Joy of sharing

Tenants using shared infrastructure enjoy lower capex and opex costs as compared with managing ICT infrastructure on their own.

For example, T-Systems has set up a shared data centre, which means that tenants save on space needed to accommodate a server or servers within their office, not forgetting the savings on renovation and installation and the ongoing cost of hiring an IT administrator. "There is always at least one T-Systems engineer on duty on site during office hours," says Goh.

Why did NEC select T-Systems? "We evaluated several service providers. One of the reasons that motivated us to select T-Systems was the fact that they had already implemented the ICT infrastructure at the German Centre, another high-tech building at the International Business Park," says Goh. "Therefore it made sense for the Nordic European Centre to approach Deutsche Telekom (as T-Systems was then known) to do the same for us." The other factors were Deutsche Telekom's respected brand name and global reach. There was one other factor as well: T-Systems undertook to bear the cost of wiring the building. "Not many service providers were willing to do this. This has reduced our development cost. As a result, we have been able to pass this saving on to our tenants."

The shared ICT solution approach also offers a value-proposition, not only cost savings, says Goh. "This solution offers easy scalability and, furthermore, tenants are assured that the technology will always be updated to meet their expectations."

Say, a new tenant starts with only three employees, but it has planned to increase staffing to 10 in a year's time. However, business is growing much faster than anticipated and, as a result, it ramps up to15 in nine months. Unexpected surges in growth can put a company ICT's infrastructure under strain.

On the other hand, if a company does invest in surplus capacity to prevent such strains from occurring, it will be spending on equipment that it is not presently using, which will lower its operational ROI. "The shared infrastructure approach offers tenants with equipment, services and capacity on an 'as'- and 'when'-needed basis. As a result, tenants don't have to over invest in surplus capacity. They can be accommodated if they overshoot," says Goh.