The new Telecom Business site has gone live, with information on all our services in a much easier to use format and can be found here http://www.telecombusinesshub.co.nz. We’ve had good feedback on this and are always keen for more. This is just the start. We’re in testing now for the next update which includes the domain and web services mentioned above and that will go live soon (sorry, can’t give exact dates and as you’ll know not everything goes smoothly in large scale technology projects!!) We have a lot more planned for this site. Concerns have been raised about our ability to understand and be relevant to business. We’ve been working with many smaller sized businesses over the past year, and have just confirmed 100 or so across the country that we’re working with directly on developing our services. So I guess what I’m saying is we want your feedback and if you’re interested in working more directly with us we’re keen as mustard.

It’s clear that bloggers are critical and sceptical of our ability to deliver this and we’re held to a high standard. So we’re working very hard to make sure what is put out is robust and won’t disappoint therefore we’ve been testing, trialling and in beta for a whole lot of stuff. A couple of examples, not enough space to go through them all (!) – we’ve trialed a new approach to the broadband help desk for business customers and we’re hearing it’s way better so we’re working through moving it from trial to launch – we’ve also been in trials for Managed Desktop services and are learning heaps about how we bring this service to the NZ businesses.

Re: SaaS, I’ve had a number of SaaS companies in NZ and internationally approach me based on March announcements. Personally, I’m conscious that this market has been tried before so taking learnings from the past, spending time internationally to see what’s driving success and working out how we support and make this market successful in NZ is critical. I continue to be blown away by the talent and entrepreneurship in this space.

On a closing note, as they say proof of the pudding is in the eating and hopefully the fact that we’re watching and taking part in the conversation in the blogososphere space indicates our openess.

I get that you hear it alot. Given that Telecom has most of the customers its not surprising. I hear what you are saying about small business too, i believe you are correct to some degree. But there are many enormous companies providing services to small businesses.

HP / Dell
MYOB
Microsoft
Google
GE finance

Perhaps what you are saying is that there needs to be some cultural empathy? or even a better understanding of small business requirements

@The UM – you’re right, it is a broad statement, but it’s not just my opinion either – I hear this from others often. Maybe Telecom can change for the better, but I still stand by my statement that you need to be a small business to understand small businesses.

Two things, 1) Stuart, this is a very broad brush buddy. Objectively, Telecom is no worse or better than its competitors. $10 txt, Business Time and even good old Xtra in its time were / are competitive. I beleive like all good companies, when strategically warranted they can deliver the goods.

2) History is generally a good predictor of the past except where disruption occurs. (you can easily replace the word disruption with desperation).

I think that the government effectively taking away the network would qualify as both

Telecom is a very long way from perfect. The website is a dog, some of their products are too. But given the network investment fiasco there ain’t no other pony to back.

Telecom is a private company. You’re free to use their services or don’t, simple as that.

b

And on a related topic – the Telecom’s business website is horribly designed. I went on there the other day to sign up for a toll-free number but was greeted with a garish black/fluorescent design with no discernible navigation. I left the site quickly and am now a Telstra customer, who’s website was simple to navigate.

Businesses need high bandwidth at low cost and high reliability. The unfortunate thing about NZ is that most businesses don’t know that there is more to the Internet than ADSL…

cheers

b