ALE didn't WannaCry

Jacques Goudet

September 08, 2017

How ALE managed the WannaCry cyber attack and our Service Desk experience using Rainbow cloud based Communication platform.

The common attributes of a digital transformation within a company include mobility and collaboration. But it’s the reachability element that is most important. Let me explain what I mean.

With current collaboration tools or applications, you can either collaborate through your laptop or through your mobile device.  Very few propose efficient collaboration across multiple devices, which is a big constraint, especially when you’re in an abnormal or crisis-type situation. With the Alcatel-Lucent Rainbow™ cloud-based platform, collaboration can happen across any kind of device. Note: Full disclosure I am CIO of ALE who makes the Rainbow platform.

So at ALE we recently conducted an experiment using Rainbow for two use cases: One around Crisis Management and the other for Service Desk Support. Our results showed benefits in both cases in terms of process, efficiency and more importantly, delivery outcome.

Crisis Management

The beauty of Rainbow is that it’s ported on your mobile devices, be it a tablet or a smartphone,  where the efficiency kicks in through reachability.  When a crisis is happening you are not always behind your laptop. If we refer to the WannaCry event, it started on a Friday evening Paris time (CET) and lasted over the weekend. Conference calls were opened for touch points, however it was still difficult to follow the progress of the various streams of actions points. In Rainbow, everything is there: How to inform the user community, how to protect the devices, what actions to take with regards to isolate and sanitize the IT infrastructure, etc.  Also we could easily keep track of who did what and who still had 'to dos.'

In my career I have managed major crises in various domains. This was the first time that I had the means to reverse a situation is such a short period of time. All team members were easily reachable, and as they joined the conversation, they could quickly read everything discussed so far.

Service Desk

The second example of how Rainbow supports our IT is with our Service Desk. When an ALE employee opens a case that cannot be handled by level 1, it is up to the level 2 to reach out to the user to resolve the issue. And here starts a funny game: When and how to reach the user? With today’s working models, users are difficult to reach, always on the move etc. and they complain that the Service Desk is slow to react. By using Rainbow, the Level 2 from Service Desk can ping the user on their mobile device and set up a meeting in no time. This creates an enhanced user experience and with it increased customer satisfaction.

Improving processes through Digital Technology like Rainbow  – a cloud based communication platform – is a confirmation of ALE Digital Transformation taking place at ALE.

Have you had similar experiences?