May 2017

12 APAC / May 2017 , 1703AP09 Providers of Top- Class Innovation in Telecommunication BSA Limited is amarket-leading supplier of technical services to the telecommunications, building, infrastructure and resources sectors. We invited Ray Larkin, the firm’s ExecutiveManager for Business Development and Strategy, to share the secrets behind its success so far. BSA is a comprehensive technical services contracting company that has successful long-term relationships with its clients, founded upon a commitment to provide innovative, flexible solutions and a culture that promotes continuous improvement. With 25 offices nationally, the publicly listed company has annual revenues of over $500 million, approximately 1,400 employees, including an internal workforce of 200 direct employed technicians, and well- established working relationships with some 1,500 field resources. Ray outlines the firm’s approach to client services and how this client focused strategy has helped lead the company to the success it enjoys today. “BSA’s responsive service model is based on partnership. In our evolving ecosystem, business partners provide us with a scalable workforce approach and the right skills and experience, in the right place, at the right time, to meet our client’s needs. “To achieve this, we offer a single point of contact, mature governance, quality assurance frameworks, and established systems for contractor management. Our business partner model supports high-volume ticket of work management and infrastructure projects Australia-wide in metro, regional, rural and remote areas. Our core business is providing operational management for clients requiring large-scale technical workforces to deliver products and services to their end customers. BSA Connect’s clients include Australia’s largest telecommunications and subscription television providers. “Success of this model is attributed, in part, to our internal registered training organisation (RTO), Blue Sky Academy. As both a provider of field workforce solutions to the telecommunications sector and an RTO, BSA is different from other service providers. We are uniquely placed to realise the connection between business outcomes, project schedule, skills requirement and training delivery. This capability reflects in BSA’s achievements as an Preferred Training Panel Provider and an exclusive national provider of HFC training to one of Australia’s ‘Top 3’ telecommunications carriers.” Drawing on over 19 years’ experience supporting clients from across the telecommunications space, BSA has a great deal of insight into the challenges faced by the market today. In Ray’s view, one of the biggest challenges facing the telecommunications industry currently is a shortage of skilled resources, as he is keen to discuss. “When the rollout of the national broadband network was first announced in 2008, focus was on training fibre-to-the- premises capable workers. BSA responded by founding its RTO to deliver training to its internal fibre splicing workforce. In 2013 when Australia moved to a multi-technology-mix model, the demand increased for workers with copper cable jointing and hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) skills. As a significant services provider to the industry, with expertise in both network technologies, BSA was well-placed to immediately support the change in training requirements. “Today, training of resources is continuing to ramp up rapidly to fill the skills gap, however many service providers are struggling to meet the work demand due to applicants with a lack of relevant licences and endorsements. In addition, newly trained resources have inadequate experience to complete more complex copper and HFC tasks, skills that have taken practiced technicians some 10 years to master. Having a unique understanding of the challenge faced by the industry from the perspective of a training organisation and a company providing field services, BSA has set out to refresh the network with an injection of new resources. Our subject matter experts (SMEs) are well known in the industry for their high-level