Patrick Gourlet, RAN Deployment Domain Manager at Orange Belgium, explains.
The issue: control and visibility of roll-out operations
Orange Belgium has outsourced the deployment and maintenance of its sites since 2007. One of our leading partners in this area is Ericsson, but we also work with a host of small companies all over Belgium. And these companies use a multitude of technologies on our sites.
Until now, our main tool was Excel. But this was a source of problems, in particular in terms of control, visibility and efficiency. Information was exchanged by e-mail, so much of it was lost or forgotten. And when the information was entered in our Excel file, it was not necessarily up to date or complete. It was difficult to keep track of and update the site data in real time, and we could not produce comprehensive reports and statistics on our installed base of antennas.
Why ClickOnSite?
We wanted a tool capable of federating all of our suppliers, sites and technologies, with a horizontal vision and the synchronisation of all our projects.
We chose ClickOnSite for several reasons. First, it was recommended by our parent company Orange, which has been using it for many years. Second, the horizontal vision offered by ClickOnSite was exactly what we were looking for.
Not only does ClickOnSite centralise the data in real time, but it has also allowed us to boost our productivity and cut our costs significantly. We save a lot of time in communications and in project management, for example for the acquisition of sites.
A long-term solution for telecommunications operators
Every day, we said that the time had come to deploy ClickOnSite in our organisation, because the Excel solution was something prehistoric (read our article: Eleven reasons to stop using Excel to manage your telecommunications sites). Today, I think that it is essential for operators to use tools that consolidate information. The golden age, when operators worked with unlimited resources, is over. Today, we have to optimise our costs and processes. This tool is fundamental.
Many thanks to Patrick Gourlet for this testimony and we wish Orange Belgium every success with the deployment and maintenance of its sites!
A word from Anthony Fradera, ITD’s Project Manager for the implementation of ClickOnSite at Orange Belgium
Orange Belgium was faced with a problem that is quite common amongst telecommunications operators, who work in an environment where innovation is permanent. New technologies appear and processes change on a regular basis, demanding rapid adaptation to change and a flexible innovation strategy. Telecommunications operators are optimising their costs and processes, in order to go faster and further, while offering better services to their customers.
ClickOnSite is the ideal solution to meet the needs of telecommunications infrastructure management: total control and visibility of existing sites, and sites being deployed or undergoing maintenance, optimised process management for much higher productivity, and cost controls!
Our in-depth knowledge of the business enables us to propose specific solutions that are adapted to the operators’ needs.
We have nearly completed the implementation of ClickOnSite at Orange Belgium.
Then we will enter the training phase. This will be short, because ClickOnSite is an intuitive software application that is easy to use. We are trying to be as reactive as possible to Orange Belgium’s needs, because we know that telecommunications operators have to address important subjects quickly, if they are to remain competitive.
As well as implementing a software application, we are also supporting our customer in managing a change, by supplying the human and technical resources that will allow it to reach its objectives.