his colleagues is vital to a successful enterprise.
Eyal Natan believes in what he does, in the products his company offers, in the services it provides.
As the general manager of Bynet Data Communications Bulgaria, which recently completed work on an IP/MPLS platform for the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC), Natan has a management philosophy that is proving successful. The $15 million project creates a nationwide, high-speed telecommunications network for the countrys dominant landline carrier.
As a branch of the Israeli Rad-Bynet Group, Bynet Bulgaria focuses mainly on IT systems. But while Rad Group focuses mainly on its own products, Bynet has more flexibility, a crucial difference, according to Natan.
Bynet works with more than 20 other companies that are leaders in the market, including Cisco, Juniper, Microsoft, Dell, HP and many others.
Its not just that we have an agreement with them to represent them. Thats easy, he says. Any computer company can do this. We are tier one with all those companies. With Cisco, lets say, we have 25 engineers who have top education in the Microsoft education training system, and we have the position of global partner. With Microsoft, Microsoft is divided into a few disciplines. We are a platinum partner we always position ourselves in the highest level of partnership with those companies. With Dell we have very excellent relations also.
Because Bynet has an independent choice for partners, it takes a clients needs and decides what best suits them and then chooses from their wide variety of partners for the best service.
Bynet is Israels leading systems integrator and, Natan says, has attained this position by focusing on solutions for clients.
But what exactly is a solution? Natan clarifies: We dont only focus on solutions, we focus on end-to-end solutions.
And what does this mean?
Bynet offers customers a full system, not just parts of a system. It also supports customers by designing entire systems. Take BTC.
Bynet came to the country specifically for this project, and actually designed the whole network of BTC, Natan says. We implemented it and are now maintaining it, but most of the project six months of the project, out of nine months was design, low-level design.
Natan defines low-level design as actually designing the way a system looks: connexions, which cable would go to which socket, which cabinet would stand where, architecture. Its like youre telling me, Look, I want a building with three stories. Thats basically what BTC told us: I want one story. In BTCs case its 30 cities all across Bulgaria. (They told us that they) want everything to be connected together for redundancy. We took those (requirements) and we decided that one window would be here, one window would be there.
This designing is Bynets speciality. Its a relatively new thing theyre bringing to the Bulgarian market, something not many companies offer here yet. Despite the novelty of Bynets services, its not all cake, Natan says. Its not just call me, tell me what you want, Ill bring it to you, connect the two wires and everything will work. No. Theres not anything wrong with this. There are many companies making millions out of box moving. We say we are not box movers. We are not taking a computer from one place to another, that type of thing.
Another important aspect of Bynets philosophy is the ability to choose from their variety of partners. Nortel, Alcatel, Juniper, Cisco all of them offer basically the same products. (When) we came to BTC, we decided to recommend Juniper. Why? Because Junipers solution was the best for what BTC needed at that time. And I think they are happy with it.
Its easy, Natan says. Bynet does not depend on one supplier or try to vent the requirement to meet the specs of a specific companys plan. This approach is very different from many other companies that are limited in their choice of suppliers.
The fact that we are the biggest integrator in Israel, that we have 350 employees and out of them 150 are qualified engineers, allows us to support all of these technologies. Other companies you have, lets say, 30 engineers. You cannot support the multi-discipline. You must focus on something.
Bynet sees itself as an international entity, Natan says, having established its office in Bulgaria to have a stronger presence on the Balkans. Its proving itself. The company has projects in pipeline. Its partners are running up to it. He emphasises the need to have representation in the region to effect the best results. Its very important, he said. Bynet chose Bulgaria because it believes that it can use Bulgaria as a gate to Europe and, from here, expand over the whole region.
The Sofia office is small, but strong. In Bulgaria the company has five employees, including Natan. They started the office with the BTC project, and from here will expand with the resources needed for whichever activities they are doing.
Meaning, now for instance, we focus more on sales, so we are going to recruit more sales people, more sales support engineers, he says. Like we did with BTC, when we get to the stage of implementation, the strategy we developed is very simple. We start with our backbone human resources from Israel because I can fly over here 20 engineers to make the low-level design, to do the consulting with the customer. In parallel to this process, in order to maintain the ongoing process, we are hiring local engineers and then they take over the project. That is what we did with BTC. We started with Israeli engineers and later on we moved to local support. Plus we work with subcontractors. Weve established some partners on the Bulgaria market, again, companies that would like to see Bynet on their side. We are bringing a new approach to the market. We have good partnerships.
Natan describes this approach as an independent, end-to-end solution, meaning that they are not dependent on any one supplier and that they guide a project from beginning to end.
We have endless success stories like this; the latest one is here in Bulgaria. Actually, we handed BTC a full, working network, which was done in a record time two-and-a-half months earlier than the original schedule, because BTC asked us to do this. Because we are a big company, we can afford to do this. We just reinforced our team here and we finished the project earlier.
BTC is very grateful to Bynet, because they are striving for more revenue and they wanted to launch the network earlier. But we also help ourselves, because doing a project in such a way brings us much more (future opportunities), Natan says.
What Bynet actually created for BTC is a network of interconnected cities around the country. The core cities the heart of the network include Sofia, Veliko Turnovo, Plovdiv, Varna, Rousse, Stara Zagora and Bourgas. And another smaller 22 cities are interconnected to form the network. Natan shows a diagramme of the network, how all the cities are linked to at least two others.
The lines mean that there is no one single point of failure. Lets say one city stops working. You can bet that nobody will ever notice that its not working, because there are multiple layers. The equipment backs up itself. Its a very stable network. Its the backbone for the new services that BTC is going to offer.
BTC is now digitalising the whole network.
At this stage theyre migrating only the land lines, but as you know, BTC also owns Vivatel, so its only natural that they will use this infrastructure for connecting the cellular network in the future.
The system was implemented in mid- to end-June 2006. Being that the design stage started in October-November 2005, it was a very fast turn around.
Bynet only opened its Bulgaria office in February 2006, especially for the project, which is about when Natan came on board. The office started as a office that would support the BTC project, and then we made a strategic decision to open this office and to put more people and to reinforce it as a base for our sales in the region.
He is positive about the potential in the country. Knocking on the table You know this? he asks he says that the company has a very good feeling about Bulgaria. Bynet is very experienced in this field, Natan says. We had all our management here a week ago and everybody came back extremely excited because we realised the size of the opportunity. And we keep hearing from customers, in so many ways, Its good that youre here. We need you. And not only from customers (but also) from partners, from companies working here, in this field. They say: Look, we need such an integrator. I dont want to speak about competition, but basically, we bring something new.
Bulgaria has been, in sum, very open to what Bynet has to offer.
Though he has only been with Bynet for about nine months, Natan is not new to the country. He worked here before for the company Raysat, as director of operations. Before that, he worked for an American company called Harmonic, in Israel.
He sees good things in this country. The Bulgaria market, for me, personally, is fascinating, because its one of the fastest-growing markets in the world. The potential for growth is huge, on one hand. On the other hand, finding good... I dont want to use the word partners, but yes, partners. Not in the terms of work force, (but) of customers, educated customers. When we came to BTC, we saw that they were using top engineers. They speak our language, they understand. They understand the technology, which is great. The engineers in Bulgaria are highly educated. They are up on all the latest technologies. Its good to work with such customers. Its good because it makes our life easier.
Though, not having highly educated customers is not always a drawback. (If we have) customers that are less educated, we can educate them, we can help them to make decisions. BTC was a good experience. (Educating customers) is also something I bring from the previous place I was working. Again, there the level of the engineers was extremely high. This is something that I like about working in Bulgaria. Also, the people are very nice.
In comparing the management of his workforce in Bulgaria with that in Israel, he says that management techniques in Israel are quite similar to those in the US, more of a collaborating technique, with more emphasis on teamwork. Its less task-oriented management. And usually you dont need to instruct the people to do something at this time, something at this time. Basically, you motivate them by telling them what is the goal, and people move by themselves towards the goal.
In Bulgaria, Natan says, its not impossible, but its harder to implement such management techniques. Due to the history of the communist regime, he says, people might have less self-motivation than in Western countries. But this attitude is changing.
You know, theres no 100 per cent like this or 100 per cent like this, but generally, the trend is more like usually you need to instruct people more, because as much as collaboration is always good, basically you always need to tell people what you want and when you want it. And then you get it.
He finds employees here to be very efficient and knowledgeable about their work, very professional.
Ive worked with big teams with more than 40 (people) at Raysat working for me. No problems. The work was done in a perfect way. You just need to say what you want and you get it. It took me some time to learn, but then it was very easy. Because people expect to be told what is their task and then its done.
He notes, however, that there are exceptions to any case.
At Bynet, Natan is in his nature. Its part of his education, being trained in both management and engineering. (Natan has a bachelors in industrial engineering from Technicon Haifa and a masters in business administration from Haifa University.) In his role, he believes in sharing his objectives with his employees.
I believe very much in team work, and not only with my Bulgarian team. We work with the Israeli office in very close relations. The force of a group is always better than the force of one person, he says, noting that it is best not to make decisions alone. Usually I consult, usually I share with people, but when it comes to execution, especially when you have deadlines and you have goals, targets, you end up with actually setting the time frame (yourself). Lets say we are using some kind of a mixed model (of Western techniques with Bulgarian).
With the conclusion of the BTC project, Bynet doesnt have any new undertakings at the moment, or, at least, nothing that Natan can openly share.
We have a few projects that are in the stage of negotiation, he says. I dont want to explain that, (but) I hope very soon. If you come maybe in two weeks, I can tell you.
One of the ideas he can share is the possibility of helping the Bulgarian government implement an e-learning system for the countrys school system, as the company has done successfully in Israel.
Until the middle of June, when they finished the project with BTC, he says, they were completely focused on that project. They understood that if they didnt execute their first project in Bulgaria perfectly, they couldnt have a start in this market. We focused on it and we did it perfectly.
Realising that one perfect project doesnt last a lifetime, at the beginning of July they started just to look around on the market, to speak with potential customers.
Usually, somebody told me, it takes you 12 months to get the first deal. At this stage of life, I know that it will be much, much shorter than this. It will be a matter of weeks from now. Because we have some projects that are waiting for the purchase orders. It looks very nice. The market is responding very well, and were feeling enthusiastic.
Enthusiasm drives Natan as general manager of the company. My personal drive comes from enthusiasm of doing something new, doing something I enjoy. Of which I see the results coming, and I believe in the results. Since I established this office, and I started coming to the market, I see the potential, and it brings me much enthusiasm. I feel like Im creating something new. For me its a big challenge. Its a personal challenge to establish Bynet and to make it something big its a long-term goal. If you compare the map of Israel to the map of Bulgaria, if you compare the populations, Bulgaria is bigger. So the market is not small. If we managed to become the leader in Israel, with 350 employees, I dont see the reason why, over the years, we cant at least come close to this kind of success (in Bulgaria). And this is my challenge, this is what keeps me going.
Another aspect of Bynets success is Natans belief in the companys product.
I say it all the time, but I cannot sell something that I dont believe in. Thats, lets say, my weak point. Im not the classic sales man. If you let me sell something that I dont feel is really needed, if Im not selling something that is actually needed, that is actually worth something, I cannot do it.
Natan knows what he is saying. Such opportunities to sell have come to him in the past, and he has refused, saying that he could not rightly undertake the offer.
The reason I accepted the offer from Bynet is because really I believe in this company. I see the potential as huge. I see the products, and the partnerships and the team; its such a service team. This team is the core of the expertise of Bynet.
The team consists of 150 engineers who worked on the BTC project.
And now Im confident. When I come to a customer, I explain to him about Bynet out of my self-persuasion. Im absolutely sure that Bynet can deliver. If I wasnt, I wouldnt do it.
This conviction has accompanied him through his entire career. Natan works with companies he believes in, where he thinks the product is good, where they have something new and valuable to offer. Natan believes that bringing the best solutions, the best products, and winning on the basis of best business practises is the way to go.
I dont expect anybody to give me a project just because I look nice or just because my company wants it, or because I pay someone, he says. I just want to present what we have, to present our capabilities, to present our advantages, and by this to win the project.
He is convinced that by offering something new and relevant, a company, and specifically Bynet, can win on the market. Bynet offers something not yet common in Bulgaria: integrated solutions creation, development, implementation, management.
Many companies in Bulgaria are focused on one aspect of an IT need, because they are not as big as Bynet.
They have 10 engineers, or 20 engineers, and they need to focus on something, which is an absolutely good practise. So they do computing and another company does networking, and another company does software development. We do everything, because we can afford this. And then we may come to a customer and tell him: Look, you dont need to sign five contracts. Sign one. Ill bring you a full system. Ill install for you the computer, Ill install for you the network, Ill do the programming. Ill bring you one full solution, including the implementation, including the maintenance later on, including the training.
This comprehesiveness is where Bynet shines.
For BTC, they also did training courses, bringing instructors who helped to put the guys of BTC in a classroom and educate them about the new system. We (deliver) according whatever is needed.
Natan and Bynet are up to the challenge of recognising and addressing each customers needs, of dealing with their differences in financial abilities, of establishing the presence of Bynet on the market.
I find the Bulgarian market really exciting, he says. People used to call America the land of endless opportunities, but I often say it also about Bulgaria. Because the opportunities are enormous. Everywhere you look, you see an opportunity for initiative.
