A1 Serbia

"I can summarize our collaboration in three words: agile, complex, fast."

Nikola Špica, Business Analyst, A1 Serbia

A1 Serbia is the third largest mobile provider in Serbia, serving over 2 million customers in the Balkan country. The subsidiary of A1 Telekom Austria Group offers connectivity for consumers and enterprise/B2B customers nationwide.

As an experienced operator and also a reliable ICT partner to our users, we are strongly focused on developing specific, end-to-end cyber security solutions for the Serbian market. The main reason why we decided to enter the security segment is the rising number of threats that our customers face. We wanted them to feel and really be safe when using new technologies. Thanks to the experience of other Telcos in the A1 Austria Telekom group, we knew for a fact that this product would significantly improve the quality of our services and raise our revenue.

Amazingly, A1 Net Protect was up and running in seven weeks. There were no delays from the Whalebone side and we were working like one team. I didn’t really feel like they were a vendor or a company outside of A1. I can sum up the collaboration in three words: Agile. Complex. Fast.

"Thanks to the experience of other telcos in the A1 Austria Telekom group, we knew for a fact that this product would significantly improve the quality of our services and raise our revenue."

Ljubica Vojinović, Senior ICT Product Manager, A1 Serbia

"Amazingly, A1 Net Protect was up and running in seven weeks. There were no delays from the Whalebone side and we were working like one team. No one had a feeling that they were a vendor or a company outside of A1."

Nikola Špica, Business Analyst, A1 Serbia

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Challenge

Significantly improve the quality of services and raise revenue.

As an experienced operator and also a reliable ICT partner to its users, A1 Serbia has been strongly focused on developing specific, end-to-end cyber security solutions for the Serbian market. Due to the high number of threats faced by their customers and in the market overall, A1 Serbia decided to enter the security segment to offer a means for customers to counter threats that they might encounter on a daily basis and/or when using new technologies like smart appliances, or IoT products.

A1 Serbia didn’t just need a product that would be effective in preventing attacks against their customers as they used the internet, but security was an important point of their end- customer messaging and unique positioning in the market. Given this need, they also needed a means to take advantage of market demand for security in a timely fashion; in that they could not afford to wait months to bring their customers a security product.

Solution

Agile, complex, and fast implementation of Whalebone Aura.

A1 Serbia chose Whalebone not just for its ability to deliver comprehensive security to their customers and block 90+% of threats to users. A1 Serbia also benefited in its decisionmaking from the experiences of other companies in the A1 Austria Telekom Group, and was able to determine from real users that Aura both protected customers the way they expected and that Whalebone as a company was the type of vendor for which they were looking.

Whalebone’s Aura telco security product can be deployed as a whitelabel solution, which is the case most of the time. This combines Whalebone’s out-of-the-box architecture with telco branding. A1 Serbia also chose this option.

Result

Record time to market with no compromises.

Whalebone exceeded expectations in implementation time. While common implementation times with Whalebone Aura are between 10 and 12 weeks, and often between six and 12 months for other solutions available in the market, A1 Serbia was able to deploy their fully featured and fully branded version of the A1 Net Protect consumer security product in record seven weeks.