Aussie Broadband is quietly owning the business services space

Providing connectivity and IT services for a major retailer is never easy, but as Aussie Broadband geared up to connect one of its newest customers – Bunnings, with 55,000 employees spread across nearly 400 stores nationwide – a key part of the engagement was making it look that way.

And, despite installing far-reaching connectivity and a range of supporting services over a months-long implementation that is only now coming to a close, it worked: “We asked Bunnings what was different about us and what helped us win the contract, and they said that it was really simple,” explains Aaron O’Keeffe, chief growth officer with Aussie Broadband.

“In the complex world of enterprise and government,” he explained, “it’s very easy to overcomplicate things when it’s not actually necessary.”

“We kept it simple,” O’Keeffe said, “and they said the process from the sale through to the delivery was simple, and that we were responsive to their requirements and didn’t overcomplicate it.”

People are talking – and that’s the way they like it

It’s an ethos that has stayed with the company from its early days in 2003, when regional ISPs Wideband Networks and Westvic Broadband – which would eventually merge to form Aussie Broadband – were first established with a focus on delivering Internet services to consumers.

Two decades later, Aussie is riding high in Australia’s Internet market, named as the best NBN service provider for the past four years by consumer rating firms Product Review and CHOICE – with high speeds and consistently high customer satisfaction scores confirming that its culture is resonating with its customers.

And while that reputation has made it increasingly popular as a provider of home broadband services, Aussie Broadband has been steadily expanding its operations in the business space – with a roster of around 61,000 enterprise customers that includes NOVA Entertainment, FoodWorks, Westpac, Cricket Australia, National Storage, Brisbane City Council, and James Cook University

Many of those companies signed on because their executives had first chose Aussie Broadband for their home broadband and were happy with the service, O’Keeffe said – highlighting the importance of putting customers first in a ‘land and expand’ approach that he called “a deliberate strategy…. We do get a lot from our reputation in quality through the residential side of things.”

“Our value proposition really is that we want to make it as easy for businesses to transact with us as it is for a residential customer,” he explained, “no matter whether you’re a one person operation, or a Westpac, or a government department.”

Keeping it simple, even when it’s not

Just because Aussie Broadband makes its services seem simple, however, doesn’t mean that they are: having grown into a full telecommunications service provider, the company’s customer engagements often start with straightforward broadband services – but rapidly expand into security, secure access service edge (SASE), cloud infrastructure, and the many other elements of the modern enterprise.

“With business customers, it’s not just that they need an Internet connection anymore,” O’Keeffe said, because “most of what companies are doing now is based in the cloud.”

“They need an Internet connection with backup, and diversity, and redundancy built in – and that could be as simple as a small business needing 4G backup so they can continue to use their SaaS based products if their main connection goes down.”

This requirement for reliability has also prompted Aussie Broadband to invest in its own network fibre, laying around 1200km of network fibre interconnect between data centres and 700km of access fibre running directly into customer buildings.

“The way we build our solutions has evolved over time to make sure that we’re designing solutions with reliability and diversity in mind,” O’Keeffe said, “and it gives us a big advantage when it’s on our own equipment and our own network – which gives us more flexibility to design these robust solutions, with multiple paths, that these customers need.”

Business on its mind, customers in its heart

For all its early success in winning business customers, Aussie Broadband’s $344 million acquisition of Brisbane-based Over the Wire in 2022 – its first such purchase of another company – was a shot in the arm for its business ambitions as it assimilated around 16,000 Over the Wire business customers taking 700,000 active voice services, along with cloud and security services.

These capabilities reinforced Aussie Broadband’s own service portfolio, helping it grow to over 1800 employees – yet with Over the Wire now fully assimilated into the company, Aussie Broadband is looking to consolidate its gains to date and further strengthen its business.

Its newly announced ‘Look to 28’ business strategy, which was announced earlier this year, shapes a business built on six pillars – including intrinsic security, strategy and architecture, technology transformation, technology innovation, operational excellence, and delivery excellence.

These pillars will drive a business-focused ethos and technology engagement model that has grown from being based on “cool technology,” newly appointed chief technology officer Brad Parker said in announcing the new strategy, “to one where our business segment leaders view Technology as a trusted partner.”

Aussie Broadband has become so well recognised that the Aussie Broadband Group “has been designated by the government as critical infrastructure due to the significant role we play in providing core services to Australians,” Parker said.

A broad program of work that will see the company meeting its SoCI Act obligations as well as evolving its core network and internal cloud platforms, management of its operational and business support system stacks, and unifying its various voice services – with “utility levels of availability, performance and reliability”.

Ultimately, O’Keeffe said, “it’s really all about delivering an amazing customer experience and our internal systems and IT strategy that evolves with what we want to do for customers.”

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