Cerillion plc (LON:CER) Chief Executive Officer Louis Hall caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the benefits of LINK upgrading to Cerillion 24.1, how the Enterprise Product Catalogue will improve their operations, how the Evergreen Software Programme helps them stay competitive and what’s next for the Cerillion-LINK Mobility partnership.
Q1: Louis, could you explain for us the key benefits LINK Mobility will gain from upgrading to Cerillion 24.1, particularly with the use of open standards like TM Forum APIs?
A1: I think, clearly, interoperability is a key facet of modern software applications and the ability for LINK to capitalise on our open digital architecture and our open APIs is obviously important.
I think the big strategic benefit is that this puts LINK onto the latest version and enables them to then progress into Evergreen, which will essentially enable them to capitalise on each new product version that we bring out, and that’s every six months.
So, this gives LINK easy access, essentially, you think of it as on the conveyor belt now, they’ve got on the bottom of the escalator and as the escalator keeps moving, they will move with the escalator to keep benefiting from all of the updates we provide going forward. That’s not just about open architecture, it’s also about security, for example, constantly having to address new security threats and so on, as well as all the new features that are coming through the roadmap around AI and everything else.
Q2: How will the Enterprise Product Catalogue improve LINK Mobility’s operations across multiple countries?
A2: That’s a very good question.
So, the Product Catalogue enables Link to build their own products, and that’s a really powerful feature. So, that’s either using the sophisticated GUI tool that is part of the Catalogue, but also now with 24.1, we have the AI tools that will enable LINK to whiteboard new product designs and then upload those visually into the platform and have them automatically converted through AI into product structures, which then will just appear in the GUI automatically.
I think that is very powerful in what is a very fast-moving, complex business. Of course, having that catalogue available across all countries enables LINK to consolidate products across areas, regions, etc., so that they can cut down on the duplication of products across different countries that enables them to sort of standardise their portfolio more easily.
Q3: So, how does the Evergreen Software Programme help Link Mobility stay competitive while controlling their upgrades?
A3: I think there are two sides to this. One is that it enables LINK to decide when they want to take upgrades, but it means that when they do want to take an upgrade, then they will immediately be on the latest version.
I think, obviously, there are some operational reasons sometimes where our customers can’t take every upgrade because of other things that might be getting on the network or whatever else so it gives them that control.
I think, as I said a little earlier, that the important thing is that staying up to date with the latest version means that our customers are always capitalising from the latest feature releases, but also the latest security patches and the latest open standards platform improvements as well.
Q4: What’s next for the Cerillion-LINK Mobility partnership, especially after the successes of the first five years?
A4: What we’re looking at now is a more comprehensive rollout across more countries. So, LINK has been very acquisitive over the years and has acquired a number of different businesses, around Europe in particular, and we’re still in the process of rolling out the solution to more of those properties, more of those countries.
So, I think in the next five years, it’ll be about consolidating more of LINK’s operations onto the platform to give them more standardised control of the different regional operations.
