SaskTel Advances Next-Generation Communications Vision with Software AG

Business Wire,  May 20, 2008  

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

* Leading telecom transforming operations to fully capitalize on customer demand for converged service offerings

* webMethods Suite implemented as the core business infrastructure, streamlining the integration, management and optimization of business processes across all of SaskTel's enterprise operations

* Comprehensive SOA/BPM offering used to enable tighter collaboration with the business and faster execution of projects

NICE, France -- Software AG, a global leader in business infrastructure software, today announced that SaskTel has implemented the webMethods Suite to streamline the integration, management and optimization of core business processes. Serving more than 425,000 business and residential customers, SaskTel is the leading full service communications provider in Saskatchewan, Canada. As part of its transformation into a next-generation provider, the webMethods Suite will be used by SaskTel to reduce operational costs, enhance customer service, improve the business's responsiveness to change, and to facilitate the more rapid deployment of new products and services.

Driven by the dramatic changes sweeping through the telecommunications market, SaskTel is in the midst of the biggest business and technology transformation in its one hundred year history. The company's goal is to establish itself as the unified communications provider for its 425,000 customers, offering voice, data, Internet, entertainment and multimedia services, security monitoring, web hosting, messaging, and cellular services over its digital IP network. At the same time, SaskTel is also committed to maintaining the ease-of-use and reliability that have long differentiated the company.

From an operational perspective, this evolution has created the need to cost-effectively and assuredly bundle any number of products and services together on-demand. The implications are being felt throughout the company's value-chain, ranging from product development, engineering and network operations through customer service, billing and fulfillment. This is also driving the embrace of new models for operating the business, such as the adoption of the New Generation Operations Systems & Software (NGOSS) model and the use of IP multimedia subsystem (IMS).

Underpinning these efforts was the need for a new business infrastructure to provide real-time integration across the company's diverse operations, systems and processes; to help it componentize, manage and govern existing IT systems within a service-oriented architecture (SOA) for maximum business agility, faster deployment, and easier reuse; and to allow business and IT users to collaboratively develop, deploy and improve new business processes. Following a competitive review, SaskTel selected the webMethods Suite as the foundation for its business infrastructure.

Specific components of the implementation include the webMethods ESB, a comprehensive, standards-based enterprise service bus (ESB) enabling integration and interoperability of applications, services, processes and partners via a single platform; webMethods BPMS, a full-feature process design, execution, monitoring and management solution; and CentraSite[TM], a standards-based service registry/repository/governance solution addressing all aspects of the service lifecycle.

Having laid the foundation for real-time interoperability across all of its applications as well as ensuring one version of the truth in terms of data quality, SaskTel is now using the platform to pursue a number of process improvement initiatives. For example, new processes have already been implemented to improve field service productivity and to provide customers with additional self-service capabilities.

An important factor in SaskTel's success has been the support of Software AG's CustomerFirst services. By taking advantage of the company's professional services capabilities, SaskTel was able to refine and accelerate the company's SOA strategy. SaskTel has also benefited from the support of an onsite Technical Account Manager (TAM), who has worked to streamline deployment while accelerating knowledge transfer and end-user productivity.

CentraSite is a joint trademark of Fujitsu Limited and Software AG in the United States and other countries.

About Software AG

Software AG is the world's largest independent provider of Business Infrastructure Software. Our 4,000 global enterprise customers achieve business results faster by modernizing, integrating and automating their IT systems and processes. As a result, they rapidly build measurable business value and meet changing business demands. Based on our solutions, organizations are able to liberate and govern their data, systems, applications, processes and services - achieving new levels of business flexibility.

Our leading product portfolio includes solutions for high performance data management, developing and modernizing applications, enabling service-oriented architecture, and improving business processes. By combining our technology with industry expertise and best practices experience, our customers improve and differentiate their businesses - faster.