Ovum
Ovum View: ‘Vanco dares to be different’
Mike Cansfield
With no networks itself, Vanco buys capacity from asset-based carriers (ABCs) to build solutions for its customers. Whilst there is far greater supply within the industry than demand, and with ABCs desperate to fill their capacity, Vanco can extract the very best prices and then pass these on to its customers.
But it is in customer service that Vanco really differentiates itself. It commits itself to finding 70% of network problems before customers can detect them. Over 70% of the customer initiated calls to their Network Operations Centre (NOC) are successfully resolved by its first-line staff, and customers are invited to rate all calls to the NOC on a scale of 0 (disastrous) to 9 (excellent). Any score of 5 or below is flagged to a manager immediately who is required to call the customer within 15 minutes to identify and correct the shortcoming. Customers at the analyst event confirmed this was the case, and not Vanco PR spin. This is real customer service - pro-active, responsive, and personal.
Vanco positions itself as offering a good price deal, great service, and as taking away the hassles of dealing with multiple operators. Those readers who have been in the industry for many years will recall this is just what the global joint ventures Concert, UniSource and GlobalOne promised in the 1990s. Unlike these ill-fated JVs, Vanco has focussed on the service layer to deliver this vision and has resisted the temptation to invest in infrastructure. By doing so it is able to pick and mix from multiple hardware suppliers, software companies, and ABCs to create the optimal package for customers. Vanco is proving that there is another way to be successful and profitable.
Ovum View: ‘Vanco strengthens its North American position’
Chris Lewis (2005)
Vanco has announced a major distribution agreement with ARINC, the North American aviation technology and services provider. The deal is worth a minimum of $85m to Vanco over a five-year period. Vanco will provide its virtual network operator (VNO) services through ARINC to a wide range of aviation and airline customers.
This deal is important for several reasons: firstly, it gives Vanco a major foothold in the US market; and secondly it gives it an opening into the highly distributed aviation industry. This builds upon Vanco's success in supporting the majority of British Airways' more distributed locations. The aviation sector has previously been constrained by having to use the SITA network. This stranglehold is now being broken by deals such as this.
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