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08/10/2007 11:10:32 - NCN – BICIS Editorial Copy

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Service Excellence, a concept I often hear exchanged in meetings, conferences and trade publications.NCN – BICIS Editorial Copy Service Excellence, a concept I often hear exchanged in meetings, conferences and trade publications. There are a number of contributing elements in the quest to delivering Service Excellence; adopting best practice in terms of cabling technology specification, design and implementation is a starting point, accreditation is another.

BICSI (Building Industry Consulting Service International) is a not-for-profit worldwide trade association, whose aim is to lead the telecommunications industry in the enhancement of quality services and methods through education, promoting skills sharing and formalising this through professional registration programs.

Some believe that BICSI will increasingly become the recognised body for training and accreditation standards in the UK and that future tenders will state that the companies responding must have mandatory BICSI accreditations from installers, through to Project Managers and design consultants.

Others suggest that mandated BICSI accreditation will introduce additional cost burden in the industry, which would be beyond what is seen as reasonably acceptable from a cabling company in ensuring that all the necessary skills to propose and deliver best practice, technically compliant solutions to its customers.

As European BICSI membership numbers increase so does the momentum of the brand and its suggested quality assurances, a consultant of a well known bank recently stated, “No BICSI – NO WORK”. I have heard that a leading global aerospace company’s network architecture strategy is based principally on BICSI standards, albeit alluding to a host of other standards including ISO.

European telecommunications cabling standards are produced by CENELEC with every European country endorsing those standards via their own national standards body (BSI in the case of the UK). Where CENELEC standards exist these are published as national standards identified by the placement of the BS standards reference in front of the EN (European Norm). The UK also has its own national installation standards covering telecommunications and power installations (BS 6701 and BS 7671) which link directly to the British Euronorms for the specification, QA and installation practices of IT cabling installations (BS EN50174 series). These are mandatory for conformance to structured (generic) cabling in accordance with European design standards (BS EN 50173 series).

There is no question that our industry would benefit from a best practice benchmark that could assist enduser organisations in ‘specifying’ the standards and practices required for their network architecture. There seems to be a number of BICSI supporters who are actively influencing European Cabling Architecture standards at the customer specification level, which is resulting in an increasing trend where UK tenders are specifying that respondent’s must be BICSI certified. However, the end-user is being massively misled, although they believe that BICSI provides a safety net, in reality BICSI design certification falls short, as it does not include training in BS and BS EN standards.

So, all those end-users, IT consultants for banks and tenders that are stating that all applicants must be BICSI accredited are missing the key point, which is ensuring that all applicants meet BS and BS EN standards, it is in fact in contravention of national legislation and related regulations not to meet these standards.

Many end-users are not necessarily aware of this; they are simply trying to ensure that their investment delivers optimum technological and economic value. Supporters of BICSI and end-users mandating BICSI are introducing competitive barriers-to-entry, which pushes cabling service providers to gain BICSI accreditation in order to comply and be eligible to compete. Ironically, this is a course of action that results in increased cost burden in order to achieve the necessary perceived status without any focus on the testing of European standards knowledge, which is the critical part of any ITS service/product delivery.

In order to maintain position and competitive edge within the industry, every organisation must foster continual learning, which includes attaining related knowledge based qualifications/ accreditations, which BICSI undoubtedly contributes to. However, BICSI is not the sole route to demonstrating a Service Providers competency. Other organisations present highly valid propositions, one example being the FIA (Fibreoptic Industry Association) who operate a robust qualification system that recognises and accredits prior learning, assuming that it can be demonstrated via the requirements of the British and European standards.

This leaves fundamental questions to be answered by BICSI in terms of standardisation, the main being why aren’t critical UK and European standards such as BS 6701 and BS EN 50174 currently assessed by BICSI?

Supporters of a mandatory total BICSI approach espouse objectives of standardisation, continued professional development, information sharing and best technical practices underpinning quality of service. Supporters of a non-monopolistic approach hold these same key objectives, but believe there to be multiple routes to the acquisition of accredited knowledge and question the value of a monopoly in ensuring best overall economic customer value.

It makes sense for end-user organisations to openly recognise the existence of organisations that seek to promote improvement in understanding and in the standardisation of product and delivery practices, but to single out any one entity as being ‘the sole guiding reference body’, can be argued as flawed. Surely the interests of the end-user are best served by an open approach and acceptance of meaningful accredited knowledge, focused on appropriate British and European standards!

Notes to Editor: The Company Established in 1992 Zircom provides high quality services in data, voice communication and fibre optic services and solutions to the business arena and are currently developing the business to incorporate wireless solutions. The company operates nationwide and across Europe, successfully building a Blue Chip client base, servicing contracts to a variety of businesses. For further information please visit – www.zircom.co.uk Emma Blackmore Zircom Public Relations Officer T: +44 (0)151 709 4547 F: +44 (0)151 703 0018 E: emma@ampersand.uk.com

date:08/10/2007 11:10:32

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