Telstra International recently adopted a new customer value proposition under the tagline: 'Global connections. Infinite possibilities.' With the company undergoing change at the top at the same time as big change in the industry, the outgoing and incoming CEOs discuss how this approach will guide the carrier's strategy for growth.
For many years, Telstra International has been recognised as a strong player in the Asia-Pacific region, offering services to thousands of carrier, business, government and hyperscaler customers via an extensive and advanced cable network.
The company has been in the region at a time of rapid change and growth, with Asia-Pacific estimated to have accounted for more than 60 per cent of global GDP growth in the past 10 years and undergoing significant digital transformation in recent times.
To fulfil the needs of the region’s huge population, Telstra International previously followed a tagline of ‘Connecting the world to Asia, and Asia to the world’, bringing services including cloud, adaptive and software-defined networks, and security to the region, while boosting the bandwidth available to companies and users.
This strong focus and commitment remain unchanged, but the company has recently updated its customer value proposition to reflect that it has wider capabilities and aspirations than merely serving the Asia-Pacific region. This is particularly the case in an enterprise and carrier world increasingly focused on innovating across borders and greater agility, echoed in Telstra International’s own expansion of its network across the globe over time.
‘Global connections’
The new customer value proposition is ‘Global connections. Infinite possibilities.’ Oliver Camplin-Warner, CEO of Telstra International, explains: “From our perspective, being an international carrier can no longer just be about excellence in serving a particular region, but providing true global services for customers.”
The updated focus is enabled by the company’s scale, having expanded its network with new routes and points of presence (PoPs) all over the world, and bolstered its provision of integrated services. These activities have included Telstra’s involvement in last year’s launch of the Southern Cross NEXT cable, the first direct subsea route between Australia and the US.
In addition, the company acquired Digicel Pacific last July in collaboration with the Australian government, helping bring services to the Pacific communities of Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu. The move boosts the carrier’s capabilities in the region and enhances the diversity of its portfolio.
As a result of its activities over time, Telstra has the largest subsea network in the Asia-Pacific region, with 77 data centres across Asia, Europe and the Americas, plus access to over 2,000 PoPs in more than 200 countries and territories.
Value pillars
Under its fresh global tagline, Telstra International is focusing on four pillars to represent the company’s values – service, partnership, solutions and trust.
On the service side, Telstra has sought to ease things for the customer by digitising interactions, and making it faster to fix any issues and bring services online. This culminated in the launch of its Telstra Connect portal in 2019, which helps to simplify customer service interactions like managing incidents, checking network status, and ordering products and services.
The value of this approach is being seen in the take-up of the portal by customers, with more than 50% of Telstra International's customers using the digital portal to interact – while the company aims to increase its digital ordering capability to 90% by the end of June 2023.
Under the partnership pillar, Telstra International aims to take an approach centred on collaboration with customers rather than a purely transactional relationship.
The philosophy on customer service goes hand-in-hand with the culture of inclusivity that the company seeks to engender within its teams internally, ensuring that employees have their voices heard. In the global telecoms industry of today, as in most other industries, this is recognised as an essential factor for businesses to move forward.
In line with that, Telstra International interviewed staff in its offices across the globe to help gain an understanding of what factors they felt differentiated the company. The feedback was that customer service was key, reflected in multiple examples of close collaboration with partners to put in place the measures needed to enable digital transformation.
Camplin-Warner says this is also emphasised by Telstra International securing a high net promoter score (NPS) of 58. “Our high NPS score shows that customers can always trust us to deliver on time and provide one of the best service experiences in the industry,” he says.
Tailoring solutions
Under the solutions pillar, the company aims to tailor services towards customers’ specific needs, consulting with them to understand what they want. This closely aligns with Telstra’s partnership values and has led to a range of successes.
For example, Telstra has worked with cloud provider Linode, which has now been acquired by Akamai. With Linode experiencing a growth period, it wanted a telecoms partner with a strong network and that was able to provide low latency, while offering the potential for scale and product innovation into the future.
Choosing Telstra, the company gained fast fibre connectivity between Asia-Pacific markets and the US, plus colocation and IP transit services. It was also given access to services including Telstra Programmable Network and Telstra Connect, which aid software-defined networking and network management.
Together, these functions helped Linode to future-proof its services and turn up network services on demand, while adding resilience and diversity for the company.
Finally, when it comes to the trust pillar, this underpins all of Telstra International’s other key values and activities – as without ensuring trust, no strategy or technology will succeed. “We are committed to operating in a reliable and ethical manner for the businesses we serve and the global communities where we operate,” says Camplin-Warner. “This is backed by a foundation of strong corporate governance, commitment to environmental, social and governance goals, and accountability.”
Change at the top
Telstra International’s new tagline looks well set to guide the business into the future. “At this time of immense change, we needed to outline a vision that shows how we’re looking to shape transformation and innovation in the market, altering the traditional stereotype of the telecoms industry,” says Camplin-Warner.
This all comes at a time of major change not only for the global telecoms industry, but also for the leadership at Telstra International. Camplin-Warner is due to leave his post from July to take over as head of Telstra Purple, a consulting, professional and managed services subsidiary of the company. He will be replaced by Roary Stasko, who is currently Telstra’s executive director for finance and strategy.
Reflecting on his past five years at the helm of Telstra International, Camplin-Warner said: “I couldn’t be more proud of what team International has achieved. Day in, day out, our team live and breathe our ambition, Global connections. Infinite possibilities. For five years straight, I have woken up every day in awe of the role we play to keep customers and the world ticking. For Telstra International to be seen as one of the group’s growth engines is just amazing.”
On his successor, he adds: “Roary is someone I’ve had the absolute pleasure to work with over the last few years and for me is a world-class executive. I couldn’t be happier to be handing the reins to him; I just know that he will take the International team to new heights, and I will definitely be cheering him and the team every step of the way.”
Stasko has spent more than 15 years in the telecommunications industry in various roles across strategy, finance and operations. Prior to his outgoing CFO role, he was Telstra’s head of corporate strategy. His highly international experience will aid in leading Telstra International as it continues its trajectory and explores growth opportunities.
And Stasko is ready to lead the company and its partners into the new digital era, following the values that underpin Telstra International’s new tagline.
“Telstra International has a strong team culture, an incredible focus on its customers and a well-established position in the market,” he says. “I’m excited to join the team to build on all their hard work and to lead the business in its next phase of growth.”
