Cerillion Plc (LON:CER) Marketing Director Dominic Smith caught up with DirectorsTalk to discuss the company’s recognition in recent Gartner reports and how AI integration sets them apart in telecoms software innovation.
Q1: Dominic, what does being recognised in the Gartner Magic Quadrant mean for Cerillion?
A1: Gartner is obviously a highly trusted authority in technology research. So, when they put together these Magic Quadrants, they assess many different technology vendors across different aspects of strategy, product strategy, sales strategy and so on, and also their ability to execute in the market.
For us, being recognised in the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant, it’s a really important thing. It signals to the market that we are a credible solutions provider, having been evaluated by an independent authority and that’s something that’s going to help influence buyer confidence and vendor shortlists.
Q2: How does AI factor into the group’s strategy for CSP, customer and business operations?
A2: Well, it’s no surprise that AI has been big news over the last two to three years. For telcos, for CSPs, if they’re not already looking at how they’re going to use AI in their businesses, then they’re going to be left behind very, very quickly. AI is no longer really optional, and it’s going to be central to driving efficiency gains, personalisation, and growth opportunities for CSPs moving forward.
For Cerillion, we’ve actually embedded AI across our BSS OSS product suite and that’s there to help CSPs to automate complex processes, to accelerate time to market, and also to improve those customer experiences that are vital for their success.
Q3: What differentiates Cerillion from other vendors in this space?
A3: Well, we’re a product company, and that’s really, really important, and central to this.
We’ve taken a product approach to how we use AI across our product set and that is we’ve embedded it into the product suite. It’s just there and it works; there’s no need for any complex integration to be done by our customers and you don’t need to be an AI expert to use it. It’s just seamlessly built into the product and bringing all the benefits that AI can do.
We also operate that on a bring your own model basis so that means our customers can choose which of the large language models they want to actually use across their business, that means they can plug in ChatGPT, or they can plug in Claude, for example, and work with their own accounts for that seamlessly integrated into our platform.
That allows us to just deliver that AI capability that’s really key to them in terms of their growth and opportunity moving forward.
Q4: What can customers in the industry expect from the group just going forward?
A4: We’re a product company, as I’ve mentioned, and we’re really committed to continuous innovation. AI is now central to that, as it is for lots of technology companies and our focus is really on helping our CSP customers to adapt very quickly and move in fast-changing markets. All of these markets are really changing very, very rapidly and we roll out new features on a very regular basis.
Our next major software release is coming out in October, and there’s some exciting new capabilities coming in that. So, watch this space.
