Data on a high platform – Newspaper Kommersant No. 4 (7449) dated 01/12/2023

The structure of Rostelecom established the Tdata company, which will develop data storage and processing technologies. Similar developments from SAP and Oracle, who left Russia, are used by consulting companies. Among the customers of Rostelecom is the former Russian division of the international Accenture, and the services of the platform are used by Tele2, which is controlled by the operator. Separation of the business may attract new customers, experts say, but they do not exclude that Rostelecom may also need it to sell the business.

Rostelecom is bringing the direction that develops data management services into a separate business, a Kommersant source in the telecom market said. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the structure of Rostelecom RTK IT LLC established the Tdata company in November 2022, it was headed by Stanislav Lazukov, Sales Director of the Rostelecom Data Management Block. Work on the isolation of the business is being carried out jointly with one of the partners of Rostelecom, the Kommersant source added, without specifying its name. Rostelecom declined to comment.

The operator has been developing technological data management services since 2017, in June 2021 it began offering them to third-party customers under the Data Management Platform brand. The platform includes master data management (MDM) systems, building data warehouses, etc.; Rostelecom offers them both as a cloud service and for installation on the customer’s servers. On the world market, such tools are developed by SAP and Oracle, and marketing, analytical and consulting firms (Accenture, NielsenIQ, etc.) implement them with customers along with their methodology.

Due to the hostilities in Ukraine, all the mentioned foreign companies left the Russian market. In October 2022, Rostelecom announced that Axenix (a Russian structure that was part of the Accenture international network until April 2022) would develop all of its business IT products on the Data Management Platform. One of the components of the Rostelecom platform is used by its Tele2 operator.

Products for data management have been developing for decades, primarily for large enterprises, says Alexander Pilipchuk, Director of Softline Services Implementation Department. According to him, migration from one platform to another is “not a trivial matter,” as they are tightly integrated with corporate information systems: “Companies have built a business on these solutions and have evolved with them.” The choice of solutions from SAP and Oracle was justified, since their developments widely covered standard business processes, added Elena Baranova, Development Director of Auriga LLC.

The creation of a separate company for the “Data Management Platform” looks logical, because “making decisions on the scale of the “big” Rostelecom is slow,” adds Alexei Smirnov, head of the board of directors of Bazalt SPO. The second company, according to him, is usually involved for the sake of expertise: “If we are talking about an anchor customer, then the vendor, if he is ready to implement his solution, will be able to count on state support.” The isolation of the business may increase interest in the development of operators that do not belong to Rostelecom, Denis Kuskov, CEO of TelecomDaily, believes: “The structure can become a single entry point for both external customers and for the company’s internal needs.”

At the same time, Kommersant’s source in the cloud solutions market believes that the separation of Tdata cannot have “any commercial or product sense”: “The market for data processing tools is small, the product is highly specialized.” The legal entity, in his opinion, is being created with the expectation of selling a business or transferring it to structures affiliated with Rostelecom.

Yuri Litvinenko