As we look ahead to 2023, it’s important to take the time to reflect on a year of investment at Zayo and, most importantly, what these investments mean for our customers.
“We are on a mission to provide our customers with an exceptional experience and connect what’s next for their businesses,” said Steve Smith, CEO of Zayo. “Our team has made significant progress this past year to make this possible, from making Zayo’s largest network investment to date to multiple strategic acquisitions. The growth and advancements made to our network quality, service delivery, and overall customer experience were made possible by our team’s commitment to continue listening to and prioritizing our customers’ feedback. Zayo will continue to invest, expand and advance its network and solution capabilities to ensure we remain ahead of our customers’ needs now and in the future.”
Let’s take a look back at 2022’s biggest milestones.
Investments in infrastructure
In 2022, our customers have been faced with tight supply chains, reduced IT budgets, and continued pressure to digitally transform. Over the past year, Zayo made a substantial $250 million investment in our global infrastructure – the largest network expansion in our company’s 15-year history – to address these new customer challenges.
This investment includes long-haul dark fiber builds and 400G Wavelengths upgrades to fortify and grow our network. This means that even more dark fiber capacity is available to our customers in even more areas of North America and beyond. Our customers now have access to capacity on four new long-haul dark fiber routes, one overbuilt long-haul dark fiber route, and 24 routes upgraded to 400G capacity. This will give our customers the bandwidth needed to innovate and build what’s next with more bandwidth on our expansive network.
In addition, we’ve continued to invest in our global low-latency network which connects key commercial and financial exchanges in major markets – a significant priority for global enterprise and financial services customers. This investment includes the launch of our Zeus subsea cable connecting the financial powerhouse of London, UK with mainland Europe plus three new low-latency routes connecting financial exchanges in Frankfurt, Zurich, and Bergamo, a subsea route connecting the U.S. and Tokyo, and low-latency routes connecting to the US to the growing financial hub of São Paulo, Brazil. These investments will encourage continued global growth and connection for our customers.
To meet existing and anticipated customer demand, we are working on additional network expansions and updates which are set for completion in 2023 and beyond.
Expanding our portfolio
We have also been rounding out our capabilities to better serve the new digital ecosystem. This included two strategic acquisitions of QOS Networks and Education Networks of America (ENA) plus the reintegration of parts of the previously-acquired Allstream business.
Zayo’s Edge Network Solutions portfolio, unveiled in 2022, represents a culmination of QOS Networks’ award-winning edge networking solutions with Zayo’s market-leading fiber network. This new offering helps enterprise customers enhance the user experience from end-user to cloud enabling better network performance, security, and reliability.
With our acquisition of ENA, education, library, community healthcare, and public sector customers will have the power of Zayo’s best-in-class fiber network and robust E-Rate practice, combined with ENA’s managed services approach and innovative technology solutions to deliver tremendous value and industry-leading customer experience. Now more than ever before education and public sector organizations depend on high-performance, secure networking capabilities to continue operations and educate the next generation of leaders.
Finally, the reintegration of parts of the Allstream business means that we’re able to further expand voice and collaboration solutions to mid-sized enterprise customers across North America. We will have more to share on these offerings in the new year.
“We are on a mission to provide our customers with an exceptional experience and connect what’s next for their businesses.”
Industry and customer success acknowledgment
Our team was proud to receive acknowledgment in the industry in 2022. This included awards from Globee Information Technology Awards for Women in IT, a 2022 Channel Futures MSP 501 Award, the Stratus Award for Top Managed Service Provider in Cloud Computing, and the Data Breakthrough Award for Cloud Enablement Solution of the Year.
We also received recognition for our work in customer service, a core commitment to our customers. This includes a 2022 IDC Future Digital Infrastructure Award recognizing the Pac-12 and Zayo network partnership. This award acknowledges our leadership in using digital infrastructure to drive business transformation, engage customers and employees, and accelerate business innovation. We’re excited to continue building upon our customer relationships in 2023.
At the helm of this significant period of growth and transformation, and commitment to building a strong culture and community, Zayo CEO Steve Smith was also recognized one of the Denver area’s most admired CEOs in the Denver Business Journal.
Executive appointments and initiatives
As the digital infrastructure market continues to grow, Zayo has invested in building its institutional knowledge and leadership team to ensure we can deliver the solutions our customers need to drive their business. We bolstered our leadership team in 2022 with the executive appointments of Lynn D. Tinney as Senior Vice President of Channels and Partnerships and Bill Long as Chief Product Officer. Lynn’s appointment marks the growth of our channel business and a reaffirmed commitment to our valued partners.
Under Lynn’s leadership, we hosted our first-ever partner advisory board meeting from which we gathered the feedback needed to shape our continued initiatives for the channel. Bill’s extensive digital infrastructure expertise will be essential as we continue to drive growth and build on its momentum from 2022.
As part of our company’s continued dedication to providing a top-tier customer experience, we have also invested in restructuring the service delivery team and processes under the leadership of service delivery expert Bryan Fleming. The process changes implemented in 2022 will contribute to faster, more effective, and better-quality customer outcomes by increasing gross installs and on-time performance. So far, the team has seen an 18% year-over-year increase in gross installs and a 16% increase in on-time performance.
Other key appointments that support Zayo’s goals of delivering an exceptional customer experience and future-ready network infrastructure include: Jim Campbell, SVP of Solutions Architecture; DJ Leckwold, SVP of Global Customer Success; Troy Lupe, SVP of Field Operations; David Vanhoose, VP of IT Infrastrucuture and Service Management.
“Our strategy remains hyperfocused on improving our operational excellence to deliver the high-performing connectivity and solutions our customers.”
Stay tuned for what’s in store in 2023
After a monumental year, we’re excited to continue delivering value to our clients and exceeding customer expectations in 2023.
“As we look back on our growth in 2022, and the past 15 years of Zayo as a whole, we are confident that we have the assets and the expertise in place to drive our business to the next level,” said Andres Irlando, President of Zayo. “Looking ahead to 2023, our strategy remains hyperfocused on improving our operational excellence to deliver the high-performing connectivity and solutions our customers need to accelerate their digital transformation journey.”