Most of us probably don’t know what it takes to run a retail store. Put a bunch of products on the shelves and wait for customers to walk in the door to buy clothes, electronics, food, furniture, you name it. But as consumers, the quality of our experiences has a lot to do with technology. From the cash register to neon signs to shopping carts with wheels, new tools have made shopping easier for us…  MORE

Over the past ten to fifteen years, the ability to expand into new markets has been made easier with the rise of Internet technology. It’s technology that’s become cheaper, more efficient and easier to deploy, with a growing amount of convenient features. There was a time when companies needed to purchase tons of expensive equipment to set up new offices overseas. Today that task can be done, in large part, by connecting some cables and…  MORE

When you hear the words “customer service”, what immediately comes to mind? You might think of the textbook definition: the way you can resolve issues with a specific company. On the other hand, your skeptical side may come out and think of a false promise filled with long waits and inadequate results. Unfortunately, telecom customers have increasingly fallen into the latter category. With slick marketing campaigns, telecoms constantly promote the speed and quality of their…  MORE

With all of the technical and telecom innovations coming from America, you’d think we’d have some of the fastest Internet speeds on the globe. Not so. Just take a look at a recent state of the Internet report. We don’t even rank in the top 10 – those spots are occupied by South Korea, Sweden, Norway, Japan, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Latvia, Switzerland, Finland and Denmark. The U.S currently ranks 17tth. These are statistics that would…  MORE

As global telecom consultants with decades of combined experience, there’s no client issue that surprises us. We’ve seen it all. But there is a certain mindset that does cause us to scratch our heads: Why do CIOs and IT executives continually get all bright-eyed with the latest sexy technology and forget about the need for a strong network foundation? Take the cloud, for example. We regularly meet with companies who want cloud-this, cloud-that, but they…  MORE

With the rise of the sharing economy, we’ve seen a new type of business model being embraced around the world. Just look at companies like Uber, Airbnb and Etsy. Their success isn’t due so much to hordes of superstar salespeople or expensive branding campaigns. Their secret weapon? Customers trust them. The telecom industry could do well to study this phenomenon and apply the lessons to their own way of practicing business. The cold truth is…  MORE