Alliant In the News - AT&T's Investment in its Partner Exchange Channel

Alliant Technologies made the news again when CEO, Bruce Flitcroft, was interviewed by CRN magazine about AT&T's recent announcement to invest $300M in its Partner Exchange channel program.  Alliant has been a platinum partner in the program since it's inception early last year.  Flitcroft comments on how the AT&T channel has helped Alliant expand its business and complements its current Continuous Infrastructure Service offering.  Check out the full article on Alliant's news page:  http://www.allianttech.com/news/news.php

Alliant Honored with 2014 Channel Partners 360 Award

Alliant Technologies is pleased to announce it has been selected as a winner of the 2014 Channel Partners 360⁰ Business Value Awards.  The designation came from Channel Partners magazine, a resource for indirect sales channels offering IT and telecom solutions.

Fifty winners were honored during an awards ceremony on February 26 at the Spring 2014 Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. These winners will be featured in Channel Partners' March digital issue, May/June print issue as well as an Immersion Center at www.channelpartnersonline.com/360. The 2014 program was underwritten by AT&T.

 

"The response to last year's inaugural Channel Partners 360° awards has been overwhelmingly positive," said Khali Henderson, Editor-in-Chief of Channel Partners. "Unlike other programs that honor size and sales, this program recognizes the business value that partners are providing to their customers from holistic solutions." We are pleased to be able to honor twice as many solutions providers that are delivering on this promise in 2014.”

 

Phil Towle, Alliant’s Senior Vice President of Sales, attended the conference to receive the award on Alliant’s behalf.  “Alliant’s Continuous Infrastructure Service™ combined with our role as a charter member of AT&T’s Emerging Business Market division has put us in a position to offer customers a comprehensive and turnkey way of consuming IT infrastructure”, said Towle.  “We are honored to be recognized by Channel Partners for this achievement.”

 

To determine the winner of Channel Partners 360⁰, companies completed an application that asked them to demonstrate how they are addressing the convergence of IT and telecom services and how they are creating business value for their customers.

 

Channel Partners editors and an expert panel evaluated and scored all applications to determine the Top 50 candidates that exemplify the Channel Partners 360° values.

Alliant CEO Participates in CRN Article About AT&T's Channel Push

In March, Alliant blogged about being named a Platinum Partner in AT&T's new Partner Exchange Program (APEX).  We are still proud to be one of the founding Solution Providers that helped lift the program off the ground.  After nine months since the program's launch, this week CRN Magazine published a feature follow up article that provides an in-depth look on how the program is progressing with perspectives from AT&T and participating Solution Providers.  Alliant's founder and CEO, Bruce Flitcroft, was selected to provide some insight about how the program is contributing to the convergence of the Telecom and IT channels as well as Alliant's continued success. 

Check out the full article here: 

http://www.crn.com/news/networking/240162924/solution-providers-expect-great-things-from-at-ts-channel-push.htm

Winergy

by Vincent Gaudio

 

As any Alliant employee or customer will tell you, our passion for technology runs through our company like electricity, powering our services 24/7.  Although names and faces sometimes change as with any organization, the current continues to flow not only internally, but to our customers, who are an extension of our team.  With each passing year at Alliant, I gain more and more insight into how this intangible yet powerful force is generated.  Though the generator is complex and multi-faceted, it is powered by us, the members of the organization.

This week our executive management team held a Continuous Infrastructure Service™ (CIS) training session, and there was a lot of emphasis placed on inter-department synergy.  Not only in a technology organization, but in any organization, synergy between members is paramount and vital for success.  For the sake of scalability, an organization must naturally be departmentalized as it grows.  This is absolutely necessary; however, as the resultant groups of people’s functions are divided and subdivided logically, they tend to become divided in additional ways that can be detrimental to the overall mechanics of the group.  As a long-time member of the Alliant Managed Services team, I have learned the importance of every facet of an organization being in concert with each other in order to drive success.  This is a methodology that is often touted but rarely practiced.

Communication Lubrication

Each department is like a gear, and each member is a tooth.  Communication is the grease which is now easier than ever to apply to your own organization.  Whether your employees’ departments communicate via the Cisco Unified Communications suite, Webex Connect IM, Microsoft Office 365, or walk across the aisle and have a verbal exchange, coordination and collaboration are key.  The more collaboration methods put at your various teams’ disposal, the better.  Using Cisco Webex technology, our engineers are transported in minutes to the core of any network, increasing productivity and executing unparalleled time to repair.  Executives can arrange meetings with participants around the world from their own office in a matter of minutes, and all of the invitees can be present minutes later.  The same power can and should be used internally in your organization to bring inter-department communications to new heights.  Regardless of the products and services you bring to the market daily, all facets of your organization should always be talking about them and sparking new ideas around them.  No member of an organization can know too much about its products or services, and all members should be open and willing to seeing them from multiple angles.  This mindset drives passion and motivation, and passion and motivation drive this mindset.  This cycle is imperative to success.  “Sales training” sessions are a popular method for businesses to facilitate this type of communication and cross-training around their commodities.  I find that at Alliant, these types of get-togethers are much more productive than they are elsewhere, because the sales teams are not the only ones who learn in them.  We can and should all learn from each other constantly.  Members of our various other teams, such as marketing and sales operations, and even our CEO appear at these meetings and everyone involved contributes to accelerating the collaborative process that drives our success.

Util-IT

Why are organizations prone to poor inter-department communication as they grow? Human nature.  How has Alliant sustained, and even improved excellent inter-departmental collaboration as it grows?  One part of the answer is in how our business is organized.  Using the ITIL framework we are continuously streamlining via tried and true processes and procedures, which helps to drive our pre-existing collaborative mentality. This lends additional benefit and versatility to our various departments, as opposed to simply dividing them by function for scale.  Part two of the answer returns us to the “departments as gears,” metaphor.  Most businesses are driving communication between their various teams solely based on a set, repeatable, documented framework.  All of their gears may spin efficiently and at high speeds, which is great.  At Alliant the magic comes from the gears’ axles moving as well, causing them to make contact with all of the other gears around them. This difficult-to-engineer motion extends out to our customers.

Constant communication and collaboration is a cultural aspect that has always helped to power Alliant and keeps our customers’ services powered 365 days a year.  It is now playing a major role in putting us on the leading edge of utility IT via our CIS offerings.  We urge you to encourage the same habit in your organization, regardless of your role.

Alliant Technologies in the News

Alliant Technologies has been gaining a lot of buzz in the press lately and we’re proud to keep sharing the good news. 

Alliant Technologies Named Platinum Solution Provider as Part of AT&Ts New APEX Reseller Program

In February, AT&T announced the launch of a new reseller program – AT&T Partner Exchange (APEX) – and Alliant is pleased to have been chosen as one of the few innovative solution providers asked to test, refine and grow the program.  The goal of APEX is to expand market reach for AT&T and its partners while delivering IP Network, Cloud Solutions and Mobility Managed Services to more businesses.  AT&T is opening up its application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow solution providers like Alliant to develop their own customized solutions for a differentiated and better customer experience. 

Alliant recognizes that companies everywhere are moving toward a new operations model; controlling costs and linking consumption to company growth through Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).  As a result, Alliant introduced a new way to consume technology with its Continuous Infrastructure Service™.  It’s designed to allow customers an easier way to purchase their infrastructure on a per-month, per-device basis and evolve that technology over time – the best part of the cloud.  This simplified and groundbreaking approach offers customers a better way to manage their IT infrastructure.

So when it comes to purchasing AT&T network, cloud and mobility services, customers can purchase the same network, access, and transport that they purchase from AT&T today with the added benefit of Alliant managing pricing, billing, provisioning, repair and monitoring as a turnkey ITIL compliant solution. This allows customers to enjoy the benefits of operating efficiencies including predictable cost, simplified billing and contracting, and a fully integrated solution that removes the customer risk associated with support for the network.

Alliant is delivering its enterprise customers brand new, fully managed Layer 3 MPLS networking solutions to support global voice, video and data applications.  We’re providing a simplified way to buy and administer global IP networks by utilizing the world’s best infrastructure to deliver these capabilities - the AT&T Worldwide Network.

Read AT&T’s press release and learn more about Alliant’s Continuous Infrastructure Service™ by visiting our website at www.allianttech.com.

 

Alliant Named to CRN’s 2013 List of Tech Elite 250

Alliant is proud to once again be named to CRN’s Tech Elite 250, a list that represents an elite group of IT solution providers that have invested in the training and education needed to earn the most advanced technical certifications in the IT Channel for data center or cloud.

In compiling the list, CRN editors worked with the UBM Tech Channel research group and a team of outside experts to define the most customer-beneficial technical certifications in the IT channel. These technical certifications have enabled solution providers to deliver the most premium products, service and support to their North American customers.

This is the third consecutive year that Alliant has received this honor.  In reaction to the announcement, Phil Towle, Alliant’s Senior Vice President of Sales, commented,

“Alliant Technologies is poised for rapid growth due to our Continuous Infrastructure Service offering combined with being a charter member of AT&T’s Partner Exchange Program. This IT-as-a-Service model will revolutionize how IT - namely, equipment and transport - will be procured and consumed.”

Learn more about CRN and the UBM Tech Channel by reading Alliant’s full press release here: http://www.allianttech.com/news/PR021413.php

 

Uncovering Value and Opportunity with Utility Computing

By Kevin Kelling, Alliant Technologies Engineering Department

These are exciting times. In today’s rapidly changing business climate and technology shifts, there are many new areas in which we can find value and opportunity. There are ways to change how we procure information technology, how we manage it, and how we consume it. If we were unable to change the features of our mobile phone service for the length of our contract, it probably wouldn’t work out particularly well for us. We want – and sometimes need – to change the features on our phone service – minutes, data, voice mail and more – to accommodate our needs which are constantly changing and in flux. Just like with cable or satellite TV where we might want to change the channels we subscribe to from month to month.

 

What if we could buy iPads in the same manner? Turning on and off fee-based features as we need them along with a built-in tech refresh (new iPad) every year or two? Better yet, what if we could buy IT services and components like this? Often times IT components are purchased in multi-year leases but we can’t easily change the properties of those components to accommodate what the business wants from IT and when they want it. As a result, the business has to wait, which seems a bit backwards. This is just one of the promises that utility computing holds for us – more flexibility in procurement; offering not just new financial flexibility, but allowing us to “dial up” what we need out of IT on-demand in order to support the mission of the business.

WHAT’S YOUR CORE COMPETENCY?

Chances are that electricity and phone service are not what your organization excels at – so you contract out these services to experts who can offer them for usually a much lower price than you could yourself. With the utility mode of computing, similar economic factors are at work.

Running a datacenter and getting all those networking, computing, and storage layers to work well together and then adding on disaster recovery and more is not inexpensive or easy. But when these elements of IT are contracted out to experts who can operate at scale, per-unit costs will often decrease. Perhaps more importantly, it allows you to increase your focus on what truly matters – your applications, your data, your processes, and of course your business.

THE NEW VALUE PARADIGM

VMware introduced a paradigm shift in IT when it made x86 virtualization an effective solution. Now instead of buying dedicated server hardware for each and every function, we can run multiple servers on the same hardware. The immediate impact of this server consolidation was a reduction in capital expense or CAPEX – there were fewer physical servers, less power and heat, and more ports and space in the datacenter.

But then something else started to happen. Because the servers were encapsulated in this software wrapper, IT departments found even more opportunities to save money in operational expenses, or OPEX. Servers could be provisioned in minutes and new opportunities appeared in everything from monitoring to backups and disaster recovery to significantly improve operations, administrative overhead and associated costs.

We believe that there are many new and emerging opportunities for OPEX improvement with utility and cloud computing models, where more IT elements can now be configured programmatically. This is what VMware refers to as the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC), in which more datacenter resources will be abstracted so that they can become programmable – even doing things such as provisioning a new multi-tier application with PCI compliance with just a few clicks.
  

 

However, things REALLY start to get interesting when you’ve built up operational efficiency to where you can begin to position the organization for agility. At this point, IT and the business are working together as strategic partners to get projects launched and completed in less time and with strategic focus and improved efficiency. Often times businesses know exactly what they want to do, but they fail in the execution as projects take too long and opportunities – and revenues -- are lost. By evolving the IT organization beyond a cost center and positioning the business for agility, an entirely new level of value becomes available to be captured.

YOUR STRATEGIC PARTNER

Alliant’s team of experts will work alongside our partners including Cisco, VMware, NetApp, Microsoft and more to help you take advantage of utility computing, so that you can focus on your core competency and position your organization for agility and success.

If a customer comes to Alliant looking to replace their aging SAN – we don’t just propose a new SAN. We take a step back and look at the bigger picture. What long term challenges exist in storage? What is your cost structure? Performance? Disaster Recovery? NetApp storage brings efficiencies that parallel the CAPEX and OPEX benefits of VMware and can be used to not only reduce costs, but to better position the organization for agility.

In short, we believe in synergy – that the value of multiple solutions working together is greater than the sum of the parts. This is why we believe it is important to have an experienced partner who can help you navigate through the waters of today’s dynamic business and technology climate.

At Alliant we couldn’t be more excited about the new trends and opportunities becoming available and helping our customers to achieve new efficiencies in IT, operations, and ultimately, their business. We’re working to make the vision of utility computing on-demand a reality, changing the way we purchase IT components and services, while helping you to focus on your core competencies- finding more opportunities for value from CAPEX, OPEX and Agilty.

Watch this space as members of the Alliant team will continue to expand on technologies, trends and opportunities for value.

Derek Young Appointed Regional Director, Sales and Business Development, New England

It is with a great deal of pleasure and pride that Alliant Technologies recently appointed Derek Young as the Regional Director of Sales and Business Development for the New England region. Young started with the company as an Account Manager in 2007. Since then, he has had a significant impact on the growth for Alliant in Boston and possesses strong industry knowledge as well as exceptional positioning skills. Derek sold the first Cloud Services deal for New England and has developed and will continue to lead the Business Development program for Alliant, which has produced over 120 new logo appointments in six months.

When asked to comment on the organizational change, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Linda McGuigan, said, “At the end of the day, it’s all about strategic talent selection, empowering and equipping our associates to execute. Derek has an intensity for the business that will strengthen our relationships with our customers as well as our partners.” Alliant is confident that Derek’s leadership will set the tone for growth and expansion, not just in the New England region, but for the company overall.

For more information on Alliant Technologies and its leadership team, please visit http://www.allianttech.com/about-alliant/leadership.php

Bill Madison Named to Channel Partners 2011-12 Advisory Board

Channel Partners - a leading resource for resellers, aggregators, agents, brokers, VARs, systems integrators, interconnects and dealers that provide network-based communications and computing services - recently announced the latest members of its Annual Advisory Board. Among these members is Alliant Technologies’ Director of Channel Sales, William Madison.

Madison joined Alliant Technologies in 2010 and was tasked with developing and deploying a Channel Sales program. Alliant’s Channel Sales program allows agents and wholesalers the opportunity to expand their sales and current offerings through the use of Alliant’s diverse portfolio, including professional and managed cloud aggregation services.

“As a subscriber to Channel Partners Magazine and as a frequent attendee of the Channel Partners Conferences & Expos for many years, it is a great honor to have been elected to the Advisory Board. As the IT and Telco channels continue to converge, Alliant and its Channel Sales Program is uniquely well positioned to thrive in this type of environment,” said Madison.

Channel Partners board member duties include providing input on channel relevant topics, evaluating nominations for industry awards, contributing to editorials and blogs for the magazine and online resource, acting as an advisor for upcoming expo agendas and participating in expo seminars.

More information on Alliant’s Channel Sales Program can be found at www.allianttech.com/agents.

For further details on the Channel Partners Advisory Board, please visit http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/news/2011/08/channel-partners-names-2011-12-advisory-board.aspx.

Alliant Speaks at 2011 Channel Partners Conference

Last week, Chicago was home to the Fall 2011 Channel Partners Conference & Expo. Alliant was proud not only to be in attendance, but to have a featured position in the weeks activities. The event targets partners and suppliers from the Telco & VAR channel communities and is focused on providing quality and innovative programming that maps to the channels qualities, wants and business needs. It featured more than 50 hours of programming, nine hours of networking and more than 120 exhibitors and sponsors. More than 2,500 attendees packed the house to make it the largest Fall Channel Partners Conference to date.

Bill Madison, Alliant’s Director of Channel Sales & Partner Development was in attendance for the conference this year. Bill is responsible for developing channel partnerships that benefit from the IT and Telco industry convergence. Based on his current role with Alliant and his 16-year career in the Telco industry, it’s no surprise that Channel Partners asked Bill to sit on a number of panels and be a conference speaker. One dais he sat on, “Trading and the Transactional Model: A Road Map for Transformation,” was focused on migrating from transactional to solution sales from both a VAR and agent perspective. To read the reviews and learn more about the conference, visit the Channel Partners website for more information. To learn more about Alliant’s role in the channel, visit our Agent Website or contact Alliant.

The next Channel Partners Conference & Expo will be held in Las Vegas, NV in March of 2012.

Stay Vigilant This Summer

by Dan Cirelli, Director of Business Development

As we begin another work week (or launch out on a well deserved vacation for some), now is a good time to remember to be vigilant as we go through these summer months, whether it’s wearing a hat and sun block at the beach or watching out for little kids when driving through your neighborhood. Today I also received a reminder about the excellent technology and support we have here at Alliant as we do our jobs and continue to drive the business forward. In today’s example below, vigilance shows itself to be necessary as we leverage even the simplest technology and do our work, and (luckily) Alliant has put the technology in place to help us all with our IT vigilance. Here’s what happened today.

This morning I received a rather ordinary looking email, apparently from the popular website PayPal.com. The email indicated changes required to update all accounts due to some new regulatory guidelines, and suggested my necessary account update was only a click away. The first screen shot below shows the email that most PayPal account holders may have received over the weekend. The second screen shot below shows the kind of ever-vigilant protection our friends at Webroot provide to all of Alliant’s web traffic every day, a screen shot I received after I clicked on the “Get Verified” icon as instructed. Alliant’s network protection had saved the day!






Instead of finding myself in the midst of a phishing site, where hackers entice you to enter valuable account information to later use against you, or to plant malware onto your computer for future attack, I instead received the unmistakable Webroot red banner page telling me I’d been had, protecting me from damage. Webroot was watching all traffic into and out of my computer, even as I work remotely. And even though the original email was sent to my Yahoo.com email account, Webroot’s protection was still in place as the session moved from email to web traffic. And because this AMS Web Defense service is available not only internally, but also to our clients, this is the type of universal 24x7 protection we can also offer our clients for only a few dollars per user per month.

So wear your sun block, keep an eye out for kids playing near the street, and contact me or anyone on the AMS team to learn more about how our Managed Security Services, including our AMS Web and Email Defense solutions, can keep your network protected as well. Have a safe and productive rest of the summer, recharge your batteries when you can, and let’s all get ready to finish out 2011 with a bang.

Vote for Alliant: Channel Partners 2011 Top 50 Channel Programs Ballot is Open

We Need Your Vote!

Voting is now open for the Top 50 Channel Programs of 2011 – Click HERE to make your selection now! It takes just a minute to fill in your contact information and check the Alliant Technologies box. Your votes will determine the 2011 winners, who will be honored at the Fall 2011 Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Chicago. They’ll also be profiled in Channel Partners magazine, covered in an all-new digital report and spotlighted online.

Alliant's Agent Program was launched in January, 2011. To learn more about the program, visit the Agent site here or read all about it in the launch press release.

We value your support as we continue to grow our business to better meet our partner and customer needs.

Developing Business within the Alliant Culture

by Stephanie Southworth

American football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant once said, “Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.” It was a quote that was often used around our house as I was growing up. In my short time as a member of the Alliant team, I can honestly say that it is something I have witnessed to be true within the organization.

My introduction to Alliant started with a trek to New Jersey to participate in the company’s annual Sales Summit. My first impression was that everyone on the team was extremely friendly and welcoming; there seemed to be no shortage of class, pride, or character(s). In addition to my initial impression, I couldn’t help but notice that I had a lot to learn in the way of technology. I heard more acronyms in those few days than I had in all my years on this earth. But there was something that stood out even more than friendly greetings and overwhelming technological terms. With every presentation from various members of the sales team, it became increasingly clear that this sales organization was fundamentally different from so many that I had seen before: everyone in this company truly and sincerely believes in the products and services they are selling and the value they bring.

Upon returning to Boston to embark on my career in Business Development, that notion really stuck with me. In making cold calls in search of net new logos, I find myself introducing Alliant and what we do to (very busy, often impatient) prospective new clients. I am excited to point out our key partnerships, array of offerings, and our managed services. If said prospect decides to take a meeting, I always make a point to tell them that the account team they are going to meet with is knowledgeable around the core technologies and maintains the highest level of reliability and care in everything they do. And the thing is, I mean it. In trying to “sell” Alliant Technologies to the prospect, I am not lying or sacrificing my personal integrity in any way. In truth, I believe that to be the very thing that can make the difference.

IT is sooooo High School....

There has definitely been a major shift in the workforce with the acceptance of technology. People are finding technology at home to enable them to communicate, catch up, and collaborate (gossip). This consumerism concept coupled with the ability for IT directors to move to a consumption model has made it easier to drive technology adoption in the workplace. IT executives finally have sponsorship as well as a less risky proposition to provide the technology to their constituents.

So I ask my relatively small sample audience of why they are finally embracing technology and are so often to refresh it. I commonly get two answers “it’s so cool” and “it’s easy to use”. Sounds like a teenage answer, however show your CXO that he can receive phone calls on his iPad2, let him telepresence with a colleague across the globe, and let him drive his car without a key and you’ll start to see the simple pleasures that lead to purchases. Everything you buy these days has some extra technology whiz bang. It doesn’t matter if it’s your lawn mower, refrigerator, grill, car, etc. The McDonalds sales model of, “would you like a widget with that” is starting to pay off. You are more apt to buy the widget. You might every supersize your widget.

As I start to talk to more directors about their technology enablement programs for 2011 I’m interested to see a shift in their initiatives. I’m still seeing a strong push towards virtualization, desktop / OS refresh, and DR planning. The two that have quickly risen to the forefront in pilots and proof of concepts are VDI and Video. Of interest to me is that while VDI has been reviewed as a potential option for desktop/OS refresh the tablet innovation and BYoP (bring your own PC) is really pushing this further.

What’s interesting to note is how these technologies are filtering into corporate America. Take a look at the tablet. It started with an anti-establishment movement of I’m PC and I’m a MAC. Translated into you are boring and monolithic, I’m jazzy and very easy to use. The grass roots movement of the everyday man became the largest advocates for this technology and we saw the expansion of our use of these technologies. First to revitalize how we consume audio, next to revolutionize the way we communicate and collaborate, and now as an alternative access method to critical data in a more convenient and accessible format. Today while reading email, leveraging VDI, and checking sports scores on my iPad2 I also use it as my remote control. How is that for empowerment and ways to impress your three year old. If you don’t have something as “cool” as an iPad2 you need one. If someone at work tells you it’s not supported and can’t have one you’ll get executive sponsorship to displace things that are “boring and monolithic”.

As far as video goes….is it truly transformative, breaking down borders, heightening the experience, reducing carbon footprints, and making us more productive? Absolutely! You should be able to demonstrate the benefits, highlight the experience, and develop ROI's to make the case compelling. These sales cycles can be months. When do we get a PO in a week? Typically when this happens:

Your CXO is asked by another CXO “let’s setup a telepresence”. They reply “Sure, I’ll have my admin coordinate with yours.” Then they ask their admin, “what’s a telepresence, we do that right? Oh we don’t have that? Why don’t we have that? How come Jimmy has that?”

Quickly turns into if Jimmy has that I need to have that. Get IT on the phone and get me that.

P.S.

If IT needs to “get that”, whether it be tablet empowerment through VDI, collaboration tool sets, or telepresence, ask them to kindly call Alliant Technologies =)

Thanks,

Manak Ahluwalia

CTO

Cisco Telepresence and Healthcare - The revolution of "telemedicine"

 

It's 2AM and your son who is seven years old is coming down with an intense fever. You immediately recognize that your son has the flu and recognize that with the proper medication, you can treat this ailment right away.

You head over to your living room where you connect to your doctor using your Cisco umi device. Immediately, you are having an interactive video conference with your doctor where in moments, the doctor diagnosis's your son's ailment and sends a prescription to you via email.

We have all been in this situation or something similar. The convenience and power of meeting with your doctor or healthcare provider for non-serious issues such as having the flu or common cold through video conferencing, some of the most common illnesses that most people experience every year, is highly productive and effective for both the patient and doctor where timeliness and convenience are the critical issues at stake.

The solution to the above situation can be solved through the power of Cisco Telepresence. Cisco specifically has a Cisco Telepresence program geared towards the healthcare industry called Cisco HealthPresence. The following video taken from Cisco clearly illustrates the power of Cisco HealthPresence:

Exploring solutions that will create positive and productive experiences for both the patient and the healthcare provider is key to taking advantage of this revolutionary technology from Cisco.

If you are interested in exploring similar solutions to revolutionize your health practice, please reach out to Alliant Technologies today for more information.

Written by Thomas K. Cheriyan

What's The Next Big Channel Opportunity In Video?

Alliant announced last week about its certification as a Cisco TelePresence Video Express Advanced Technology Partner. After hearing this news, CRN Magazine contacted Alliant to find out our opinion on the evolving dynamics when it comes to video and Telepresence at the enterprise and consumer levels. Based on Alliant's expertise as a solution provider and Cisco Gold Partner, CRN journalist, Chad Berndston, interviewed Alliant Chief Technology Officer, Manak Ahluwalia. The full atricle can be read on the Alliant website or the CRN website.

Virtual Play Date: How a three-year-old embraces the ease of Cisco Telepresence

by Manak Ahluwalia, CTO

Developing technology roadmaps require using primary and secondary market data, evaluating trends, and getting feedback from my business partners, peers, and customers. However the vetting of the technology and the user experience is something I have the liberty of being able to gain insight through my children.

Now, my children are young. Young enough to never know what a busy signal on a phone is; lacking the concept of a TV commercial as most of their content is delivered on demand or via Netflix; and believing the primary mechanism for interface to technology is a touch screen.

Professionally, I see a lot of technology bias based on your generation and role in your organization. Some prefer a phone call, others text messaging, a few prefer video. However, what is consistent is that most like to pick and choose based on who they are talking to, where they are, and what device is handy.

My children don't have these biases. They are too young to type and are not engaged enough to stay on a phone call. They want video. By the time they are old enough to type or grasp the concept of voice it will be too late. Video will be their primary mechanism of consuming technology and communicating. This effect will change the tools that companies need to have in place to get the most productivity out of their new workforce. It will also create a wave of adoption for the most technology biased or "old school" leaders in your organization. As a child I wrote snail mail to my grandfather in India. Today my grandfather in his eighties communicates with his great grandchildren through a webcam.

Video is becoming a major tool in our professional lives. The question that arose for me is if the technology has come far enough for my daughter, who just turned 3, to be able to benefit from the experience and not be distracted by the technology.

We decided to put it to a test. With the help of Cisco, we setup a telepresence session between my daughter and Chris Jennings of Cisco to conduct a session between the Iselin, NJ and Boxboro, MA offices. We decided to use the single screen experience as it would most closely mirror the type of experience I expect my children to have in our household in the near future.

We broke this social experiment into a couple of use cases. First, would a young child be able to grasp the concept of a social interaction through a screen with an individual 300 miles away. Once we got past the initial bashfulness we were able to witness the experience evolve. We were able to capture some of the magic of the experience and how this will shape our children’s lives.

My daughter and Chris were able to have conversations as if they were standing next to each other. She showed him her arts and crafts she had recently made, her new umbrella, and a new trick she had learned from her cousin on how to put on her jacket.

She ate her grapes while he ate his apple. Sort of a virtual picnic.

Chris then gave my daughter a drawing lesson and the two were able to draw pictures together.

I was pleasantly surprised by the level of interaction between the two of them. It's easy to see how these technologies still in a degree of infancy will be able to break down cultural barriers and geographic distances. Provide the mobile parent with poor work/life balance to step out for 10 minutes and enjoy the school recital, join dinner remotely, and watch their infants sleep. Allow my children to be tutored in French by someone in France, having international video pals instead of pen pals, and attend classes from the living room.

My next experiment is aligning our executive management team to the iPad2 and Cius for video and data collaboration. Amazing when the experience of a 3 year old can help justify transformation at the top ranks in your organization. Welcome to the new world.

Watch the Virtual Play Date on YouTube and read Alliant’s press release on becoming a Cisco Certified Telepresence Express Advanced Technology Partner.

The End of the Transactional Agent

Alliant would like to applaud Khali Henderson on her continued views of the industry shift to Managed Services Providers. As the IT and Telecom industries continue to converge, Alliant has well positioned itself to accommodate a wide variety of agents with its strategic product offerings and services. Our agent program allows the agent to expand its product offerings without interfering with their individual core business strategies. Visit the Channel Partners site to read Khali’s blog and visit Alliant’s Agent page to learn more about our expanding agent program.

CTO Spotlight: Q&A with Alliant CTO, Manak Ahluwalia

The New Year isn’t the only exciting change happening at Alliant Technologies. At the close of 2010, Alliant announced an organizational restructure that started from the very top. As part of our new “Spotlight Series,” Alliant has decided to take a fresh approach to introducing some of its newly appointed management team. In this first edition, the spotlight is on Manak Ahluwalia. Manak has been with Alliant for over ten years, was previously the Director of the Alliant Boston office, and has most recently been appointed to Chief Technology Officer. We pulled Manak aside recently to pick his brain and find out what he thinks about his new position and his views on the latest trends at Alliant and in the IT industry.

Q: You were recently appointed to CTO at Alliant Technologies. What does CTO mean to you?

A: As a CTO for Alliant Technologies my job is comprised of multiple facets that ultimately lead to the strategic roadmap and development of our product and service offerings. It is my responsibility to listen to and understand the business, technical, and operational challenges our customers are facing - in addition to studying market transitions, emerging technologies, and consumption preferences. With the knowledge I gain, I’m able to make intelligent decisions on the use of our resources to develop new solutions that provide true value for our customers and drive profits for our organization.

Q: In which direction do you see the IT world heading? What are the hottest topics right now?

A: Is “To the Cloud” too obvious of an answer? Realistically, I do believe over the next couple of years many companies will consume more of their key applications and infrastructure in either a cloud or hybrid model. However, another area in which I am seeing interesting trends develop are how the tools we use in personal life are beginning to significantly influence the ways in which we communicate and collaborate in our work life. I’m seeing major changes in the form factors and end user devices being brought into the workforce. I find more CIO’s beginning to realize how increased productivity by being consumer driven is starting to outweigh the operational efficiency of standardized end points. There will be a delicate balance of user freedom and productivity coupled with security and risk mitigation. Case in point: your CEO/CFO/COO/CIO probably has an iPad and most likely is getting corporate email on it.

Q: How would you describe the culture at Alliant?

A: Our culture has always fostered strong engineering talent coupled with an entrepreneurial spirit. That culture puts us in a unique position to leverage our core strengths and continue to innovate and evolve as the market changes so rapidly. We are a relatively flat organization of very bright people who are encouraged to look for opportunities to excel and given sponsorship to work outside their comfort zone. You’ll find working at Alliant to be both challenging but rewarding. After over a decade of working at Alliant, I still enjoy coming to work in the morning. Not many people have that luxury.

Q: What’s the best aspect of your job as CTO?

A: The customer interactions are some of the most fulfilling parts of my job. I get the opportunity on a daily basis to understand a variety of business challenges, industry specific issues, and what keeps people up at night. I feel blessed to be able to interact with so many thought leaders and be a student of technology.

Q: You recently completed a 10 month Regional Leadership Forum (RLF) with Society for Information Management (SIM). With this new leadership opportunity, what learning’s from your recent class are you going to apply at Alliant?

A: I would characterize my experience at RLF to really be more of self discovery then any particular skill set development. The program really highlighted some key elements that will hold true for the rest of my personal and professional life. What I took from the program was comfort in my own skin to understand my strengths as well as my weaknesses; to try to listen and understand before you teach; to cherish feedback. Ultimately, to remember why I come to work in the morning and why the people that enable me to be successful do the same.

Alliant Technologies Recognized by Cisco for Excellence in Customer Satisfaction in United States

Alliant Technologies announced today that it has achieved a Customer Satisfaction Excellence Gold Star from Cisco. This designation recognizes Alliant for delivering outstanding customer service to customers in the U.S.

"Customer service is a cornerstone of the Cisco Resale Channel Program. We are pleased to recognize and congratulate Alliant Technologies for achieving outstanding customer satisfaction,” said Edison Peres, Senior Vice President of the worldwide channels go-to-market group at Cisco.

Customer Satisfaction Excellence is a core value shared by Alliant Technologies and Cisco and is a key driver of our current and future success. Alliant is a current Cisco Gold Partner and received an impressive 4.7 rating out of a possible 5.0 scale.

Cisco measures the customer satisfaction levels achieved by its Gold, Silver, and Premier Certified partners based on regional target goals, providing a weighted average of a partner's pre- and post-sales support over a rolling 12-month period. Partners that achieve outstanding customer satisfaction are awarded the Customer Satisfaction Excellence Gold Star and can be found using the advanced search menu in the Cisco Partner Locator.

The Cisco Resale Channel Program provides a framework for partners to build the sales, technical, and Cisco Lifecycle Services skills required to deliver Cisco solutions to end customers. Through the program's specializations and certifications, Cisco recognizes a partner's expertise in deploying solutions based on Cisco advanced technologies and services. Using a third-party audit process, the program validates partner qualifications such as technology skills, business best practices, customer satisfaction, and presales and postsales support capabilities - critical factors in choosing a trusted partner.

Alliant Launches New Agent Program

The Information Technology (IT) and Telecom industries have been buzzing lately about the inevitable convergence of their two channels, and the impact such a union will bring to customers. With over 12 years experience in this converged space, Alliant announced the launch of its new Agent Program, designed to enable agents (who are typically limited to selling voice and data solutions) to expand their service offerings to clients by utilizing Alliant’s diverse services portfolio. The program also incorporates a Referral element that offers compensation to businesses that recommend Alliant’s services as complementary offerings.

Based on market trends, Alliant has been able to develop offerings in defined IT technologies such as Data Storage, Unified Communications, Data Center Virtualization, Managed and CloudServices, which are all vehicles to complement an agent’s core initiatives, drive business, and provide added value to customers.

Read the full press realease here or visit the Agent home page to learn more about Alliant Technologies new Agent Program.