An Interview with Jason Taylor, VP of Sales for Public Sector & Healthcare at Zayo
Jason joins Zayo from Verizon’s Federal civilian organization. He’s based in Dallas and comes to us with 24 years’ experience in telecommunications. He talks about the challenges that organizations face and how a great network and an elevated communication system can help to navigate these challenges.
Zayo has built a massive fiber network with a broad geographic reach, and fiber-based networking is the backbone of every technology and application that aims to improve patient care.
Jason Taylor, VP of Sales for Public Sector & Healthcare at Zayo
Q: First, why the move to Zayo? What made you want to join the team?
A: I followed what Zayo has been doing over the past few years and saw that they were investing in their network and integrating pretty interesting edge-focused companies (like QOS and Allstream) – making them uniquely well-positioned in networking. Zayo has 15 million fiber miles and over 1,400 on-net data centers; that’s going to matter as we continue to move to a more digital world.
Q: What are the challenges Healthcare is facing today?
A: Healthcare is really focused on patient outcomes and experience. It’s become a very competitive industry- they have to be at the cutting edge of technology to keep up and meet patient expectations. For example, over the pandemic, we saw the increased importance of telehealth. We knew that was a direction healthcare would go at some point, but it was accelerated. Telehealth is just one aspect of this complex industry, and it’s crucial to get it right. Patient outcomes depend on much more – fast and accurate data analytics, interconnected patient portals, streamlined claims processing – the list goes on. It all needs a foundation of intelligent networking.
Q: How can Zayo help?
A: Zayo has built a massive fiber network with a broad geographic reach, and fiber-based networking is the backbone of every technology and application that aims to improve patient care. With 15 million fiber miles, Zayo can directly connect all locations. If you’re engaging and interacting with your patients through telehealth, a secure and reliable network is of primary importance to you. Nothing is more secure than fiber, so healthcare organizations can focus on their patient solutions and their next-gen communication applications, knowing that their networks are safe and reliable.
We have the fiber, we have the edge, we have the security, we have the communications capability. There’s not a network infrastructure conversation happening right now that Zayo could not and should not be a part of. We have advanced solutions.
Jason Taylor, VP of Sales for Public Sector & Healthcare at Zayo
Q: What challenges are government and federal agencies facing today?
A: Government agencies’ networks need to be updated. When they’re looking to refresh those capabilities or technologies, that’s taxpayer dollars they’re spending, and that requires careful procurement, governance and compliance. Government networking needs more bandwidth than ever before, and that bandwidth needs to really perform – government employees can’t experience downtime.
But big bandwidth and great uptime aren’t the only challenges. While all this is happening, government agencies are required to secure and protect the data going across their networks. Zayo can help government and federal agencies modernize their networks to improve communication, service, and their overall relationships with taxpayers.
Q: So how can Zayo help support government and federal agencies?
A: We talked about the fiber piece but then once you have the connectivity to the location, government agencies need to process huge data streams at a faster rate. Zayo can help them do that. We recently acquired QOS, and we’re now a leading provider in edge capability. With our SD-WAN, we can provide government agencies networking capabilities they just didn’t have before – like the intelligence and insights to know exactly what’s happening in the network – so if they’re experiencing network degradation, they know why and what to do about it.
And when all locations are on a single platform, they can quickly make adjustments, collaborate, and access data faster and more securely. We can manage the entire thing (across all geographies, applications, network layers, and network providers), or we can co-manage the platform with government agencies. Either way – government agencies know that the network is up, it’s operating well, and it’s secure.
Q: What are you most excited about in regards to the Zayo transformation?
A: We have the fiber, we have the edge, we have the security, we have the communications capability. There’s not a network infrastructure conversation happening right now that Zayo could not and should not be a part of. We have advanced solutions. We have the most skilled people in the industry. It allows us to be a part of that conversation and add value to our government customers, our healthcare customers, and really any industry that’s working through modernization today.
The needs of our customers are changing quicker than ever before, so our biggest challenge is ensuring we have the right structure, tools, and support for employees to be successful as customers shift focus.
Jason Taylor, VP of Sales for Public Sector & Healthcare at Zayo
Q: What is your vision for leading large enterprise sales for Public Sector, Healthcare, Transportation and Utilities at Zayo?
A: I want Zayo sales to be laser-focused on helping our customers with positive outcomes. My team should never lose sight of the desired positive outcomes for customers’ missions, initiatives, and challenges. Each customer may be going through their first digital transformation, but Zayo has guided thousands of customers to modernize. Our team is uniquely positioned to be that trusted advisor for our customers. When a customer has a problem, we can help them find a solution. It’s as simple as that. Our team has literally thousands of hours of training and experience, and Zayo has the assets for every step along their journey. We can meet customers wherever they are as they explore networking options, and we’ve structured our teams so that they can be highly engaged, taking the time to work with customers to solve problems, plan, and execute.
Q: How is the new team set up to help customers?
A: We decided that in 2023, my team and the teams managed by my peers will be responsible for a more focused set of customers. In this way, we’ll have the opportunity and the time to sit side by side with customers as they’re doing their 2023 planning. As I said before, with my team’s training and deep experience guiding healthcare and federal government customers, this increased focus will allow us to help customers design, plan, and execute. We’ll also be able to help them demonstrate the positive outcomes of the networking solutions they eventually implement.
Q: Any significant goals or challenges you’d like to highlight?
A: I’ve been meeting with customers and listening to their feedback. Overall, the feedback has been very positive and encouraging. Zayo has seen strong year-over-year growth in the past few years. But that high demand for our services brings its own unique challenges. We have to make sure we’re keeping up with the demand, delivering the services customers need quickly. I’m happy to say that the substantial investments we’ve made to our service delivery organization over the past year are paying off now – we’re installing and implementing faster than we have ever before.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges that enterprise sales leaders will face this year? What advice do you have for overcoming these challenges?
A: The needs of our customers are changing quicker than ever before, so our biggest challenge is ensuring we have the right structure, tools, and support for employees to be successful as customers shift focus. We really have a burden on the leadership team to make sure we’re preparing our employees to be successful – and being successful means really helping our customers. Also – customers are more concerned recently about a recession, and that’s causing them to focus on cost savings. This means as we put together solutions for our customers, we have to think a little differently, and prove in the success following each installation.
Q: When it comes to the work you do, what are you most passionate about? What topics or industry issues make you want to get on a soapbox?
A: When you get to work with government agencies and healthcare partners, you’re working in industries that significantly impact our communities. If Zayo’s network is in the background helping them meet the needs of taxpayers – our neighbors, coworkers, and friends – we’re really accomplishing something that matters. I have pride in knowing that we get to work with these government and healthcare agencies day in and day out to solve problems and improve the world that we live in. That’s a pretty cool thing.