Inline Telecom Solutions: Russian manufacturers have grown in every sense

“Our plans include active entry into the enterprise market”

CNews: Tell us about the challenges the company has faced over the past four years and how you overcame them?

Anna Sheleg: Every year is a challenge in one way or another. “Black Swans” happen regularly, but that’s what I love about our company: its flexibility, its ability to adapt and grow in any environment.

If we evaluate the company’s performance in the post-COVID period, taking into account all the geopolitical changes, then, undoubtedly, the indicators exceeded my baseline estimates. Furthermore, we tried to make the most of the lockdown period.

We transitioned to remote work completely smoothly. Our employees’ high level of self-organization was evident in the first few days. We somehow seamlessly moved all processes “inside the kitchen.” Our guys got used to working with laptops and mobile phones at a telecommunications cabinet somewhere in the field or while on vacation with an ocean view. Management was busy revising its strategy and considering the brand’s market positioning for future periods. Overall, we didn’t experience any significant declines during that period.

CNews: Strategy review? Please describe the key aspects.

Anna Sheleg: One of the highlights of the new strategy was a focus on key promising areas. As a result, during the COVID-19 period, we abandoned a number of non-core activities, including the construction of base stations, fiber-optic communication lines, and their maintenance.

We have identified the construction and modernization of network infrastructure (Routing/Switching) as our key areas of focus in the coming years—something we have grown out of and where we continue to consider ourselves industry leaders with unrivaled experience. Next comes information security, post-warranty technical support for network and IT solutions, and server/storage development. Then comes OSS/BSS systems, as well as in-house ITS developments (packet brokers, SDWAN, IPAM, DNS, etc.).

CNews: What else was included in the strategy?

Anna Sheleg:The second important point of our strategy was to actively enter the enterprise market.

This is a very important slogan for us. Those who have known our company for a long time still sometimes perceive us as a company that works primarily with the Big Four and a pool of alternative operators. But it’s crucial to note that we have long since moved beyond working solely with the operator market. Yes, our expertise grew specifically from providers: working with operators during their formation and active development gave us the opportunity to gain unique experience working with global leaders in industry solutions.

However, the operator market is not currently a driver of our development. We actively collaborate with banks, energy companies, large data centers, mining holdings, and major infrastructure companies that are actively investing in the development of their own infrastructure.

We continue to actively bring our expertise to the corporate solutions market: we have strengthened our marketing, rebranded, updated our online resources, actively participated in industry events, and are doing everything possible to ensure brand recognition in the enterprise market.

All this work is bearing fruit. Analyzing the figures for recent years, the share of revenue from enterprise market solutions significantly exceeds that from carrier business.

At the same time, we don’t spread ourselves too thin when working with new clients. We focus on key areas and implement projects within our core competencies. We are extremely committed to ensuring that our clients find us a reliable partner for years to come.

“For almost a year, most companies have been analyzing what’s happening”

CNews:How has the import substitution trend affected your company?

Anna Sheleg: Events in recent years have significantly adjusted the development vector of the integration business.

As one of the leading systems integration companies in Russia, we were top partners of key global network equipment and software manufacturers, information security solutions, and more until 2022. For example, we were the only Elite Plus partner of Juniper Networks in Russia and held premium status with Huawei, Oracle, Fortinet, and others. Of course, we’ve worked with a pool of Russian solutions, and we’re a developer of a number of niche software ourselves… However, in previous periods, the share of Russian solutions in sales was insignificant.

With the departure of foreign manufacturers from Russia, we, like the industry as a whole, are faced with the need for import substitution in various segments. It’s a very interesting period. We’ve observed the varying reactions of our customers to the situation. How does in-house expertise affect the speed of decision-making when reviewing the vendor landscape? For almost a year, most companies were in a protracted analytical phase. Some counterparties were reluctant to consider the Russian alternatives we offered for various reasons.

CNews: For example, which ones?

Anna Sheleg: Firstly, the immaturity of some Russian solutions: for a number of commercial companies, it was important to provide business-critical services, and they were in no hurry to abandon their functionality, and the prospect of parallel imports did not particularly frighten them. Secondly, there was the idea of ​​”maybe,” as some companies adopted a wait-and-see approach, hoping that in a year they could “go back to business as usual.” Thirdly, there was the cost. At the time, a Russian alternative could have been more expensive than a foreign equivalent.

Finally, there’s a lack of resources: the global implementation of new vendor solutions requires staff training, workloads are growing, and additional qualified experts with clear pricing structures are needed, which is a particular problem in the market right now.

CNews: And everyone went into hiding for a while.

Anna Sheleg: Yes, due to a combination of factors, integrators and Russian industry manufacturers spent over a year “educating” the market. All participants have worked (and continue to work) to ensure import substitution. To their credit, this process has recently become much more dynamic.

Manufacturers have grown in every sense: if we talk about leaders, then for the most part their product lines are clearly defined, there are clear comparisons with Western counterparts, lead times and roadmaps have been formulated, internal teams have been staffed and are developing, marketing and a partner network are being built, pricing parameters and a discount system have been determined.

Customers have become much more receptive, each seeking the optimal option for themselves, taking into account the technical capabilities of the solution and price parameters.

With our environment now more structured, the market calming down and identifying development paths, we’ve managed to bring the company’s performance to 2022 levels. We plan to follow trends, grow, and develop together with our Russian partners.

“The growth driver of recent years has been the information security sector.”

CNews: Which of the key expertise you mentioned acted as growth drivers in the past financial year?

Anna Sheleg: Given the market environment, information security has become the main growth driver in recent years. While it was certainly a high priority for us before, new market conditions have accelerated the process.

Objectively speaking, many companies have faced attempts at external interference, and the number of cyberattacks has increased exponentially. Therefore, our customers have become much more attentive to protecting their network, implementing systems such as DDoS protection and firewalls. The implementation of such projects in collaboration with Russian manufacturers also increases customer confidence in domestically produced systems, which, as practice has shown, perform exceptionally well and provide the required level of protection for the company’s infrastructure.

Of course, the regulator’s influence on the industry’s development cannot be denied. Amendments to the Federal Law on the Protection of Critical Information Infrastructure and Personal Data require infrastructure companies to take certain precautions. However, not all companies can maintain the necessary in-house expertise. In such cases, integrators come to the rescue.

We assist our clients in auditing for compliance with the Critical Information Infrastructure Law, align regulatory documentation with the required format, and propose and implement technical solutions for comprehensive enterprise security.

We are extremely interested in projects in this area, so we are actively developing our expertise in information security, constantly hiring specialists, and expanding our partner pool.

CNews: You mentioned that in addition to your integration business, you are also a software developer.

Anna Sheleg: This is our most complex, yet most beloved, topic. Our team has an excellent reputation in the market, and many describe us as highly experienced, responsible, and creative integrators. Our software solutions were developed at various stages by deeply involved employees. When you deeply understand the customer’s technological pain point, when the team sees the potential for customization, when implementation appears feasible from a resource standpoint, and when there is potential for market replication, we shape and bring the product to life.

While this process currently has clear growth momentum, there are also limitations. Rapidly increasing product sales (which always requires some refinement) requires significant resources. The market for skilled architects and programmers is currently sky-high, and hiring them has become comparable to hunting a tiger. Ensuring rapid development requires significant investment immediately. So, we’re learning to find a balance in this reality.

Returning to specific products, it’s worth mentioning that, in addition to using our own resources, we also develop software in collaboration with software development partners. Often, our products are essentially deeply customized partner solutions tailored to the specific requirements and environments of our customers. In many cases, a customized solution is required that cannot be presented as something out-of-the-box or final. To achieve the desired result, we utilize the full range of functionality from all our partners and all our existing products.

CNews: Tell us briefly what these products are and what is their area of ​​application?

Among the most popular solutions and products, including our own and those of our partners, which we are currently promoting and implementing on the market, we would like to highlight the following. These include packet brokers, a traffic collection and mirroring system, SDWAN solutions with the MARS management system, IPAM and DNS solutions, and a BGP policy management platform (SAVRI).

All developed and implemented software is registered in the Russian software registry and assists in import substitution projects.

Source: The interview with Anna Sheleg published on the CNews website.