Press Releases : 2005

Belgacom Expands Oblicore Deployment, Reports Dramatic Service Improvements and Cost Savings

Oblicore Helps Leading European Telecommunications Company Save Over $7 Million and Increase Customer Satisfaction by Automating Service Level Management

COLUMBIA, Md. July 18, 2005 - Oblicore, Inc., a leading provider of service level management applications that provide the fastest path to guaranteed service delivery, today announced that Belgacom, a leading European telecommunications company, has extended its deployment of Oblicore Guarantee™ to manage thousands of service level agreements (SLAs) with corporate customers, internal business units and government regulators. The company has also reported that by automating service level management with Oblicore Guarantee, it has saved over $7 million and realized significant operational benefits.

“Oblicore Guarantee is a crucial component of Belgacom’s ongoing effort to provide customers with measurable service improvement – a process we refer to as ‘end-to-end service accountability’,” said Didier Audoor, senior IT manager for Belgacom. “With Oblicore, we have transformed service delivery from a process that relied on well-intended, best-effort performance to one that is predictable, compliant and cost effective – resulting in greater levels of customer satisfaction, increased competitive advantage, and tremendous cost savings.”

Belgacom initially purchased Oblicore Guarantee in late 2002 to ensure compliance with a mobile phone number portability regulation. Based on the success of the number portability project, which was completed in less than one month, Belgacom has continued to expand its deployment of Oblicore and now relies on Oblicore Guarantee for a number of significant service level management programs including:

• Belgacom Network & Systems Integration (BNSI), which provides managed services to large corporate customers, including IP telephony, network services, hosting, outsourcing, firewalls, streaming, servers and storage, uses Oblicore to automate SLA management and reporting for thousands of customers, as well as to generate key performance indicator (KPI) reports for Belgacom network managers
• Belgacom Interconnection of Local Area Networks (BiLAN), a division that offers corporate customers connectivity between their various work sites and the data backbone of Belgacom, provides an SLA for each site. BiLAN has over 1,300 customers with more than 22,000 sites. Oblicore automates the management of these SLAs and generates monthly reports that are delivered to customers through the Belgacom e-portal.
• Belgacom’s IT department uses Oblicore for managing 55 SLAs that govern service delivery to internal customers, such as Belgacom’s customer service center and retail phone boutiques. An additional 30 to 40 internal SLAs are currently being developed.

Belgacom launched its end-to-end service accountability initiative in 2003, with the goal of making the company more agile, more innovative and better positioned to sustain its market leadership. As part of this process, Belgacom deployed Oblicore Guarantee to make IT more proactive, customer aware and service oriented. To date, Belgacom has seen the following concrete benefits from Oblicore Guarantee:

• Reduced downtime by 40 percent
• Reduced service management staff from 20 to four full-time employees
• Generated savings of €6 million euros (over $7 million)
• Increased performance of internal systems by 15 percent
• Increased availability of all systems by five percent

“Oblicore is very proud of the success Belgacom has achieved with Oblicore Guarantee,” said Mark Verstockt, vice president, International Sales, Oblicore. “With thousands of customers and tens of thousands of SLAs, Belgacom has made service accountability, or what we call ‘guaranteed service delivery,’ a cornerstone of its operations. As Belgacom continues growing its service management portfolio, its investment in Oblicore Guarantee will generate ever greater returns.”

About Oblicore Guarantee

Oblicore Guarantee is a software application that automates end-to-end service level management, enabling compliant, predictable and cost-effective delivery of IT services and business processes. Its unique business-focused, top-down approach starts with the specific terms and commitments defined in SLAs, underpinning contracts, outsourcing agreements or business process agreements. From these, Oblicore Guarantee drives an automated, ongoing process that compares commitment levels to actual service delivery objectives by aggregating data from underlying operational systems and analyzing it in the context of individual SLAs. Oblicore Guarantee communicates the status of contractual compliance and related financial implications through innovative dashboards, scheduled and on-demand reports, and proactive alerts, giving executive, financial and operational decision makers the actionable information required to guarantee service delivery.

About Belgacom

Belgacom is the leading telecommunications company in Belgium and a market leader in a number of areas, including retail and wholesale fixed-line telephony services, mobile communications services and broadband data and Internet services. For the year ended 31 December 2004, the Group had total revenue of EUR 5,540 million and operating income before depreciation and amortization (excluding non-recurring items) of EUR 2,394 million. Please visit www.belgacom.be for more information.

About Oblicore

Oblicore provides the fastest path to guaranteed service delivery. Dozens of blue-chip service providers and enterprises worldwide use Oblicore to reduce the cost of service delivery, achieve compliance, increase customer retention and acquisition, and monitor critical business processes. Architected to provide business-focused, top-down service level management, Oblicore delivers the most complete and integrated software as well as world-class best practices and expertise, facilitating guaranteed service delivery in record time. Headquartered in Columbia, Md., with offices across the US, Europe and Israel, Oblicore is backed by a strong, global investor base. For more information, please visit www.oblicore.com.