Vocus

Established in 1999, M2 Telecommunications Group Ltd (M2) is Australia's largest network independent telecommunications provider for retail and wholesale fixed-line, MVNO on multiple MNOs (Optus, Telstra, Vodafone) and data telecommunications services, specifically tailored towards Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs) in Australia and New Zealand.

In 2016, M2 Group merged with Vocus Communications, establishing a clear fourth challenger in the Australian telco market by market capitalisation and 3rd in the New Zealand market by number of subscribers, as two growth businesses combine to create one high growth business.

Vocus continues to deliver growth in Australia, encompassing the following mass market focussed brands:

• Commander - Every day, thousands of Australian businesses use Commander phone systems, services and solutions to stay connected.
• iPrimus - iPrimus was one of the first true broadband challengers. Families around Australia trust iPrimus to deliver fast, reliable broadband, home phones and mobiles.
• Dodo - Dodo is one of Australia’s leading cost-conscious challenger brands.
• engin - Engin is Australia's leading VoIP provider. Engin provides businesses with a full suite of products to future-proof their communication, from competitive broadband and phone bundles to ePBX and SIP Trunking solutions.
• M2 Wholesale - M2 Wholesale, through our comprehensive wholesale offering, allows reseller telco customers to incorporate our services into their product mix, market them through their existing sales channels and do it all under the banner of their own brand name.

In addition to using its own comprehensive network assets, including inter-capital city fibre, metropolitan fibre networks, access to all 121 nbn Points of Interconnect (POI) and extensive DSALM infrastructure, Vocus buys services from all of the major Australian communications networks and repackages these into bundles aimed at its own customer base, achieving its own brand recognition and loyalty.
 
Following a thorough and competitive tender process, Vocus, as M2 Group at the time, selected Cerillion to harmonise an increasingly complex blend of systems and to unify the distinct brands on one underlying platform. The Cerillion system went live in early 2012, and continues to deliver significant benefits in terms of lower cost of operation and improved business efficiency.

Cerillion’s ability to support multiple brands, resellers and channels on a single convergent system and the quality of their professional services team were both key reasons for selecting them from a strong field of contenders. Having looked initially at over fifty BSS vendors it was Cerillion’s track record of delivering out-of-the-box yet highly configurable systems that made them the stand-out option.

Geoff Horth
CEO, Vocus Communications

The Challenges

M2’s acquisition strategy had resulted in a complex BSS environment, with multiple system stacks inherited from each new purchase. Critical to M2’s on-going growth and success would be the transformation of its BSS architecture to reduce costs by removing duplicate systems/functions, and to increase efficiency by streamlining business processes.

Key BSS requirements for M2 included:

• Multi-tenancy model for customers, products, users and access rights
• Multi-service convergence, providing bundles of fixed, mobile (MVNO) and broadband services
• Support sophisticated enterprises offerings, including PBX, VPN and point to point services
• Complex provisioning to four host networks
• Support for wholesale and retail services, including bureau billing models
• Support for dealer channels