TESTIMONIAL Arelion

Company profile

Arelion, formerly named Telia Carrier, solves global connectivity challenges for multinational enterprises whose businesses rely on digital infrastructure. On top of the world’s Number 1-ranked IP backbone and a unique ecosystem of cloud and network service providers, we provide an award-winning customer experience to customers in 125 countries worldwide. Our global Internet services connect more than 700 cloud, security and content providers with low latency. For further resilience, our private Cloud Connect service connects directly to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and Oracle cloud across North America, Europe and Asia. Since 2020 Telia Carrier operates the official Telia Group A2P Hub and is engaged to helped mobile operators across different regions to improve service quality by implementing special security systems leading to better monetization of the messaging service.

Fabio, this is another journey for you with HORISEN. How was on the other side, tell us your experience in selecting platform vendor?

I know HORISEN for a long time. I have been pretty close to HORISEN’s platform for more than five years but from the commercial side. When I moved to Telia, you were shortlisted in the process of establishing a new ERP. That was a big process, and in the end, we chose you. I can say that the deciding factor for us was that HORISEN has a modularity that we have not seen in other places. Your platform is developed in a way to cover all of the aspects of the wholesale business – it was a one-stop-shop for everything we need to start the business.

On the other side, having HORISEN was good for us in the sense of what will bring in this partnership comparing to everything that we have already. As a whole package, it fits so well with all our needs. This is especially reflected in the financial processes that follow the business. So, everything related to invoices and billing is so complete. If we decided on another platform, we would need to do internal integration with the different billing systems, which will of course take time, and will add complexity and cost to this solution. HORISEN’s solution came with this full financial module, which is ready to use.

That was the priority. Because we could start a business with important customers, without the need to extend our development time to integrate external billing systems. I would say these are the main two reasons.

I would like to know how was that ‘’post-sale’’ implementation, how are you satisfied with everything that happened after the buying process?

That’s a key thing for me. And probably the best thing about HORISEN is the support we get for customized solutions, the flexibility, and also the strong relationship that you’re dedicated to establish. I think that’s crucial in business. At this point, the support and transparency we have between us, is helping everyone in Telia Carrier to go beyond expectations. Commitment from everyone in HORISEN to this partnership and its development is something that we are really happy to have. From the start, we always have the feeling that we go in the right direction. Telia Carrier was always looking for advanced and new solutions during the process. The integration with some of Telia Carrier’s affiliates was not very standard. Some of them were requesting to follow different protocols (for example, some MNOs were asking for SOAP protocol or customized SMPP, instead of standard one).

What is something that serves you the best on the platform?

HORISEN’s finance and billing module provides a solution that covers all the business aspects without the need of further integration with existing external systems. It allows a quick start, saving time and operational costs. Those processes are done flawlessly and completely, and its implementation serves our time and organization. It’s really important to have everything in one place, in a click of a button. The testing manager provides good visibility to qualify routes and suppliers helping to improve our service offering and quality. It’s really good.

How do you see your business in the future with us? Do you think that our products and services can help you grow, in some other way – for example retail business?

Absolutely. This is something that we have been discussing with HORISEN already. New features, capabilities for different types of communication like RCS, Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp – this is the step out of our comfort zone. Because we in Telia Carrier call ourselves an International Messaging Hub, and that’s what Telia Carrier should be. We are the official international messaging hub provider for all Telia Carrier affiliates. So, when I say the message again, I consider all types of messages and all available channels.

Your direction of evolution is comparable to our aspirations. When it’s up to HORISEN, one of the main things we consider about ERP, was the ability to move towards a sort of omnichannel solution. We want to improve our capabilities on the enterprise side, retail, this is very important for us. Of course, working on international traffic aggregation is the easiest start and the fastest growth and this is what we are doing today – trying to build the main aggregation format for Telia Carrier. However, there will be a point where retail traffic will start and we are already looking at it.