Open for Business

After opening in 1984, Rosa Mexicano won acclaim for bringing a fresh twist on Mexican cuisine to Manhattan.

But as Rosa Mexicano expanded to nearly 1,600 employees at 16 locations in the United States and Central America, handling credit card transactions, managing inventory and sharing information with its employees became a challenge. Raymond Fischer, Rosa Mexicano's vice president of real estate and development, recognized the need to create a communications infrastructure.

"I realized that if I could bring some order to the chaos, we could lower operating cost and more easily share important information with our restaurants," he says.

Today, Rosa Mexicano uses integrated voice and Internet services from AT&T, including at locations far from its New York City HQ — all working together for a stable, easily scalable communications platform for all of its restaurants.

And the addition of AT&T voice, Web and videoconferencing services helps existing restaurants work more collaboratively while supporting the planning, construction and launch of new locations. With AT&T's integrated solution, Rosa Mexicano's productivity has improved, and the company has reduced communications costs by 40 percent.

"AT&T made it clear that they didn't want to just sell us something," Cory Bronson, vice president of marketing for Rosa Mexicano, says. "They wanted to work with us to make our business more successful. And they have."

As chief marketing officer for AT&T Business Solutions, Michael Bowling understands what AT&T's 3.5 million business customers — from multinational corporations to startups — want from us … and the expanding role that mobility and cloud-based solutions play in meeting their needs:

What trends are you seeing in what business customers want? How is AT&T responding?

MICHAEL "Two big trends, from our vantage point, are the rise of mobile-enabled businesses and the shift toward virtualization as more companies adopt the cloud, which lets them access computing and storage on demand while reducing IT investment. And we're well positioned in both these areas.

"The two really go together. We're intensely focused on delivering mobile and cloud solutions that help businesses become more efficient. We embed cloud services in our highly secure, reliable network and combine them with mobility and apps to deliver 'the mobile cloud' — managed end to end across our fixed and mobile networks. So we're able to deliver the benefits of the cloud — from managing costs by scaling IT capacity up or down as needed to quickly recovering when disaster strikes — but with a difference.

"Think about what happens when a company chooses an AT&T cloud solution. With the right security measures, employees can access email and apps on their mobile devices any time, from nearly anywhere. The employees are more productive … and that company becomes more competitive while ensuring its data remains secure.

"And because we actively engage with other solution developers and cloud vendors, we're able to tailor innovative, open solutions that operate seamlessly across platforms."

What industries can benefit from AT&T's services?

MICHAEL "We're integrating mobility and the cloud to help transform whole industries like finance, retail and manufacturing … but I'm especially excited about the work we're doing in healthcare. Because we believe that technology and smart networks can help create a healthier world, we created our AT&T ForHealth practice group.

"We're collaborating across the healthcare industry to introduce innovative solutions that improve quality of care and reduce costs, from helping insurers and doctors remotely care for patients with chronic diseases to providing more secure and efficient access to medical records and images. For example, we will soon roll out a cloud-based service that lets healthcare providers make virtual 'house calls' via a tablet. And that's just the beginning … it's an exciting time for AT&T."

Storing the more than 25,000 cardiac images it generates each year was a challenge for the Henry Ford Heart & Vascular Institute (HVI), part of Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Mich.

Each image is a little "movie" that requires highly secure storage. But videotapes and DVDs were costly and took up too much space, while large digital files filled hard drives too quickly. And both were difficult to safeguard when stored off-site.

HVI knew it needed a better solution but lacked the budget to build the necessary IT infrastructure. Enter AT&T's cloud-based medical imaging solution.

With AT&T's pay-as-you-go model, HVI pays only for the digital storage space it needs. Highly secure storage in the cloud gives medical staff access to images without compromising security. And because the solution runs over our reliable network with images backed up at two geographically dispersed AT&T data centers, HVI knows it can still access important files if its own network is disrupted or a natural disaster hits.

"We presented AT&T with a problem, and they gave us a solution that provides the highly secure storage capacity we need, while freeing up budget to invest in equipment that directly benefits patients," says Kevin Yee, Administrator, Cardiology, Henry Ford Health System.

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AT&T wins when our solutions help businesses serve their own customers better and operate more efficiently. But sometimes the best way to do that is to help business customers design their own solutions by offering them a special software tool called an application programming interface (API). AT&T offers these APIs to help businesses of all sizes develop wireless applications and services that tap the power of our network.

For example, AAA's FindMe^SM service — a benefit that's complimentary with AAA membership — uses AT&T Location Information Services to share an AT&T subscriber's location with AAA nationwide. When an AT&T customer calls for roadside assistance, with the member's consent, AAA counselors can use AAA FindMe to retrieve the member's location. And all the driver needs is a mobile device with GPS.

"Drivers who call AAA for roadside help are often unsure where they are," says Jeff Green, Managing Director of Mobile Products and Commercial Markets, AAA. "With AT&T and AAA FindMe, when members call from an unfamiliar location, we can get them quickly and safely to their destination or a repair facility."