LiveCargo Partners with StarHub to Provide Online Storage Business for Corporate Customers

Today, Asia’s sophisticated  customers are demanding easy, electronic access to their own user-created or professionally-created content that can also be shared between multiple parties. In the increasingly competitive Asian market, pioneering telcos such as StarHub are differentiating themselves with innovative offerings such as LiveCargo’s service. Mr Lim Seow Thong, Assistant Vice President of StarHub’s Business IP Services sheds light on the partnership:

Strategically-Driven
With the rising demand for quick digital delivery, storage, and mobile access, telcos like StarHub recognize the market opportunities for relevant products that cater to their customers’ need to have their information available anywhere, anytime and from virtually any device. Storage as a Value-Added Service (VAS) was decided upon because of its position as a critical cross-platform component for the Internet age. “It’s another form of infrastructure to the end user – one that cuts across all kinds of applications that need storage,” Lim explains. “That’s the reason why we began looking at LiveCargo’s services as something that we can deliver to enhance our customers’ operations.”

Branded as Online Storage Business (OSB), the VAS product is strategically positioned as something much more than pure backup alone. Through thorough customer feedback, StarHub understands that problems such as the ability, speed and security of sending large files across the Internet are real concerns at the workplace. As such, Lim believes that OSB is in an advantageous position to tackle these issues, as it is an effective storage and transfer tool that helps customers to distribute large files and information with both speed and security.

While freeware allowing users to send large files or store files have been increasingly available on the Internet, this need not pose a challenge to the OSB service. As Lim claims, “Our paid service, from a trusted and secure source, provides local support, speed with local servers, and no limitation on size – you get all the benefits you pay for.”

Addressing the Target Market
Generally, Multi-National Corporations (MNCs) and Small Medium Businesses (SMBs) face different needs. Lim believes that there are different opportunities for StarHub to address these target audiences. While the OSB service is a productivity tool and not a disaster recovery backup solution, there is a strong interest in storage, sharing and business continuity, especially regarding critical files used frequently in a business. Explains Lim: “OSB will be useful to securely store and share corporate videos, information, as well as PDF files which salespersons can easily send out to any customers at any time, anywhere.”

To begin educating its customers about OSB, StarHub Account Managers would directly approach each vertical market to introduce the advantages of OSB in that business.  They would also introduce these same users to their preprinted collateral materials and user guides as well as their online tutorial. StarHub will also market the product by employing its well-regarded Hubbing strategy – the ability for StarHub to combine and converge products and services together.

Partnership Success
In looking for the most optimal partnership, StarHub believes that the ideal business partner should be one who understands the nature of the market, and of working with an ISP carrier. Factors such as flexibility, the ability to customize, and product support are essential to StarHub.  With these aspects in mind, StarHub turned to LiveCargo as its selected partner.

Lim recognizes that StarHub itself is a core communications company and not a technology player per se. “We are not the domain experts in these kinds of applications. Hence LiveCargo came to us as a technology partner,” says Lim. Besides providing StarHub with a customized branded skin for its customers, provisioning tools, live generated reports, and online help, LiveCargo also offers StarHub Customer Service 24/7 customer service support. LiveCargo understands that to an ISP like StarHub, customer support is integral to its entire corporate image. Moreover, as application support is very different from network support, LiveCargo is willing to provide the needed tier-three customer service.

“A successful product is one that not only brings in revenue, but value it creates for other products,” says Lim. “Currently, when people think of Internet access, they think of broadband and less of dial-up. We hope that in three to five years’ time, OSB will be positioned in the same manner as broadband when people think of storage. We anticipate customers seeing value in the service. We hope OSB becomes the de facto service in our customer’s daily work.”

“Applications such as OSB will hopefully generate stickiness for our customers, resulting to higher loyalty to the company. This will allow us to expand our target markets and promote both the benefits of broadband and storage.”