the performance of the applications

13:46 that need to be driven at their networks.

13:48 What's the next big trend you're thinking about

13:51 or what's next for Macquarie?

13:52 What should we look for over the coming year or two?

13:56 Look, David and I talk about this often

13:59 because he's my chief product officer.

14:01 I'm always talking about what he's going to bring

14:03 to the market next.

14:04 I might pass to him but we're really excited

14:06 that in whatever we choose to do, whatever part of

14:11 the competitive landscape we're going to choose to go and tackle next,

14:15 even if it's going to be a very important part of that journey for us.

14:18 David, what do you think is next?

14:20 Two big things for Macquarie Telecom on the next 12 months

14:23 and one's really centered around that customer experience.

14:26 I think with the capability that we've got

14:29 with the AI operations throughout the network,

14:31 I think there's a step up on managed services that we can do.

14:34 We do a great job of managed services.

14:37 I think we can actually lift the game again and change the market there.

14:41 I think the number one thing that we're looking to do

14:44 is really enhance our security portfolio.

14:47 We've got a good security portfolio.

14:49 I'd love to focus in on security protection products that manage customer security,

14:55 whether they're in the office, at home, at the cafe.

14:58 Wherever that worker may be having a fantastic security product

15:02 which unifies all the security aspects regardless of location,

15:05 I think is going to be critical to our business in the next 12 months.

15:08 It's the exciting part of what we're doing at Macquarie Telecom.

15:12 Also, from a detect and response capability,

15:16 having a holistic security practice

15:18 across the telecom group for Macquarie Telecom

15:20 will certainly help customers manage their cybersecurity incidents

15:25 and in the mid-sized business market, they need that help.

15:29 It's a crowded market.

15:31 It's a confusing market and Macquarie Telecoms can provide that clarity

15:34 around what's required to manage your cybersecurity.

15:37 It's always remarkable how aligned our strategies are.

15:39 I don't know why that is but as you well know,

15:41 our connected security strategy just acknowledges

15:44 that there's no network and security.

15:46 They're intertwined.

15:48 You can't deliver networks that are not secure.

15:51 Look forward to partnering with you on that next opportunity.

15:54 Well, Luke, David, thank you so much for your time today,

15:58 and more importantly, thanks for your partnership.

16:01 As I said, we are kindred spirits in many ways

16:04 and it's always a pleasure to talk to you and to work with you,

16:07 and help be a part of your success.

16:10 Thank you.

16:13 -Thanks. -Thank you so much.