By Business & Finance 
PARTNER CONTENT IN ASSOCIATION WITH EIR
One of the nominees for this year’s Business & Finance Company of the Year Award, eir has enjoyed a strong and successful year, pushing forward as a vibrant and varied telecoms, broadband and media company. Here we review some of the highlights of the exciting and dynamic work Ireland’s largest telecoms company does with large enterprise.
eir’s vision is to connect everyone and everything in Ireland, providing a seamless converged experience for customers. The company delivers this connectivity via high speed broadband, voice, mobile and enterprise data comms. This vision is underpinned by a major programme of capital expenditure, which has transformed eir’s business, and the products and services it offers to its customers.
24/7 always on
Customers want 24-7 service, putting enterprises under pressure to deliver continuous uptime. Outages mean lost revenue, and in the case of vital services, potential risks to public safety. Trust in their solutions partner is essential for organisations that rely on eir, organisations for which outages or loss of service is not an option.
Enterprises require ways to meet the technical and resourcing challenges of the 24-hour day, turning it to their advantage, introducing self-service options that let customers complete transactions any time of day or night.
In addition to its work with large enterprise, eir Business is a trusted partner to the public sector and was recently named a preferred mobile supplier for Departments and Agencies.
Reliability and uptime can be a matter of public safety when it comes to our public-sector customers
“Our understanding of the very particular requirements of the public sector has its roots in our work with the Irish Government over decades,” said Ken McGrath, Head of Public Sector Sales for eir Business. “Reliability and uptime can be a matter of public safety when it comes to our public-sector customers. For instance, as part of our being named as a preferred mobile supplier to government, we’ve devoted a fully resourced service desk to Government agencies, staffed with mobile specialists who understand the diverse needs of the sector.”
To continue to provide a level of service required by always-on global companies, network investment remains a key priority for eir. Today 1.7 million homes and businesses (70% of the country) have access to high speed broadband via 20,000 kilometres of fibre cable. This includes the first 101,000 homes and businesses of an additional 300,000 premises located across rural Ireland that will receive Ireland’s fastest broadband, with speeds of up to 1,000Mb/s.
Mobility and the security imperative
eir’s mobile network now has over 96% 4G population coverage, with more than 2,100 sites. This is the mobile age with every business thinking mobile first when it comes to websites and apps, not to mention the engrained imperative for building systems and providing secure devices allowing executives to work globally. The deployment of any mobility initiative involves the creation of potentially thousands of new points on an enterprise’s network, which must be secured and managed.
No enterprise can look at its mobility strategy without re-examining its cyber security strategy
“No enterprise can look at its mobility strategy without re-examining its cyber security strategy,” said Damian Duffy, Head of IoT for eir Business. “Our mobile device management capabilities are a key part of how we help enterprises secure and manage their mobile infrastructure. There is no putting the genie back in the bottle when it comes to mobility: everyone from new staff recruits to the CEO wants to work on the go. We are helping Irish enterprises say ‘yes’ to those demands from their internal users without introducing risk. That requirement for security only grows when enterprises make the move into IoT: our dedicated IoT portal for enterprise customers allows them to make sure they can rollout IoT solutions while keeping control of the visibility and security of their connected devices. ”
As enterprises move towards new, more mobile ways of working, the race is on to discover effective mitigation strategies to counteract cyber security risks.
Preparation is key
As GDPR comes into effect next year, the onus is on all organisations to look at their data collection and storage in case of data breaches. eir has provided for this by giving businesses access to a data security privacy specialist, skilled in best practice, who can oversee the implementation of GDPR throughout the organisation.
Increasingly eir Business is working closely with enterprise customers on overall cyber security strategy and defense. Cyber attacks on enterprises use the network as a way in, and eir business’s in-depth knowledge of networks – including an ability to spot abnormal traffic patterns early – is a huge advantage as organisations put their defensive strategies in place.
The new attitude to security is to design it in from the start and use it as a platform for growth
The eir Business team works with businesses to identify gaps in their security strategies, with perimeter tests and penetration testing, and bring to the table a huge depth of experience working with multiple solutions providers. The new attitude to security is to design it in from the start and use it as a platform for growth.
Innovation imperative
Innovation continues to be an important theme with eir’s “first to market” services including new WiFi Calling that improves indoor mobile coverage. Since the service launchd in May, more than four million voice calls and texts have been made over the WiFi Calling service. Confidence in the quality of its mobile network allows eir to offer a 30-day mobile network guarantee to customers.
Proven capabilities across mobile, data, voice, network, cloud, IoT and cybersecurity gives enterprises access to a deep skillset for pilot projects, including emerging areas like IoT. eir Business was instrumental in delivering the innovative electronic flight bag project for Cityjet; the project, which replaced a traditional and highly manual paper-based solution used by airline pilots with a fully mobile, iPad-based alternative, picked up the 2016 Tech Excellence Award.
Trusted partners
eir is the communications partner of choice for over 80,000 businesses across Ireland who choose eir because they see the company as a highly reliable and trusted partner.
From the launch of eir Sport to the retirement of the Meteor brand, eir has embraced a vibrant single brand strategy. The change for mobile customers from Meteor to eir was a natural evolution of the brand and is a further touchpoint highlighting eir’s confidence in their brand. Today, eir’s aspirational tag line ’Let’s make possible…’ symbolises the can do attitude within the organisation.
