Interview: Luke Clifton, Macquarie Telecom

Which technologies or innovations do you think will be game changers or reach maturity in 2018?

It’s no major surprise, but investment in cloud services will soar in 2018, particularly among mid-to-large Australian businesses, which to date have been slower to adopt. We’re on a hybrid cloud journey, and hybrid networks are now following — hence why we’ll also see further investment in SD-WAN to create an all-round hybrid set-up. We’ve placed these growth areas firmly into our business plans — our recently launched SD-WAN services are being used by more than 150 customers across Australia and we’re adding to that every week. We’ll also build or buy additional data centre capacity in 2018 to help customers develop cloud strategies, and our new ASD accreditation for PROTECTED Government cloud services will provide an effective outlet for government organisations to manage highly sensitive cloud workloads.

Which ICT innovations or disruptions are your customers telling you they’re most concerned about in the year ahead?

Cloud really ticks both of those boxes — our customers are gravitating to more and more cloud services to create new digital services that improve their own customer and staff experience. We’re investing in our cloud business to cater for that. With cloud, however, comes new risks around security and compliance — Australian businesses need to be conscious of these risks and work with providers who can help them navigate them and keep data and mission-critical applications secure at all times.

What will be the biggest growth opportunities for your company and your customers in 2018, and why?

Next year we’re going to double down on our #SoUnTelco campaign, which focuses on humanising our business, separating ourselves from our competitors, delivering better and people-orientated customer service, and hiring locally. It’s been a major factor in growing our business consistently over a number of years and having our net promoter score (NPS) rise to almost +70. Driving this campaign further, continued investment in new services such as SD-WAN and our new ASD accreditation for PROTECTED Government cloud services represent our biggest opportunities to continue growth in the year ahead.

What’s on your tech wish list from industry, regulators and innovators in 2018?

We’d like to see more investment in Australian jobs and Australian people. The country is facing a real brain drain in terms of our tech and telecoms talent pool, and these are areas where there is huge potential for growth and becoming a world leader. We’ve made the conscious decision to keep our contact centre and engineering support teams on-site right here in Australia. We’re also partnering with Australian universities to try and harness this talent and give young students the chance to develop successful careers.

It’s important to recognise that much of this undiscovered or underutilised pool of talent comprises women. We need to do more to support women in technology from childhood all the way through their careers. We’re partnering with LiveHire, an Australian hiring platform aiming to create a community of 100,000 women countrywide who are interested in technology, but might not have the right skills, and help to bridge that gap.

Luke Clifton is the Group Executive for Macquarie Telecom, a business of Macquarie Telecom Group, an Australian data centre, cloud, cybersecurity and telecom company for mid-to-large business and government customers. He is an information communications and telecoms leader with more than 20 years’ industry experience.

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