Intercable (Corporación Telemic CA) is a telecommunications company that provides cable TV and broadband Internet services (IP Network, Interactive Digital Television, Video on Demand, Personal Video Recorder) in Venezuela. The company, created in 1996, has subsidiaries in almost every Venezuelan city and is a full-GeneXus business.

Roberto Campos, Intercable technology director, answered questions for "IT Manager" magazine, which acknowledged Intercable as one of the most innovative and high technology companies in Venezuela. These are some of Intercable's answers.

Could you give a brief description of the technology component in your company: hardware, software and communications?
Regarding hardware, we are a full HP company. We have a whole hardware line, including Alpha and Intel servers, PC and printers. Our network and communications are operated with equipment from Cisco and other manufacturers.
Regarding software, we are a full-GeneXus company. We have our own ERP, Billing and Customer Care applications. We use GeneXus because it has the enormous advantage of operating at knowledge level, creating Knowledge Bases that can be generated in any language (Java, .NET, Visual Fox Pro, Visual Basic, etc) for any hardware platform (Intel, AS/400 or Risc), using the most important database managers in the market (Oracle, SQL Server, Informix) and the architecture desired (client/server, two tier, three tier, monouser).

Among your hardware and software providers, which companies are your technology partners and which ones provide integration and technical support services?
HP is our main ally in hardware, and ARTech ?the company that created GeneXus- in software applications. We have, of course, base software from multiple manufacturers, such as Novell, Microsoft and IBM.
But we make our own applications and integrations. We have application integration experts in our team and we have developed complex interfaces with well-known manufacturers such as Cisco, Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, Seachange, among others. We have also developed interfaces with our country's main banks.

From the IT point of view, what non-routine activities has your company developed in the last three years?
In the last three years we carried out a database integration process. Thanks to the database integration, all the company information is located in a single national server. It is important to distinguish between Database Integration and Centralization. Integration means that all the data is in one place, but it is not a centralization process, where the entire company needs permission from headquarters to operate. Many times, these database unification projects imply a tremendous centralization, which jeopardizes the autonomy of the other subsidiaries and puts a halt to each region's ability to respond fast.

What is the structure of the IT department and how does it integrate to the rest of the organization?
Intercable hired Infocable, a company that now belongs to the same holding and has a staff of 25 engineers devoted to development, quality assurance, implementation, training, system support and administration, hardware and the Intranet. That is, instead of an IT department, Intercable has an entire company to address all IT issues. Infocable markets its applications to telecommunication companies in other Latin American countries.

How are IT budgets defined in the organization? What is the IT share of the annual budget?
We have an annual budget approved in accordance with the Corporate Business Plan. It varies each year depending on the general investment plans of the company, and of course, on the Venezuelan economy. We adapt ourselves each year to this reality. In the first years of work, the annual investment was more than 3 million dollars, and we are now investing more than a million dollars per year.

Which special IT projects is the company working on at the moment? And which stage are you in? What is the budget assigned for this case?
This year we are starting the Applications Integration Plan. At Intercable, applications integration means that we are transforming our current systems into one application involving ERP + Billing + Customer Care. This system, called GXVision, was developed with GeneXus and generated in a modern language (Java and C # in .NET) operating in a three-tier architecture with Oracle as Database.

In your opinion, which (software) technologies are nowadays most innovative and productive for companies like yours?
In the telecommunications area, it is crucial to be independent from software suppliers. It is impossible to be tied to one package's functionality and features, because changes in telecommunications happen very fast. We need a very flexible system to be able to change at any time. For example, when we started eight years ago, we just offered basic TV cable services and premium channels. Today, we offer a wide range of sophisticated products such as Digital Television, Personal Video Recording, Pay Per View, Video On Demand ?Intercable is the only operator in the Venezuelan market offering VOD-, Broadband Internet per use, Games, Internet in the TV, Data Interconnection Service (Urban and Inter-urban IP Networks).

What are the main challenges IT departments must face now?
To adapt and make quick changes, the company must have control over its software. The bottom line is: "Either the company adapts to the system or the system adapts to the company." We are convinced that the system must adapt to the company. The foundation of our philosophy is to be at the company's service. That's why the IT area must offer flexible solutions that can adapt to the company's needs and recover the concept that the system is a tool at the users' service.
Unfortunately, many companies are tied to their systems compromising their operation and growth. When everything depends on a monolithic application, each new need turns into agony. There's also a myth, encouraged by many people in the computer science world to keep the IT area a black box, so that the rest of the organization never knows what is really going on. We should definitely break away from that paradigm.

http://www.intercable.com.ve