isp profile
In pursuit of false economy
Buying the cheapest internet
service around may save a few
pounds but jeopardise your
business. The ‘boutique’ ISP
Blue Lightning Internet offers
a more professional service to
businesses . . . but at a price.
Henry Ford offered his customers the ultimate choice: they could have any colour
of car so long as it was black. Executives seeking out a partner on their path
through the jungle of electronic business would be forgiven for thinking that
they have the same choice if they were to select any one of the top ten Internet
service and solution providers to be their e-business partner.
All, by definition, connect their customers over consistently high quality internet services if
the same backbones at similar bandwidths it is to exploit the full potential of e-business
and claim to be making available an almost during these difficult economic times. There
identical platform of value-adding services. is a strong case for SME executives to look
Despite the inevitable similarities which go around the marketplace to find a service pro-
with the Internet territory, there are in practice vider whose ‘mindset’ is more attuned to their
significant differences in the way that service own, so that the solution they take on board
providers construct their ‘product’ and take it really is fit for (their) purpose.
to market. Offers of very cheap web hosting abound,
while internet access from the high-volume
Inflexible approach
service providers is a commodity item whose
price continues to fall. If the cut-price hosting
How flexible one of these vendors might be to services work – which they clearly do at a
the operational needs of the customer is per- physical level – and internet access can be
haps the greatest single factor that draws clear purchased often as a low-cost add-on to tel-
blue water between a commercially conscious ephone or entertainment packages, is there
operator and the also-rans. any incentive for a business watching its over-
Are they able to mould services around the heads to opt for a more expensive service?
needs of even the smallest user of their facili-
ties – or is this a capability reserved for huge
multi-national customers who have the mus-
Demanding maximum reliability
cle to dictate their own terms? That was a question we put to Stuart Ford, the
As this publication focuses essentially on Technical Director of Blue Lightning Internet,
the needs of the SME, the chances are that a Surrey-based service provider that has tar-
few readers will ever have that influence over geted the tier of business and corporate cus-
their ISP. Yet the smaller business needs tomers for whom maximum reliability is
78
The Informed Executive
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