Cerillion plc (LON:CER) Chief Executive Officer Louis Hall caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the $11.4 million contract with a major telecoms operator.
Q1: Louis, the $11.4 million contract with the national telecoms operator is significant for Cerillion. Could you explain what makes this contract particularly meaningful for the company and how it aligns with your long-term strategy?
A1: This is a fully fledged digital transformation project for a national telecoms operator across the full range of fixed, mobile, broadband services. In terms of our strategy to grow into other regions, it’s important because this is our first contract in this part of the world, in the Caucasus, and stretching across obviously further east into Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan and so on. We see that this will open doors for other opportunities in that region, which is a very important part of the Eurasian economy these days.
Q2: You mentioned that the group’s software-as-a-service-based productised approach was a major differentiator in securing this deal. Can you just elaborate on how this model benefits telecom operators and why it stands out in a market that’s dominated by bespoke solutions?
A2: I think that there was a clear decision on the part of this customer that they did not want to go for the very expensive, high-risk, time-consuming project that is involved in implementing a more bespoke solution. They wanted something off the shelf, ready to go on day one.
To reiterate what I’ve said many times, this is much faster in terms of time to market, it’s much cheaper in terms of long-term cost of ownership and it’s much more flexible in terms of being able to introduce new products and services to market quickly and to respond to the competition.
Ucom’s objective is to become the leading telco in Armenia and to provide most advanced customer experience so that’s absolutely fundamental in terms of the solution that we’re providing.
Q3: With implementation starting immediately and revenue benefits expected in the second half of the financial year, how do you anticipate this contract will contribute to Cerillion’s financial performance and market guidance in the near term?
A3: Well, as we said, it won’t contribute an awful lot to our first half, our first half ending the end of March, but we expect a significant contribution in the second hand therefore in the full year. It certainly will help support existing consensus forecasts significantly.
