Context powers Knowledge Management at Dialog Axiata

With the volume of new products and services being provided by Dialog Axiata to its growing customer base, Dialog ensures that their Contact Center Agents and Front Office Staff are well versed with each and every aspect of these offerings to serve their ever growing, loyal customer base. Recognition of the criticality of this success factor has helped them to become a market leader in Customer Service. In order maintain their Number One mobile operator status, Dialog makes a significant investment in the training and development of their employees. To help them further enhance the management and dissemination of product and corporate knowledge, i-Context Content Convergence (Pvt) Ltd., a pioneer in e-Learning and Knowledge Management (KM) Solutions in Sri Lanka has provided Dialog with the iBrainstorm Social Learning Portal powered by the iKnowledgeKMS Knowledge Management System. This Knowledge Management System was launched recently, greatly enhancing the knowledge management practice which has been active at Dialog, especially in the contact center. The iKnowledgeKMS Knowledge Management System has been developed with Web 2.0 features which enhance interaction and collaboration among users, and aspects of social learning to improve both user participation and the quality of captured knowledge items, facilitating knowledge dissemination across the organization. Role based security, customizable workflows and powerful reporting features ensure that the iKnowledgeKMS can be easily deployed to suit the needs of any organization. Bevin Gabriel, head of Sales and Business Development at i-Context stated with the rapid growth taking place after the end of war in Sri Lanka which has resulted in ever increasing demand for knowledge based services in telecommunication, banking, hospitality and health industries, we see a great deal of interest in leveraging knowledge management to improve service levels and competitiveness. Dialog, being a company that has always invested in technology wisely to retain their industry leadership, has been among the leaders in utilizing Knowledge Management practice to ensure corporate growth and sustainability. Channa Gunawardena, Solutions Architect at i-Context mentioned that its use of appropriate new technology, rich and relevant feature set and a licensing model conducive to local market needs helped the iKnowledgeKMS Knowledge Management System, a totally Sri Lankan product, to win against some of the biggest names in the global software industry. In conclusion Anjana Ratnasara CEO, i-Context said that It is a fulfilling experience to be working with a technology thought leader and an early adopter of i-Contexts enterprise eLearning Suite. Dialog has taken another bold step forward by taking the strategic decision to extend the solution to include a Knowledge Management system, recognizing the importance of the knowledge worker in todays business environment. As long time partners we at i-Context are extremely pleased to have provided this solution to Dialog Axiata.

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Dialog Telecom
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Telco Embraces Growth, Relies on Proactive Management for Extensive IT Infrastructure

Dialog Telecom, a publicly listed company and subsidiary of the Telecom Malaysia Group, is the largest mobile communication service provider in Sri Lanka. The company has 4,500 employees and serves more than 4.5 million customers. Following the success of its cellular services, Dialog Telecom expanded operations to include Internet and data services, mobile satellite services, fixed-line voice and broadband services, and digital satellite television to provide multisensory connectivity to individual and corporate customers. With new lines of business came growth. In an 18-month period, IT infrastructure expanded from 40 to 150 servers. Consequently, IT staff faced operational challenges. They lacked a holistic view into IT health and resorted to logging onto each server to monitor it. In addition, the company had insufficient tools to monitor service levels or gain visibility into core Microsoft products and technologies, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Active Directory, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, and Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution. Adding to this challenge, Dialog Telecom has an expansive IT infrastructure, consisting of eight data centers, 20 help desk staff, and more than 3,500 desktops dispersed across 80 locations, including business partners, branches, and franchises. Since 2006, the company has added 60 to 70 computers a month, in addition to new locations. Growth put the IT department into a reactive mode, says Gayantha Mendis, Chief Manager of Group IT Infrastructure Management for Dialog Telecom. It was becoming difficult for us to know if there was a service outage until someone called. To support growth, business leaders required the IT department to establish proactive systems monitoring and service level agreements to ensure that the company could control its IT infrastructure without the need for additional staff.

Solution

Dialog Telecom supplements the talent of its IT team with Microsoft Services Premier Support and a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement through Microsoft Sri Lanka and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Millennium Information Technologies Limited. When Dialog Telecom deployed its core IT infrastructure, this agreement laid the foundation, enabling the team to work

directly with the enterprise account management team of Microsoft Sri Lanka. This agreement also encapsulated a meticulous deployment schedule for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. When business leaders from Dialog Telecom mandated proactive systems monitoring, the company was quick to turn to the Service Management Optimization engagement from Microsoft Services. Dialog Telecom understood that the engagement would ensure a successful deployment of System Center Operations Manager and would help establish proactive monitoring and capacity management for systems, applications, and services.

Working with a Familiar Team

Through the Service Management Optimization engagement, Dialog Telecom worked closely with Microsoft Global Services India. The companies planned for and deployed System Center Operations Manager in accordance with Microsoft best practices and lessons learned from previous engagements with enterprise customers. Before deploying System Center Operations Manager, however, Microsoft Services provided architecture and design guidance. Past engagements with Dialog Telecom helped streamline the entire process. We have worked with Dialog Telecom on a number of occasions, including the deployment of Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, says Gayan Randeny, Senior Consultant at Microsoft Global Services India. As a result, we are very familiar with their IT infrastructure and operational pains.

Deploying the Solution

In only three months, Microsoft Global Services India tested and moved System Center Operations Manager into a production environment. During this time, Microsoft Services deployed Microsoft SQL Server 2005 in a clustered-server configuration, provided operational guidance, and assisted Dialog Telecom in mapping out critical services, including its dependencies and components. By mapping out critical services, Dialog Telecom distributed the responsibility of monitoring different services across IT staff members. Members of the IT staff used the role-based user interface of System Center Operations Manager to quickly view the services assigned to them and add additional services as needed. To help Dialog Telecom formalize service monitoring, Microsoft Global Services India provided incident matrices, escalation paths, and a major problem review process to help determine the cause of incidents. Microsoft Services also deployed a scorecard tool to help Dialog Telecom report service levels to business management.

Benefits

Through Service Management Optimization from Microsoft Services, Dialog Telecom has established proactive service monitoring and ensured support for the companys continuing growth. Says Mendis, Microsoft Services provided us with the planning, guidelines, and tools,

which we required to complete the projects on time and manage operations properly.

Experience Proactive IT Management

With the help of Microsoft best practices and operational guidance combined with System Center Operations Manager, the Dialog Telecom IT department is now in a role of proactive IT support and management. Says Mohamed Muyees, Assistant Manager of IT Infrastructure Systems Operations for Dialog Telecom, With System Center Operations Manager, we are alerted to any issues and can fix them before the user even notices. Rather than logging onto each server, IT staff can quickly monitor services through a single console. To monitor distributed applications, IT staff members use System Center Operations Manager to carefully define the components that compose a service. With management packs, Dialog Telecom has continued to extend the functionality of System Center Operations Manager to monitor e-mail queues on Exchange Server 2003 and hardware dependencies.

Support Business Objectives

With the new ability to report on performance data, Dialog Telecom can take the first steps toward defining service level agreements for critical services. After service level agreements are established with business managers, the services will be monitored and recorded in the scorecard tool. By analyzing and reporting on services, we will be able to use the scorecard to plan ahead, better serve our customers, and meet the needs of business, says Muyees.

Establish a Foundation for Growth

Because System Center Operations Manager aggregates performance data, Dialog Telecom can predict and plan capacity for future growth of the IT infrastructure. In addition, the centralization of service monitoring eases the IT workload, enabling the company to grow without adding IT staff. We are quite happy with Microsoft Services, says Mendis. They understood our needs and came up with a good solution. They knew about our operational issues from the very beginning and looked at both the business and operational angle of our company, helping us ensure that we completed the project successfully and had a solid infrastructure.

For More Information

For more information about Dialog Telecom products and services visit the Web site at: www.dialog.lk

e- commerce
Going forward, the Joint Venture Company Design Consortium Limited(DCL) will encompass and absorb the business operations and brand properties of Anything.lk and the e-commerce businesses of the Dialog Group. Accordingly, the joint venture will facilitate the merger of daily deals category leader Anything.lk, most visited online mall iBuy.lk, B2B and C2C trading portal Tradenet.lk and recently launched online classifieds site myTrader.lk. The merger of the category leading online businesses will yield an aggregated and unified e-commerce platform WoW.lk which would present Sri Lankan consumers with an unparalleled digital commerce experience spanning daily deals, branded store offerings, travel and leisure deals, B2B and C2C trading and the opportunity to buy and sell via an online classified service supporting Web, SMS and USSD mediums
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