PRODUCT OVERVIEW ecommerce Your Brand's Digital Experience. Delivered. The ability to shop online, or even via a mobile device, has become an expectation amongst consumers. The competitive differentiator is no longer whether a company participates in ecommerce, it's how seamless and easy the experience is to the shopper. Creating a brand experience that truly differentiates one enterprise over another remains an incredible challenge for even the most technically savvy enterprises. Today's headlines are dominated by countless reports that impact confidence in brands, from site crashes and performance issues to, fulfillment shortfalls, and security breaches. Each of these variables plays a critical role in delivering a differentiated (and secure) consumer experience. Recent research found that 72% of consumers have encountered inconsistent experiences when using online and in store channels. Given the number of systems that need to be updated and integrated to support the ecommerce ecosystem, it's likely these reports will continue for some time. Companies that can reach the utopia of a quality, secure, customised, omni-channel shopping experience will be the ones who win the hearts and wallets of the consumer. CenturyLink's ecommerce experts have implemented ecommerce solutions that deliver exceptional customer experiences for some of the world's most recognizable brands. Our technology offerings and ecommerce experience significantly reduces the inherent risk in launching application environments meant to connect brand and consumer. By offering data centres that carry our full hybrid capabilities offering - from colocation to cloud - we help businesses deploy quickly and efficiently across the globe. ecommerce is just one part of CenturyLink's broad portfolio of products and services for enterprises ready to transform their business with hybrid IT and more. "I have a lot of faith in CenturyLink. They're responsive when we need help immediately, but more than that, they help us with our long-term strategy planning." Mick Briggs Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Property Room What is ecommerce? Electronic commerce, or ecommerce, represents the act of buying and selling goods and services electronically, such as over the Internet. Businesses most commonly use ecommerce for retail online shopping sites. However, ecommerce is also used in business to business marketplaces as well as in consumer marketplaces, for consumer-to-consumer sales. Supporting the process of ecommerce requires securely integrating a number of underlying systems. These include supply chain management, online transaction processing, electronic data From an architecture standpoint, the components required include Web servers, ecommerce applications, network connectivity, and databases. Both speed and security of data transfer are extremely important in ecommerce. For example, strict and very specific payment processing and data privacy standards must be complied with in order to transact online. Online sites must be able to handle and manage the traffic and provide acceptable response times. As user preferences evolve, such as the use of mobile devices or the expectation of an omni-channel experience, the ecommerce
interchange (EDI), electronic funds transfer, Internet marketing, mobile commerce, and automated data collection systems. platform must be continually upgraded to meet the demand. Why use ecommerce? It is ecommerce that has created the global marketplace, opening up a greater opportunity to acquire and serve even more customers. That global opportunity has leveled the playing field for both large and small businesses. Fortunately, ecommerce can also be a competitive differentiator. By creating a unique, exceptional, and personal experience, businesses of just about any size can quickly gain market share. A quality experience not only includes the basics of strong security and quick response times, customers also expect the same, or better, experience online that they get in traditional brick and mortar locations. Fortunately, ecommerce lowers the cost of creating those experiences as it removes the need for human interaction during the order process, eliminates processing errors, and is known for being faster and more convenient for customers. As retailers look to differentiate, ecommerce in the cloud offers a quick, and relatively easy way to test new offers and new ways to shape the customer experience. ecommerce using cloud services has become the tool of choice for assessing new capabilities and doing proof of concepts. However, it's important to choose a cloud partner with proven experience in ecommerce applications. Why CenturyLink? CenturyLink's suite of infrastructure and applications provides businesses with tools and technology to support ecommerce, from promotional microsites to mission-critical, high-transaction websites. We offer full omni-channel enablement, from online store to in-store point-of-sale (POS), and our Big Data & Analytics programme helps retailers quickly get reliable insights from their data. Our global scale and reach on our MPLS network provides for faster international expansion for ecommerce, and lower latency, creating an exceptional customer experience. Increasingly important, our extensive fibre-to-the-mobile tower creates a faster mobile user experience. Our colocation programme is the perfect way to begin transitioning to managed services or cloud platforms. We are specialists in complex enterprise deployment, offering comprehensive SLAs and flexible contract terms. With a resume like this, it's no wonder many of the world's leading retailers trust us as their single partner for ecommerce solutions. Enable Business Performance Single Vendor Solution CenturyLink offers the largest breadth of IT outsourcing solutions, with end-to-end hybrid IT capabilities, managed hosting, private, and public cloud services, professional services, Agility CenturyLink's global scale and reach provides one of the lowest-latency global Internet and network footprints, enabling faster international expansion and quick user response times. Additionally, our extensive fibre-to-the-mobile towers create a faster mobile user experience. Innovation CenturyLink provides a breadth of services to
and a full set of managed security and storage options. Omni Channel Customers expect their experience to be consistent across channels, including traditional brick and mortar locations, websites, and mobile. Mapping these systems to create this capability is very complex, expensive and time consuming. CenturyLink offers highly-skilled and experienced resources, along with a robust portfolio of consulting disciplines related to ecommerce solutions. Risk Management Risk can come in many forms, failure to penetrate a market, commitments to partners and providers, cost of deploying infrastructure and a physical footprint in the region. CenturyLink helps to relieve those burdens with data centres that offer full or hybrid capabilities, from colocation to cloud. We can help businesses deploy quickly and efficiently with limited exposure to risk. Cost Efficiency CenturyLink's cloud hosting and ecommerce experts combine together to create a cost effective ecommerce solution. Cloud hosting removes the high cost of capital investment for infrastructure, whilst our experts significantly reduce time-to-market for an ecommerce deployment. support ecommerce. Customizable solutions from colocation to public, private and hybrid cloud to fullymanaged ecommerce platforms put businesses at the leading edge. Our big data solutions provide actionable insights for a more personalised experience. Efficiency CenturyLink supports many of the world's leading retailers as experts in complex, secure, enterprise deployments. We reduce the inherent risks by serving as a single point of contact, offering comprehensive SLAs, and the required PCI compliance. "Business and technology management leaders state that budget constraints, staffing, and lack of agility stymie their ability to develop and deploy the digital experiences that their customers seek." CenturyLink Forrester TLP, July 2014 Advanced Services In addition to the ecommerce products listed above, CenturyLink delivers consulting expertise in the following areas that are critical to ecommerce companies: ecommerce Strategy CenturyLink has a team of skilled experts with in-depth knowledge of how to deliver an optimal user experience and overcome the technical challenges of ecommerce. Over the course of many implementations for a wide range of clients, we have built up a wealth of expertise in strategic planning, solution implementation, integration, migration, ongoing management, optimisation, and support. Security CenturyLink is listed on the Visa list of PCI compliant service providers; allowing us to provide PCI enablement services. Our broad portfolio of security and consultation services helps prepare your environment for a PCI audit. Quality Assurance & Trialling Disaster Recovery With crucial business applications, financial data and trade secrets, your business relies heavily on keeping its data safe and secure. CenturyLink's state-of-the-art data centres are built to keep your business applications and mission-critical data safe and to ensure protection even if network operations are disrupted. Transition & Migration CenturyLink Data Centre Migration Programme (DCMP) offers a complete solution - from assessment and planning through migration and handover to steady state. Our proven, best practice-based programme is designed to manage risks, control disruptions to your business during transition and take you from planning to "going live" on time and on budget. Infrastructure Management
CenturyLink IT Solutions practice area of Quality Assurance and Optimise service availability and reduce costs by relying on Trialling has over 900 quality assurance engineers located around enterprise-class expertise to manage your data and applications. the globe, with decades of experience in a diverse spectrum of CenturyLink IT Solutions' Infrastructure Management supports your technologies and tools including functional, automation, performance existing environment according to your standards, including and security trialling, and test environment management. monitoring and trouble resolution, system administration, and service desk support. Leave behind the limitations and inefficiencies associated with your existing network and IT environment. ecommerce Sub Products CenturyLink Cloud Colocation Dedicated Hosting Unified Storage Managed Database Big Data Services Hyperscale Managed Sharepoint Services Managed Firewall Disaster Recovery Services PCI Audit Readiness Consulting Powerful Security Strict Compliance Strong Security CenturyLink maintains a robust compliance management programme for our data centres. Working with auditors, we've created a superset of compliance standards covering the certifications our clients value most, including: PCI DSS, SSAE 16, ISO 27001, and HIPAA. All CenturyLink data centres are audited against this set of standards to provide a globally consistent and secure experience. CenturyLink offers multiple levels of protection built into our data centre and accessible through simple cross-connections with our facility's services. This functionality includes powerful cyber security solutions, managed firewalls, denial of service protection and prevention, and more. Data Management Big Data and Analytics We understand you can't do ecommerce without managing the underlying data. CenturyLink Big Data & Analytics programme helps retailers not only manage the large volumes of data, including transactions, product reviews, and help desk tickets, we help retailers respond quickly to the changing marketplace with actionable insights from advanced analytics. Infrastructure CenturyLink has over 60 data centres that host 32 petabytes of data. We are relied on by 98% of the Fortune 500 and more than 33,000 businesses and government agencies for their network, cloud, voice, and managed services needs. Our data centres operate with a 100% power availability SLA and we have been approved by the Department of Homeland Security to provide Enhanced Applications We have deep expertise in data systems, including Hadoop, Cloudera, SAP HANA, SAP S/4 HANA, and SAP BW. Additionally, CenturyLink acquired Cognilytics to round out its advanced analytics capabilities with Model Controller to design, develop and deploy models, Decision Analyzer to produce analytics, and Navigator for data visualization. Methodology Our best practices for data include architecture design for data, data governance including data quality management, and advanced analytical modeling. Expertise
CyberSecurity Services. CenturyLink has a full complement of highly-skilled resources, including project managers, engineers, and decision scientists who have many years' experience in data solutions. "Only one-third (36%) of the retail decision-makers surveyed said that their companies are able to provide customers with in-store pickup of online purchases, online visibility capabilities are considered vital for seamless retailing." - Forrester Network Integration Global Network The CenturyLink IQ Network delivers high-bandwidth, applicationsensitive network connectivity to over 85 countries. Highly Scalable Hosted data is able to scale automatically, in a linear capacity, as additional data is produced. Low Latency CenturyLink has over 60 data centres across the U.S. and a global Tier 1 MPLS application delivery network. This connects all systems supporting ecommerce with no noticeable degradation of speed or user experience. Always Available Our network provides built-in redundancy for extra reliability, and we employ robust security across the data centre, network and application levels. Custom Solutions We can create a virtual architecture that is location agnostic, connecting systems that span corporate data centres, company stores, and CenturyLink networks. Many companies have chosen to connect their systems using private wide area networks (WANs). "72% of consumers say they have encountered inconsistent experiences when using online and in store channels." - customerthink.com About CenturyLink Business CenturyLink, Inc. is the third largest telecommunications company in the United States. Headquartered in Monroe, LA, CenturyLink is an S&P 500 company and is included amongst the Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporations. CenturyLink Business delivers innovative private and public networking and managed services for global businesses on virtual, dedicated and colocation platforms. It is a global leader in data and voice networks, cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprise business customers.