Energy Solutions: Validating Our Message & Telling Others

Telamon Corporation and our Energy Solutions team were extremely busy in the month of May. For this month's blog, we decided to focus on some of the latest news and events that have allowed us to offer our message of treating energy as an asset.

We are very happy to have external attention and validation of our message of treating energy as an asset. This month, we received our second invitation this year to speak on the topic of energy management strategies for enterprise and public sector customers. Mark Brown will have the opportunity to present at the Indiana Energy Management Conference in August and again at the World Energy Engineers Congress in October.

We also had the unique challenge of exhibiting at two different conferences 1,300 miles apart on the exact same days. The energy solutions/solar team was well represented at the AAAE (American Association of Airport Executives) Annual Conference in mid-May in San Antonio, Texas with a team of four in attendance. This included Dr. Vincent Liu as a speaker at the convention on the topic of Diverse Revenue Sources at General Aviation Airports, which was attended by an abundance of airport executives.

The display booth focused on the management of utility cost as an asset and therefore how to reduce your utility cost and usage over time. Most of the discussions centered on providing self-generated solar electricity to be used within the airport property. In addition, Telamon promoted its status as the developer of the IND Solar Farm at the Indianapolis International Airport, the largest airport-based solar farm in the world.

Booth at AAAE Annual Conference.

Meanwhile, 1,300 miles away in Las Vegas, Telamon exhibited at the RECON 2014 show from the ICSC (International Council of Shopping Centers) with three of our energy solutions partners: Village Green Global, Performance Building Solutions, and Tridium/Cochrane Supply, launching our new branded service, "energie" - a turnkey solution covering energy conservation, management, and generation services acting as an empowered agent on behalf of our customer.

Booth at ICSC RECON.

As we enter the second half of 2014, we see news stories daily that validate our message: proactively managing energy and sustainability is a new "best practice" and is necessary to reduce risks and costs to energy consumers.

Business Process Solutions - Business Process as a Service (BPaas)

Gartner defines business process as a service (BPaaS) as the delivery of business process outsourcing (BPO) services that are sourced from the cloud and constructed for multitenancy. Services are often automated and where human process actors are required, there is no overtly dedicated labor pool per client. The pricing models are consumption-based or subscription-based commercial terms. As a cloud service, the BPaaS model is accessed via Internet-based technologies.

Cloud computing is nothing new and is now used more than ever to transform and innovate businesses, not just to support commodity processes. Senior IT executives and business process owners should evaluate process visibility, accountability, and adaptability of BPaaS to see if a cloud service can support business process change.

One new entrance into the BPaaS model, however, is the concept of an "outcome based" business model. In this model, the client doesn't care how many transactions you process or how many people you employ to complete the project, they simply pay for improved outcome. This could to be tied to a percentage of the company's revenue for this project, or simply a Pay for Perfection - only those processes that are done right.

In a recent article published by IBM, Ajay Mohindra stated:

"The services industry is shifting its focus away from the delivery of IT outcomes and towards the delivery of business outcomes that result from IT services. Traditional IT-based services focus on reducing IT costs for the enterprise through automation and standardization. The performance metrics are not surprisingly in the language of IT; mean-time-between-failures, average service utilization, average storage utilization, the service-level agreements, or the number of servers that can be managed by a system administrator. Clients are increasingly using measures of revenue, profit goals, and other metrics that indicate positive impact on business performance. This shifting focus is helping companies that adopt this approach to increase sales, reduce the cost of customer aquisition, and more effectively retain existing customers.

Some industries such as healthcare and government are particularly ready for an outcome-based model as they seek to contain costs while simultaneously investing in projects that add value to the organization. For example, to reduce costly patient re-admittance rates, government agencies have passed laws that penalize hospitals if a patient is re-admitted within 30 days with an estimated savings of $8 billion over ten years. IT service solutions that address patient transition care are designed to allow hospitals to manage their patients more effectively, with the objective to reduce re-admittance rates and avoid penalties. Another example is services solutions for clinical trials of drugs, which once were aimed primarily at cutting costs in the trial process but increasingly will target revenue growth by focusing on accelerating the launch of a new drug, thereby increasing market revenue potential and reducing operational expenses for clients. The project's goal is to systematize outcome based business methodology".

Explore your BPaaS options with Telamon by contacting:

-John Owen
VP of Sales
Business Process Solutions - Telamon Corporation
john.owen@telamon.com
317-818-6697

Telecom Solutions - Traffic, Traffic, & More Traffic

The word traffic probably inspires more dread in anyone requiring transportation from a motorized vehicle. It conjures up lateness, frustration, and anxiety. The same can be said of those network managers who are responsible for looking at the traffic on their telecom/datacom networks. More and more bits and bytes are trying to get onto an already crowded highway, causing concern in keeping up with it.

In previous blogs, I have written about the sophistication of enterprise networks as well as the "Internet of Things". I recently read an article about how municipal governments working with urban planners and developers are turning their communities into smart cities. Unlike the traditional telephone provider, these partnerships are building the network, creating content for its users, and gathering data. Of course, this is causing traffic on the networks, however, these partnerships are utilizing telecom/datacom experience to design "future tolerant" networks - certainly not future proof, for as we know, things change way too fast for that.

One recent success is the city of Barcelona, Spain. Although Spain has been battered by the recession, Barcelona and its forward thinking leadership have created an outstanding model of government/private cooperation, which has created thousands of jobs and attracted new residents and businesses. The street lighting is equipped with sensors to illuminate the area based on movement detection, saving energy while maintaining safety and security. Parking spaces and waste/recycling bins have sensors built in so that drivers can find parking quickly and disposal companies can pick up trash more efficiently - both reducing fuel consumption and emissions. Businesses are also jumping on this bandwagon by advertising themselves through these networks. Once can be in town and your favorite local shop or club can let you know about specials or events and tell you the best way to get there via public transport or personal vehicle. Government services are also made easier - get a permit or license easily and quickly. See a pothole in the street and immediately report it to the proper authority. In addition, the push for renewable energy is evident in the large number of EV charging stations and solar PV/thermal mandates for large commercial buildings adding to the "smartness factor" of the cities.

All of this information gives new meaning to "traffic" - one that personally, I don't mind. If this kind of traffic helps communities grow and come together, I'm all for it!

-Suzanne Beck
VP Business Development
Telecom Solutions - Telamon Corporation