VanillaPlus Magazine October-November 2012 Edition

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

V O L U M E 1 4 I S S U E 5

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18-PAGE CEO GUIDE

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ERICAS 2012

ISSN 1745-1736

Ericsson buys ConceptWave • Swisscom signs MATRIXX real-time charging deal • Oraclelaunches Elastic Charging Engine • MTN improves number utilisation • Who's winning in the Contract

Hot List • What's going on when • Read the latest OSS & BSS news online now at www.vanillaplus.com

MASSIVEBILL SHOCKThe €11.721quadrillion billis presented

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PLUS!

POLICY MANAGEMENTHow CSPs are moving onfrom throttle and choke

MAY I BE DIRECT?Why direct billing canre-insert CSPs in thedigital value chain

CLOCKING OFF!Should CSPs bethe new patronsof the arts?

POLICY MANAGEMENTHow CSPs are moving onfrom throttle and choke

MAY I BE DIRECT?Why direct billing canre-insert CSPs in thedigital value chain

CLOCKING OFF!Should CSPs bethe new patronsof the arts?

TALKINGHEADSCycle30 chief saysbilling providers mustimprove customerservice to meet theneeds of CSPs

TALKINGHEADSCycle30 chief saysbilling providers mustimprove customerservice to meet theneeds of CSPs

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D R I V I N G P R O F I T S F O R C O M M U N I C A T I O N S E R V I C E P R O V I D E R S

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A new name, a new look, a new direction.CSG and Intec are now CSG International.

www.csgi.com© 2011 CSG Interna onal, Inc.

With our recent acquisi on of Intec, CSG Interna onal is now a globally focused leader in helping clients At the core of our union is a transforma onal partnership. As a combined en ty, we now o er

our clients an unprecedented set of business support solu ons and services to help them capitalize on dynamic market changes and opportuni es. With more than 25 years of experience, and serving over 500 customers in 24 countries, CSG is even be er posi oned to help businesses accurately capture, manage, generate and op mize revenue, strengthen customer rela onships, and exploit emerging opportuni es. We are commi ed to long term partnership with our customers and believe collabora on and communica on are an integral part of helping our clients achieve success. We invite you to pro t from our experience. Visit us at: www.csgi.com

IN THIS ISSUE

3VANILLAPLUS OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

TALKING HEADS10

C O N T E N T S

Jim Dunlap, presidentof Cycle30

DIRECTBILLING

13

POLICY & BSS20

EDITOR’S COMMENT 4George Malim says CSPs can’t afford to continue making basic errors

COMPANY NEWS 5Ericsson acquires ConceptWave; Openet wins judgment in Amdocspatent suit

MARKET NEWS 6MATRIXX Software wins Swisscom real-time charging deal; Oraclelaunches Elastic Charging Engine

PEOPLE NEWS 7Subex founder steps down, Sigma Systems promotes new regionalexecutives and Netadmin Systems appoints German agent

THE CONTRACT HOT LIST 9VanillaPlus’s round up of the major contracts recently announcedworldwide

TALKING HEADS 10Jim Dunlap, president of Cycle30, says that, if CSPs get the commercialorder-to-cash process right, they can offset lost consumer ARPU

DIRECT BILLING 13Nick Booth explores whether direct billing can put CSPs back in the digitalvalue chain

EXPERT OPINION: DIRECT OPERATOR BILLING 15Michael de Jongh says charging purchases onto a phone bill willenable new revenue streams for mobile operators

POLICY MANAGEMENT 16Policy management has moved well beyond protective measures.The question now is how much revenue CSPs can make from it,writes George Malim

POLICY & BSS 20Alice Bartram says CSPs are rising to new monetisation, marketing,competitive and offer management challenges

DIARY 21Where to go and what to see

CLOCKING OFF! 22Nick Booth considers the role of CSP content directors as patronsof the arts

Cycle30 provides ahosted order-to-cash billingplatform for cable,wireless,telecommunications, utilities and machine-to-machine services. It empowers serviceproviders to focus on their customers,while Cycle30 handles the billing operation.The Cycle30 platform includes customermanagement, service fulfillment, billingand revenue management, serviceassurance, integrations and businessintelligence. Cycle30 is a US company,headquartered in Seattle, Washington, withdata centre facilities across North Americaand beyond. www.cycle30.com

Solenne San Jose, a French woman who had recently cancelled her subscription toBouyges Telecom following losing her job, received a final bill for the outrageous sumof €11,721,000,000,000,000 – nearly six times France’s national, annual economic output.

Ms San Jose was aware that there would be a penalty for the early termination of hercontract but nevertheless was understandably perturbed by the size of the sum. Shecalled in to the CSP’s customer services and was helpfully offered an opportunity topay the balance off in installments. It is not known whether Bouyges suggestedsomething more readily manageable for a newly unemployed teaching assistant suchas €1bn per month. Even if they did, she would not be able to pay off the balance inher lifetime.

The saving grace here is that sum is so ridiculous that CSPs can avoid accusations ofinflated charging for mobile services. Yet on a more serious note it is clear that CSPsstill haven’t perfected their billing or customer care. The real sum owing was €117.21 –not great news for a newly unemployed customer but acceptable given the earlytermination of a contract. The addition of twelve noughts might seem to be a fairlymundane error and Bouyges has attributed it to a printing mistake but I fail to recollecta time when noughts have been added to my bank statement or my pay slip. Printingtechnology generally provides a pretty accurate image of the data it is supplied with.

Worse is to come. Bouygues initially told Ms San Jose there was nothing it could do toamend the computer-generated statement and only after further calls admitted the truesum before finally waiving it all together and apologising. The lack of authority or will inthe call centre to react to a customer’s concern and deal with it effectively is evident here.

This error simply should have been spotted by all sortsof systems within the CSP. That failure was thencompounded by the woeful lack of effectiveresponse by customer care. In a saturatedwestern European market CSPs can’t afford tomake such errors. Imagine the businessimpact if the customer had not been anunemployed teaching assistant but insteadbeen a multinational corporation.

Adding twelve noughts to their bill could seea contract worth millions of euros walk out ofthe door.

Enjoy the magazine

George Malim

VANILLAPLUS OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 20124

The CSP sector has done it again. Just as warmer sentiment amongconsumers was starting to emerge as the iPhone 5 and 4G started to hitEuropean shores, a back office error has created bill shock to a degreethat is frankly laughable.

C O M M E N T

John Aalbers,chief executive,Volubill

Martin Creaner, president,TM Forum

AndreasFreund, VPMarketing, OrgaSystems GmbH

Louis Hall, chief executive,CerillionTechnologies

Gabriel Matsliach,general manager,BSS Product Line,Comverse

Pat McCarthy, VPof GlobalMarketing, ServiceDelivery Solutions,Telcordia

Simon Muderack,COO, Tribold

John Rainger,vice president,EMEA, CSGInternational

Mac Taylor, CEO,The MorianaGroup

Chris Yeadon,director of ProductMarketing, Ericsson

Dr Reinhard Zuba,CMO, Vipnet(Telekom Austria)

EDITORGeorge MalimTel: +44 (0) 0208 292 [email protected]

DIGITAL EDITORNathalie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESSDEVELOPMENTDIRECTORCherisse DraperTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Mark BridgesTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

OPERATIONS DIRECTORCharlie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

PUBLISHERJeremy CowanTel: +44 (0) 1420 [email protected]

DISTRIBUTIONUK Postings LtdTel: +44 (0) 8456 444137

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PUBLISHED BYPrestige Media Ltd.Suite 28,30 Churchill SquareKings Hill, West MallingKent ME19 4YU, UKTel: +44 (0) 1732 897645

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VanillaPlus is distributed free to selected named individualsworldwide who meet the Publisher's terms of Circulation Control. Ifyou would like to apply for a regular free copy supplied at thePublisher's discretion visit www.vanillaplus.com If you do notqualify for a free subscription, paid subscriptions can be obtained.Subscriptions for 6 issues cost £99.00 worldwide (or US$150 /EUR125) including post and packing. VanillaPlus magazine ispublished 6 times per year.

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© Prestige Media Ltd 2012

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Dan Baker, ResearchDirector, TechnologyResearch Institute

George Malim,Editor:VanillaPlus

An unlimited mobileexperience, madam?That’ll be €11.721quadrillion, please

C O M P A N Y N E W S

Ericsson has acquiredConceptWave, theCanadian provider oforder management andproduct cataloguesystems, in an all cashtransaction. The companywas founded in 2000. Nofinancial terms have beenrevealed.

Speaking exclusively to VanillaPlus oncondition of anonymity, a seniorConceptWave executive said: "We areexcited about the opportunity. Theproduct fit will be good for Ericsson, andwe are looking forward to moreexposure in the market. The Ericssonbacking will allow us to compete better."

Ericsson, led by chief executive HansVestberg, believes the acquisition willstrengthen its OSS/BSS portfolio byadding systems to improve its supportfor activities related to personalisation ofend-user offerings and revenuemanagement solutions. However,Ericsson’s recent US$1 billion purchaseof Telcordia – which also has ordermanagement capability, suggests theremay be some overlap to be addressedas the businesses integrate. In addition,

the bulk of ConceptWave’s customersare in North and Latin America, regionsin which Telcordia is strong.

The move may cause concern fornetwork equipment providers thatpartner with ConceptWave for ordermanagement and catalogue. Rivalvendor Tribold now claims it is the onlyindependent provider of productcatalogue systems.

Elisabetta Romano, head of OSS in theBusiness Unit Support Solutions atEricsson, said: "There is a trend towardsmore personalisation of services whereend-users want to purchasecommunications services meeting theirindividual needs. This puts high demandon telecoms operators to be able to offerflexible product bundles withcustomised pricing packages. In thisarea ConceptWave's solutions andemployees' expertise adds considerablevalue to Ericsson's portfolio."

Zarar Rana, president and CEO ofConceptWave, added: "Joining Ericssontoday adds great value to ConceptWave,as we become part of their globalorganisation."

VANILLAPLUS OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012 5

HansVestberg’sEricssoncontinues toacquireOSS/BSSassets

Ericsson acquires Canadian ordermanagement specialist ConceptWave

Amdocs survey finds the who ownsthe customer battle continues

N E W S U P D AT E

Amdocs has released the findings of aglobal survey that explores attitudestoward partnering between three groupsthat help to define the customerexperience: communications serviceproviders, over-the-top (OTT) players –such as streaming video providers – anddevice manufacturers. The researchfound that each of these groupsacknowledged the importance offorming strategic partnerships toachieve business growth – even thougheach is heavily invested in owning theall-important customer experience.

The survey found that the battlecontinues over who owns the customer:66% of service providers say they mustown the customer in any partneringagreement, while only 13% of device

manufacturers and 14% of OTT playersare prepared to envision a future inwhich they cede ownership of thecustomer experience.

Service providers increasingly see OTTplayers as potential partners andsources of innovation: counter toconventional wisdom, the survey foundthat 70% of service providers view OTTplayers as potential partners, rather thana threat. 64% of service providers saythat OTT players bring innovation to theindustry. And yet, 42% of serviceproviders said they could offer anyservice an OTT player can deliver – butbetter. 74% of OTT players and 73% ofdevice makers are willing to expose andshare their core assets. 56% of serviceproviders are also willing to do so.

C O M P A N Y N E W S

Openet wins summaryjudgment in Amdocspatent suit A US Federal court in Alexandria, Virginia,has granted summary judgment forOpenet in a lawsuit filed by Amdocs. Thecourt found that Openet software does notinfringe Amdocs' patents.

The suit, filed on 16 August 2010, allegedthat Openet infringed two US patentsowned by Amdocs. Two additionalAmdocs patents were added to the case inJanuary 2011. The suit sought damagesand an injunction against the sale ofcertain Openet products.

After extensive discovery of documentsand deposition testimony of witnesses,Judge Leonie Brinkema of the EasternDistrict of Virginia denied Amdocs' claim.Her ruling found that none of Openet'sproducts infringed the four patents inquestion.

"We welcome the court's decision," saidOpenet CEO Niall Norton. "This judgementvindicates our strategy of innovation overlitigation. I would like to express oursincere appreciation for the tireless effortsof our staff and legal team during thisprocess."

Amdocs had made no comment when thisarticle published.

Allot Communicationscompletes acquisition ofOversi Networks Allot Communications has completed itsacquisition of Oversi Networks. Oversi is aglobal provider of rich-media caching andcontent delivery solutions for internetvideo and peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic.

The acquisition is expected to enhanceAllot’s vision to integrate the widest rangeof critical value-added services in its AllotService Gateway. Allot now enablesoperators to implement comprehensivevideo strategies by integrating cachingwith a portfolio of video services includingvideo optimisation, analytics and tightintegration with both policy and charging.The Allot Service Gateway enableswireless and wireline service providersworldwide to quickly and efficiently drivenew revenue sources and to effectivelymanage the ever-increasing volume ofvideo traffic on their networks.

N E W S U P D AT E

M A R K E T N E W S


Swisscom has chosenMATRIXX Software toprovide its ChargingEngine to support real-time rating, charging andbalance management forits prepaid and postpaidmobile subscribers. As part of the selectionprocess, Swisscom ranrigorous end-to-end trialsfor performance, network

grade reliability and functionality. Thetrials included Swisscom’s current andfuture convergent pricing modelsincorporating complex businesshierarchies, shared bundles andbalances and family plans. TheMATRIXX Charging Engine delivered thesame high performance and low latencyacross all pricing and subscriberscenarios. This enables Swisscom to usethe engine as a convergent chargingplatform to spearhead competitivedifferentiation.

As Swisscom capitalises on the growthin mobile broadband services and theimplementation of LTE, it recognized theneed to manage usage in real-timeacross all subscribers and services. Toachieve this, Swisscom required a newgeneration of Online Charging System(OCS) that can cost-effectively handlethe exponential growth in session

authorisations created by smartphoneapps and LTE signaling. Session growthis an issue that is causing headaches formany CSPs trying to find ways to handlethe signaling storm on their 3G and LTEnetworks.

“MATRIXX Software’s Parallel-MATRIXXtechnology is the core innovation thatdifferentiates its products,” said BramVan der Zwet, Head of BSS/OSSArchitecture at Swisscom. “Afterextensive testing, it clearlydemonstrated a breakthrough in thetechnology required to enable CSPs todeploy Online Charging as a ubiquitoussolution. As we roll out LTE, MATRIXXSoftware has an unparalleled solutionthat can deliver the real-time chargingcapabilities we need, including supportfor large enterprise customers andsophisticated post-paid pricing plans.”

Dave Labuda, Founder, CEO and CTO ofMATRIXX Software, added: “OurParallel-MATRIXX technology eliminatesthe limitations with current real-timesolutions and combines highperformance, broad functionality andefficiency on a single platform. We’revery proud to have been chosen bySwisscom, an innovative and visionaryoperator who recognises the need fornew technology to move the industryforward and solve critical CSP challenges.”

Dave Labuda:Eliminate thelimitations ofcurrent real-time solutions

Swisscom selects MATRIXX Software for real-time charging

Oracle Communications launches Elastic Charging Enginewith three billion events per hour processing

Oracle has announced the availability ofOracle Communications Elastic ChargingEngine, a real-time engine that thecompany claims can process all theworld’s phone calls on a single OracleExalogic Cloud system. The ElasticCharging Engine offers real-time ratingand balance management capability andcan process more than three billionevents per hour on an Exalogic system.

Oracle claims the solution: Processes allrating events rapidly by co-locating dataand processing logic within clusternodes; if one node goes down, the dataalready exists in backup in another;Provides automatic high availabilitythrough the low level replication of dataand process; Enables CSPs toaccommodate peak demand, such ashigh call volumes on New Year’s Eve, byquickly expanding capacity withoutservice interruption and retractingcapacity when demand spikes subside;

and Has been tested, benchmarked andcertified to run on Oracle ExalogicElastic Cloud.

"CSPs must invest in operationalcapabilities to better positionthemselves to deliver a personaliseduser experience and monetise newservice offerings,” said Shira Levine,directing analyst for next gen OSS andpolicy at Infonetics Research.

Bhaskar Gorti, senior vice president andgeneral manager at OracleCommunications, added: “This nextevolution of the Oracle family of ratingand charging solutions is an excitingstep forward for communicationsservice providers. It enables both largeand small operators to scale their billingsystems to support next-generationcommunications services, includingdata-intensive and machine-to-machinetransactions."

M A R K E T N E W S

MTN improves numberutilisation with EvolvingSystems DSAMTN Nigeria, the largest and mostprofitable operator within the MTNGroup, has deployed Evolving Systems’Dynamic SIM Allocation (DSA) solution,to provide improved number utilisationthrough automatic number allocationand reduced network overhead costs.

DSA will allow MTN to achieve moreefficient use of its network capacity andload balancing across its Home LocationRegisters (HLRs). By using the solution,MTN will also achieve number allocationefficiencies, as numbers do not have tobe predefined on the HLR.

Until now, MTN had used a traditionalpre-provisioning approach for new SIMcards. This means it had to buy itsnumbers from the national regulator andpre-load them on its HLRs. The newsystem means that it will no longer haveto buy numbers as frequently as before.

“We are confident that, moving forward,Evolving Systems’ DSA solution will bekey in enabling us to drive newoperational efficiencies and keep costsdown as we roll out SIM cards across thecountry,” says Basit Arogundade,general manager IS, Business Planningand Solutions Architecture, MTN Nigeria.

Vodafone Czech Republicselects Astellia for qualityoptimisation Astellia, which provides monitoringsolutions for the optimisation of mobilenetwork QoS and QoE, has been chosenby Vodafone Czech Republic as a mainpartner for testing and maximising itsnetwork performance in the context of itsthree-year equipment swap project. Thecontract will enable Vodafone to ensurefast and successful replacement of morethan 40 BSCs in its 2G network anddeliver the highest customer experienceto its subscribers.

This particularly complex and time-sensitive project requires both a strongexpertise in RAN optimisation and avendor-independent monitoring solution.

VANILLAPLUS OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012 7

Surjeet Singh appointed managing directorof Subex to replace Subash MenonSubex’s founder Subash Menon has resigned as managing directorand CEO, following completion of the company’s restructuring of itsForeign Currency Convertible Bonds. He will continue in the capacity ofa non-independent director of the company.

Commenting on the development, Menon said “With the restructuringof FCCBs complete, I have decided to focus on my other businessinterests and hence this move.”

The Board of Subex has appointed Surjeet Singh as managing director and CEO ofthe company with immediate effect. Singh has more than two decades of multi-industry global experience in the finance, corporate development, business planningand global operation functions. He has a successful corporate and entrepreneurialtrack record of building organisations and fostering collaboration in large andculturally diverse cross-functional teams.

Prior to his recent short engagement as president of international business at GlodyneDecisionOne, he was the chief financial officer of Patni Computer Systems wherehe played a key role in shaping business transformation and maintaining the higheststandards of governance. Singh was also instrumental in enhancing shareholder valueduring his tenure at Patni. Prior to this, he was part of the founding team of CymbalCorporation, a mid-sized telecom BSS systems integration boutique from the SiliconValley, which was acquired by Patni in 2004.

“I am excited at the opportunity to serve a leadership company which is one of thelargest IP led services businesses out of India,” said Singh. “Subex has been atforefront of innovation from its inception. I look forward to working with closely withall Subex employees, customers and investors to charter its new growth phase andmaximize value for all stakeholders"

Sigma Systems promotes new regional executives Sigma Systems has announced several new executive appointments to support thecompany's regional alignment. Jackie Berg has been promoted to vice president andmanaging director for the Americas, Jonathan Smith has been appointed vicepresident and managing director of EMEA and APAC and Mark Flynn has beenpromoted to associate vice president of service and delivery.

"Sigma has made significant investments in providing our customers with the teamsand tools to address their specific challenges and to be competitive in theirmarketplace," said Tim Spencer, Sigma's president and COO. "These executiveappointments will enable us to further align and enhance our regional sales, supportand service capabilities, bringing more personalised and strategic support andresources to our customers."

Berg will oversee all sales and regional services delivery for North America and CALA.Previously, Berg led the global sales team in developing a strong customer base acrossthe Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions.

Smith will lead the company's sales and regional services delivery throughout theAPAC region. A seasoned sales executive, Smith spent twelve years with Ericsson inroles of increasing responsibility before taking on the role of managing director ofEMEA at Convergys where he quickly transformed the business and won newcustomers such as Skype, Ziggo and DHL while expanding existing business withcustomers such as Virgin and UPC.

Flynn has directed Sigma's technical support and customer training offerings for thepast several years. In his new role, Flynn will oversee quality and delivery across thecustomer solutions development, project control office and technical support.

Payments specialist

Jumio hires Orlando

to lead salesOnline and mobile payments and IDverification company, Jumio hasappointed Michael Orlando chiefsales officer. Orlando brings morethan 22 years of experience in thegrowth and development of successfulteams and companies to Jumio, wherehe will be responsible for overseeingall aspects of sales operations and thecustomer experience.

Most recently, Orlando served as seniorvice president of global sales and servicesat CyberSource, where he oversawall enterprise sales and professionalservices functions worldwide. Duringhis tenure, Orlando was responsiblefor driving revenue growth fromUS$35 million to US$340 million.

A trusted senior executive, Orlandohas played a critical role advisingCEOs, executive teams and boards ofdirectors regarding strategic businessdecisions. Prior to his role atCyberSource, he held a variety ofsales positions in a number oftechnology companies, including AVTCorporation, Comdial, NitsukoAmerica and Inter-Tel.

Netadmin Systems

expands with German

agent Netadmin Systems has continued toexpand its reach in Europe with theappointment of an independentbusiness consultant in Germany.

Robert Knaf has more than 20 yearsexperience in the ICT industry and hasheld various leadership positions insales and marketing teams, forSiemens, BT and o.tel.o. Knaf hasbeen working as a freelanceconsultant over the past ten years andwill now work as an official agent todrive Netadmin sales, operations andbusiness development across thecountry.

Torbjorn Sandberg, CEO of NetadminSystems, said Knaf’s knowledge of thesector and his experience bringsinvaluable energy and will continuethe company’s expansion into Germannext generation networks. “We arecertain Robert’s connections andindustry experience will help us toexpand into Germany,” he said. “Weare seeing this change now thoughand expect his dedication and priorexperience to help us gain a realfoothold in an important region.”

Appointments in brief

SubashMenon:Focusing onotherbusinessinterests

P E O P L E N E W S

P E O P L E N E W S

SUPERIOR MARKET INTELLIGENCEWE ARE THE LEADERS IN OSS/BSS RESEARCH

analysysmason.com

Find out more at analysysmason.com/ossbss

Read some of our latest research at analysysmason.com/softwareperspectives2012

UL (Underwriters Laboratories) has chosen Anritsu as itsprovider for Long Term Evolution (LTE) telecomsequipment, becoming the first commercial independentLTE conformance test facility in the UK. Over the past sixmonths UL has invested over US$4 million at itsBasingstoke base to create what it claims is the mostcomplete LTE test facility in the country.

“UL’s investment is a clear demonstration ofcommitment to LTE advancement both within the UKand globally,” said Robert Graham, head of CellularApprovals, UL Verification Services. “Choosing Anritsuwas an easy decision. Anritsu has a clear lead in LTEcellular conformance systems, with the largest test casecoverage and a proven commitment to work with theircustomers.”

UL’s choice of Anritsu ME7873L and ME7834L platformsallows customers to have access to the maximumcoverage of validated test cases across the highestnumber of bands. UL now offers the necessaryconformance requirements for the GCF, is a primarylaboratory for PTCRB and can offer network operatorapprovals for Europe, North America and beyond.

Anritsu offers the highest coverage of test cases, butaccording to Bob Kersey, Anritsu’s director of marketingfor wireless protocol test: “The real benefit from thesystem is the value it adds. Anritsu offers uniquefeatures such as floating licences and parallel testing tomaximise the efficiency of the test assets and lower theoverall test time. This results in real value to ourcustomers."

Anritsu chosen by UL for the UK's first commercial LTE test facility

C O N T R A C T N E W S

VANILLAPLUS OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012 9H O T L I S T

C O N T R A C T H O T L I S T

VanillaPlus Hot List: November/December 2012

Aircom International Zain, Kuwait Selected to provide network planning and optimisation solutions to deliver insight into entire network performance 9.12

Alcatel-Lucent Belgacom, Belgium Deployment of Service Quality Manager to enable CSP to offer mobile service quality guarantees to enterprises 9.12

Amdocs Reliance, India Deployment of Amdocs Customer Management 8.1 to improve customer experience for 150 million subscribers 9.12

Amdocs Rostelecom, Russia CSP chooses Amdocs to modernise and consolidate customer management systems to gain a unified viewof customer-related activities 9.12

Astellia Vodafone, Czech Republic Radio access network optimisation solutions and services as CSP embarks on three year equipment swap project 9.12

Cerillion Columbus Communications,Caribbean region Deployment of convergent CRM and billing solution in Curucao, Grenada, Jamaica and Trinidad 10.12

Comarch MobileOne, Germany Provision of BSS platform to MobileOne, a Turkcell Europe MVNO serving the German market 9.12

Comptel Telefónica, Argentina Vendor choses as sole mediation platform for more than 130 million daily transactions 9.12

Comptel Mobilink, Pakistan Contract extension for provisioning and activation for Pakistani cellular provider with 35 million subscribers 10.12

Evolving Systems MTN, Nigeria Dynamic SIM Allocation system to provide improved number utilisation through automatic allocation 9.12

Huawei Vimpelcom, Russia Five-year managed services deal encompassing end-to-end network management, network assuranceand spare parts management 9.12

InfoVista Tunisiana, Tunisia Deployment of VistaInsight for Networks to monitor availability, traffic load and saturation of 10 gigabitIP backhaul network 9.12

MACH Thumb Cellular, USA Implementation of MACH's Inter-Standard Roaming (ISR) solution ot enable international roaming forpostpaid subsribers 9.12

MACH Chat Mobility, USA Implementation of MACH's Inter-Standard Roaming (ISR) solution ot enable international roaming forpostpaid subsribers 9.12

MACH NorthwestCell, USA Implementation of MACH's Inter-Standard Roaming (ISR) solution ot enable international roaming forpostpaid subsribers 9.12

Matrixx Software Swisscom, Switzerland CSP chooses Matrixx Charging Engine for real-time rating, charging and balance management for preand postpaid users 9.12

Mobixell Networks Safaricom, Kenya Deployment of Mobixell Seamless Access mobile data traffic management solution for 19 million subscribers 10.12

NetAdmin Open Universe, Sweden OSS system to automate service fulfilment processes on behalf of Telenor-owned CSP 9.12

Oracle Communications VimpelCom, Russia Deployment of Oracle Converged Applications Server to host 'Black & White' call manager service 9.12

Redknee Step Up Mobile, USA Cloud-based billing and customer care solution provided to US MVNO 9.12

The Hot List below shows the companies informing us of recent contract wins or product deployments. If your contract is not listed here email the details to us now marked "Hot List" <[email protected]>

Vendor(s) Client, Country Product / Service (Duration & Value) Awarded


Jim Dunlap is president of Cycle30, a provider of a hosted platform for scalableand reliable converged billing that includes convergent charging, rating andbalance management for existing and emerging services across a variety ofmarkets. The platform addresses point-of-sale, self-care, roaming, pre-paidwireless, inventory management, invoicing and other functions today's cellular andwireless providers need for a complete order-to-cash billing platform. Developed inresponse to the requirements of its parent company, North American cableprovider GCI, Cycle30 is now offering its system to service providers of all types.Here Dunlap tells VanillaPlus how the company is developing solutions to targetthe M2M market and is moving beyond its home base of North America.

VanillaPlus: As a relative newcomer tothe billing market, how have you found2012?

Jim Dunlap: It’s been a really exciting year.For a young, dynamic newcomer to thismarket is has been a really great year in termsof the number of contacts we have made andin terms of the excitement around the Cycle30platform. We’ve had considerable interest inthe areas we had identified as having potentialand that has proven out. These are now areasin which we have the opportunity to be wildlysuccessful.

VP: Which area would you single out asthe one that you can bring the most to?

JD: The commercial space holds a massiveopportunity. The existing billing providers aredoing a pretty poor job of serving that area

and probably represents the greatestopportunity for us to provide a platform forCSPs to serve commercial enterprises.

That starts with offer management andcontinues through order management,workflow processes and goes all the waythrough to the ability to do hierarchicalcomplex, converged billing. We’ve identified avery interesting niche and it’s one that’s veryoften overlooked. The majority of salesprospects we’re dealing with right now are forcritical commercial opportunities that can betranslated to consumer opportunities in thefuture.

We’re interested in this sector because it isboth an underserved market and we canaddress it well today because it is ourheritage. Our parent company, GCI, has a very,very significant commercial base with

T A L K I N G H E A D S

If CSPs get thecommercial order-to-cash process right,they can offset lostconsumer ARPU

Complex

commercial

billing is

becoming a big

differentiator

for CSPs

�


customers like British Petroleum,the State of Alaska and Wells Fargoas customers. We are supportingthose customers today.

VP: Why is the attentionsuddenly on commercial orenterprise billing?

JD: Complex commercial billing isbecoming a big differentiator forCSPs. Instead of focusing onfighting churn and low consumerARPU, you can replace these kindsof revenue and margins by having arobust and growing enterprisesector.

This is a great opportunity becausethe needs of the commercial marketare different to the consumer sector.The customer knowledge andexpectations are higher in thecommercial sector and this leads toa more significant set ofrequirements that need to befulfilled by the billing platform. Thechallenge is about how you canapply a set of different technologiesto be used in new and differentways and effectively secureenterprise customers for the longterm.

VP: What other areas do yousee as large opportunities forCycle30?

JD: We continue to be enthusiasticabout the opportunities that exist inthe M2M market. Every week wehear of some new solution beingdeveloped, launched or in the proofof concept stage. These solutionsseem to be an endless stream ofvalue added products and servicesand involve every industryimaginable. We’re currently lookingat solutions in petroleum, publicworks, health care and consumersectors, but the breadth of solutions

�


M2M will touch is staggering. We continue tobe very excited about our ability to bring valueand monetise these services.

We want to continue to work with our partnerArrow Electronics to broaden the range ofproducts we take to market and to developmodels for specific industries. We continue totalk with many, many other solutionsproviders as well.

VP: So how do you address thefragmented demands of the M2M sector?It seems to me that there are so manyvariables in terms of the services andindustries and business models involved.

JD: What we’ve developed is a two-tierapproach. Our full-blown proposition includescomplex billing, rating and taxation and isable to scale massively in terms of the numberof transactions it supports. A utility companyis a good example of a suitable application forit but, at the lower level, we’ve developed asimpler model of our platform. With that, wehave the ability to bring customers rapidlyonto our platform and do simple billing on amonthly recurring model.

Another example is in situations that involvemultiple data sources, complex reporting oranalytics. We’ve approached that with a two-tier solution as well.

You can’t take a one-size fits all approach, youhave to have the ability to scale up or downand address varying degrees of complexity.That’s what is so neat about our platform.We’re finding in the M2M market that theupper tier of billing vendors have massiveinfrastructure in place and are finding it hardto turn their ships to address this hightransaction volume market. Our competitorsare finding it challenging to make thenecessary changes to their value propositionto serve the M2M markets. We are wellsituated to succeed in this sector and areenthusiastic about its potential.

VP: M2M is still in its early stages – do

you see it turning a corner into themainstream now?

JD: We see M2M as a longer term play. Werecognise this is enormous opportunity andare making investments that we believe willpay off handsomely in the future. We areworking selectively with our partners to investand develop solutions including proof ofconcept and ROI models. It’s a great sectorand we continue to believe strongly in it.

VP: As a provider with North Americanroots how do you plan to access otherregions?

JD: We know that there is enormous potentialin Europe in the communications, cable andutility sectors. We have a relationship with aninternational hosting company that means wecan rapidly enter any new geographicalmarket with very little complexity on our side.For example, we can access four different datacentres in Greater London alone serving thebreadth of Europe. That relationship is verystrategic for us as we look at markets outsidethe US.

VP: How are you seeing approaches tobilling shift as all these newopportunities emerge?

JD: It’s exciting to be part of a movement thatrecognises that the old way of doing things iscoming to an end. Cycle30’s model is vastlydifferent from others in our space. Our valueproposition isn’t that of a software vendor. Webring forward the value of our CSP heritage,combined with technology and processinnovation.

At the core of our culture is a deep belief inthe value of customer service. There has beenan overwhelming response to this focus. It isobvious that the existing providers have losttheir way in this regard. We are happy to bringthat back to the market. In the end it comesdown to doing business with people you trust,the value they bring and their ability to helpinsure outstanding customer service.

What we’vedeveloped is a

two-tier approach.Our full-blown

propositionincludes complexbilling, rating and

taxation and isable to scale

massively in termsof the number of

transactions itsupports



D I R E C T B I L L I N G

Billing systems are a bit like referees – the bestare the ones you don't notice, because theykeep the game going and don't seem to wantto make a name for themselves. That certainlycannot be said for some of the early paymenttypes that officiated over mobile commerce.Premium SMS (PSMS) almost brought thetelecoms game into disrepute – and it wasn'tall that reliable anyway.

The biggest problem that the mobilecommerce industry faces now is theperception that the officiator – the billingsystem – favours the home team. The publicsee unfair decisions go against them all thetime and even if they appeal the best they canachieve is a pyrrhic victory, where they arenever truly compensated for traumatic loss oftime and money.

Still, at least SMS is easy to use. I have £20credits with two different mobile paymentsystems that I have never used. The problemis it's impossible to find a retailer or pub thatwill accept that a mobile phone is anelectronic cheque book or that my watch hasa SIM card in it that can talk toMastercard. The problem with mobilecommerce is it's too fiddly for endusers.

Which probably explains whydirector operator billing isproving so popular. It hasthe usability of SMS,without the billshock and thereputation for

CSPs should take thedirect approach to billingDirect operator billing has the potential to put CSPs at the heart of the digital value chain.It offers a far simpler approach than premium SMS and could make mobile commercemuch more attractive – if some perception problems are solved, argues Nick Booth.

�


deviousness. As long as it keep its nose clean,this is a system that could help mobileoperators finally exploit the potential ofmobile commerce and ramp up revenues fortransaction processing. The content providerscertainly seem interested. At a recent AppsWorld conference around 85 per cent of thedelegates who took part in a survey said theservice will be a vital method of increasingrevenues and expanding their market.

Direct operator billing firm MACH seems tobe signing up everyone that matters in the UKmobile market, with a client list that includesoperators like Vodafone, EverythingEverywhere, O2 and 3UK. The operators willuse Mach's Direct Operator Billing platform fordigital goods – or music and films as theyused to be known – initially, but MACH hasplans to add physical goods purchases into itsportfolio of services.

There is enough potential revenue to be madejust by solving the problems of the digitalcontent market, says Michael De Jongh,MACH's global head of sales for mobile billingand content. “Buying digital content on themobile web is extremely clunky which is whyit has a high drop out rate. If people didn'thave to mess around with credit cards, therewould be a much higher conversion rate,” hesays.

The public likes the ease of using directoperator billing, according to a MACH survey,with 59% of survey respondents enthusingabout the simple one-click process. Whetherthe public will continue to trust it is anothermatter. It's important that direct operatorbilling doesn't become tarred with the samebrush that SMS coated the mobile contentindustry with. Which is why it's vital thatPayforit becomes a trusted kitemark forconsumers, says De Jongh. In turn, like anyeven handed referee, it will also act to seethere's fair play for online merchants,

operators and carrier billing solutionsproviders, so they can get assurance aboutwho the customer is. Content providers, thecreative players in the mobile commercegame, could also benefit from the protectiongiven to them by Pay4forIt, he says.

If the industry gets it right everyone canbenefit, says Massimiliano Silenzi, head ofmobile payment specialists Onebip.“Merchants, aggregators and paymentproviders, operators, and of course, end-users– will benefit from the convenience, flexibilityand ease-of-use for mobile purchasing thatdirect billing offers,” says Silenzi.

Direct billing is only ever likely to fail forpractical business, end-user or system reasons– when the user isn't properly authenticated orthey don't have credit or if there’s a systemsfault. By contrast, Premium SMS billing hadmany failings: SMS delivery backlogs,roaming issues, missed notifications andconfiguration issues on the handset.

Mobile billing can certainly deliver a betteruser experience, says Adrian Sarosi,marketing director payment companyOpenMarket.“I use operator billing forimpulsive low-value spends and in responseto TV or print calls-to-action,” he says Sarosi,“sometimes to top up my gaming account too.”

Whether direct operator billing can move upthe value chain is a moot point. Dean Bubley,founder of Disruptive Analysis, needsconvincing. “Beyond virtual goods I can't seemuch scope for direct billing for generalpurchases like retail goods or travel tickets,”says Bubley. “Most people wouldn't want tosee the addition of products like groceries on aphone bill. It doesn't really fit most mentalmodels of charging models.”

There's a little way to go but the potentialappears massive.

D I R E C T B I L L I N G

The public likes

the ease of using

direct operator

billing, according

to a MACH survey,

with 59% of

survey

respondents

enthusing about

the simple one-

click process

E X P E R T O P I N I O N :

Direct operator billing – the charging of purchases onto a mobile user’s phone bill– will enable new revenue streams for mobile operators and bring them squarely intothe e-commerce arena, explains Michael de Jongh

While direct operator billing is not new, onlyrecently has the service been deployed withany sort of momentum. Direct operator billing(DOB) is a payment mechanism that chargesthe cost of apps and other virtual goods ontothe consumer’s mobile phone bill. While thismay sound similar to Premium SMS (PSMS)charging, the two payment mechanisms arefundamentally different. DOB brings a numberof benefits to the merchant and the end-userthat are not available with PSMS, but it’s theoperators who stand to benefit the most fromits introduction. With PSMS, the operator wasrelegated to the role of a services reseller.DOB, on the other hand, elevates the operatorto the position of a true payments serviceprovider. In an instant, the operator can placeitself in the e-commerce value chain and startto win market share from major credit cardbrands and companies such as PayPal, whichhave to date dominated the space.

For DOB to really live up to its potential foroperators, they must improve revenue sharebetween the content merchant and theoperator in order to be competitive withalternative payment mechanisms. With PSMS,operators are used to paying out between 20%and 30% to their content partners, givingthemselves by far the biggest slice of the pie.When you compare this to credit cardcompanies that routinely only retain around3% of the total value of a good or service, itclearly shows just how much operators aregoing to have to change their approach if theyare to evolve into e-commerce payments

providers for the content ecosystem.

Take a fair shareWe believe operators should offer upwards of70% of the total value of an app or in-apppurchase to the developer/content provider.This will make the service a competitiveproposition in the eyes of the merchant andenable operators to compete effectively withthe likes of PayPal and the credit cardcompanies. If they really want to gaincompetitive advantage, however, it may evenmake sense to offer revenue share of 90% orgreater to the merchants and developers. Thiswill drive a huge amount of low-valuepayments onto the operators’ networks,allowing them to drive up revenues through ahigh-volume business model. The great newsis that operators are now offering these higherpayouts in return for much higher transactionvolumes and more importantly significantlyhigher conversion rates.

DOB can make the apps economy even biggerthan it is, and as it does so operators will beset to profit from a rich new source ofrevenue. In the future, it is even possible thatthrough DOB, operators will be able to extendtheir e-commerce credentials into physicalgoods and services. It is possible that anyonline payment could be charged to the phonebill rather than to another paymentmechanism. If this situation arises, then thepotential benefits to operators will besignificant and may fundamentally alter therole of the operator in our lives.

May I be direct – How canoperators make money outof the apps economy

For DOB to reallylive up to itspotential foroperators, theymust improverevenue sharebetween thecontent merchantand the operatorin order to becompetitive withalternativepaymentmechanisms

D I R E C T O P E R A T O R B I L L I N G


The author,Michael DeJongh, globalhead of sales,MobileBilling &Payments atMACH


Policy control, rules and management have been at the forefront of CSPs'minds for the last few years as they figure out how to cope with the rise of data

consumption across their networks. Now though, with LTE in deployment in manymarkets, it's clear that providing more bandwidth alone won't solve the challenge.

CSPs have recognised the need to apply policy management in order to make sense oftheir network investments and find a monetisation model for their infrastructure, writesGeorge Malim

The challenge with policy lies in finding abalance between intrusively capping users andinstituting some form of control over users'consumption. That protective approach isfundamental to the continued profitability ofCSPs. However, the other dimension of policymanagement, using policy as a stimulus forgreater expenditure, is where the true future ofthe industry lies.

“We’re seeing an evolution taking place whereCSPs are moving beyond first generation policymanagement capabilities, in order to enrich theservices they’re providing and engage withtheir customers – encouraging network usage,not just controlling it,” says Gordon Rawling,marketing director at Oracle Communications.“CSPs can capitalise on the opportunitiespresented by policy management, such asproviding extra bandwidth for downloads at thetime the customer needs and wants it, in orderto generate revenue. CSPs must ensure theyare linking policy management services withrevenue making opportunities, rather thansimply managing capacity.”

For Doug Suriano, chief technology officer ofTekelec: “The business case for fair usage is

well proven and widely deployed, but policy isevolving to accommodate a whole new set ofrevenue-generation requirements for CSPs. Theconvergence of universal broadband access,virtually unlimited content and the proliferationof smart devices has created a new paradigm –one moving well beyond fair usage to enableCSPs to increase revenues from new devices,third parties and innovative tariffs.”

The days of policy management being a bluntintstrument to throttle and choke userconsumption are ending. “Traditionally, policymanagement was a blunt network-centric toolfor managing bandwidth and maximisinglimited resources,” explains Ben Bleichman,director of marketing and Communications forBroadHop. “This defensive approach to policymanagement is now commonly referred to asPolicy 1.0. The next-generation of policymanagement – or – Policy 2.0 delivers aproactive, application-centric approach thatallows CSPs to rapidly deliver and monetisereal-time and personalised applications andservices that drive revenue and profit.Everything offered by Policy 1.0 still applies interms of protecting the network, but CSPs can’tdifferentiate on just speed and price. And the

Policy's bottom line impact extendsbeyond controlling consumption

P O L I C Y M A N A G E M E N T

GordonRawling: CSPsmust link policymanagementwith revenuemaking

�


good news is that they don’t have to.”Policy management is increasingly being usedin conjunction with real-time charging as ameans of monetising services and generatingadditional revenues, rather than simplycontrolling or restricting access to services. “Examples of this would be reducingconnection speed or blocking data roamingwhen the subscriber has used all of theirconfigured usage or spend limit,” explainsDavid Knox, senior product manager forintegrated charging and policy at CSGInternational. “The subscriber can be keptinformed of their spend or usage to date asthey go and sent an additional notificationmessage when their limit is reached. Thenotification message can also contain a link tobuy an add-on product like a roaming day passto restore access to the service – therebykeeping the customer happy and generatingincremental revenue at the same time.”

However, as LTE continues to roll out acrossthe world, the stakes are raised because of themassive infrastructure investment burdenassociated with it. It has to pay its way. “LTE isa capacity-focused technology ideally suited todeliver high-bandwidth, rich, multi-mediacontent,” says Bleichman. “It’s becoming rathercomplicated. Successful monetisation ofLTE/4G depends on the degree to whichoperators can manage this complexity – whilehiding it from the end user. For CSPs rolling outtheir LTE networks, their return on investmentwon’t come from lower price per bit – it’s goingto have to come from new service models.Without a scalable policy control solution inplace, CSPs will not be able to harness the

capabilities of an LTE architecture to deliverdifferentiated services and new businessmodels based on the dynamic control of QoS atan application and flow level.”

Knox at CSG International agrees: “4G / LTEadds to the CSP’s policy challenges for anumber of reasons,” he says. “One is that4G/LTE will be marketed aggressively as a fixedline broadband replacement service, meaningthat the data volumes being used persubscriber will be an order of magnitude abovewhat we are currently seeing on 3Gconnections. Any additional capacity providedby 4G/LTE will quickly get used up and so theneed to be able to control access and givesubscribers options for paying more dependingon how and when they are using theirconnection will be paramount. Another is thatthe use of existing spectrum for highbandwidth 4G services makes the need toeffectively manage, direct and optimisespectrum use even more critical, given thatthese networks are already running close to –or at – capacity.”

That pressure inherent in 4G deploymentmeans CSPs have got a grip on the reasons forinvesting in policy management. “The questionis not: ‘Will policy generate revenue?’, thequestion is: ‘How much revenue can policygenerate?’ A simple example is our work withTIM Brasil for international roamers onpostpaid plans. With our Policy Server, TIMcreated new 24-hour flat-rate passes to increaseinternational roaming data revenues. Withinthe first month of service launch, the use ofdata services abroad more than doubled.”

David Knox:The need togive 4G usersoptions to paymore will beparamount

Doug Suriano:The questionisn’t will policygeneraterevenue buthow much?

E X P E R T O P I N I O N :

Your parents’ Oldsmobile might still get you from point A to point B, but it lacks theperformance enhancements, energy efficiencies and built-in intelligence of a modern car.CSPs face the same challenges with their approaches to policy control and charging(PCC), writes Kishen Mangat. Here, he advises how to select the right system.

Over the past two years, network operatorshave come to rely on policy management as away to better manage how their bandwidth isallocated in an effort to control congestion.Some CSPs are content using theserudimentary deployments to get to Point B.But other service providers are ready to putpolicy at the heart of their servicedevelopment strategies.

Changes in the service environment arerequiring a re-think when it comes to policy."In the tumultuous service environment nowbeing created by the ever-faster transition toall-broadband, all-IP networks, a radicalreworking of CSP network and serviceplatforms is essential if conventional CSPs areto remain at the heart of the service valuechain," explains Graham Finnie, chief analystat Heavy Reading.

With data volume growth outstripping datarevenue growth by seven times and thephasing out of flat-rate pricing, re-investmentdollars will soon exceed new data revenues.Having a slow, traditional customiseddevelopment approach to service creation iscrippling CSP innovation. CSPs need a way topersonalise and monetise new value-addedservices and deliver them at web speed. Aspolicy deployments scale up, CSPs need to askif their current policy solution will be able tocope as new use cases are added.

According to Shira Levine, directing analystfor service enablement and subscriberintelligence at Infonetics Research: “Growth inthe policy management market is being drivennot only by new wins, particularly inconjunction with infrastructure upgrades, butalso through the expansion of existingcontracts and by replacement activity. We’reseeing many operators run into scalability andflexibility issues with their first-generation

policy solutions. They’re either replacing themwith new solutions or augmenting what theyhave in place with additional functionality tosupport things like new pricing models andadvanced subscriber controls.”

Policy servers must be able to scale upmassively as mobile operators move to LTE.While it may be tempting to work with avendor who will bundle in a policy server withtheir other offerings – just keep in mind theold adage – you get what you pay for. Whatmight at first sound like a good deal – mayend up being a lemon. Operators haveinvested countless hours and spent a fortuneon additional services trying to extract thepromised benefits from policy servers that fallshort of a next-generation policy managementplatform purpose-built for scalability, flexibilityand service velocity right out of the box.

Let’s look at why each one of these keyfeatures is so important and how to kick thetyres with key questions CSPs ought to beasking as they consider upgrading their policymanagement solution.

How scalable is the platform?A highly scalable policy management platformmeans demonstrated carrier-classperformance and the ability to deliver serviceselection, location awareness and fair usepolicies required in 3G and 4G networks.Scalability tests are common. If a vendorclaims it has been independently lab-tested forscalability – ask for the official certificationreport from the third-party testing facility.

• Are you going to be able to scale up with confidence without requiring third-party software licensing?

• How many subscribers are supported from a single chassis?

• Can the policy management platform

How to kick the tyreson your next PCC system

P O L I C Y C O N T R O L & C H A R G I N G

The author,Kishen Mangatis vicepresident ofsolutions atBroadHop

While it may betempting towork with a

vendor who willbundle in a

policy serverwith their otherofferings – just

keep in mindthe old adage –

you get whatyou pay for


�

demonstrate real world policy management even when delivering IMS/4G VoIP and data traffic and applying policy and charging rules on a per subscriber basis?

• What kind of standards compliance is offered? Consider relevant telecoms industry standards and web standards?

• Has the vendor adopted virtualisation principles? At what levels? With what specific demonstrable benefits?

What flexibility does the system offer? Policy management solutions have to beflexible, open and easy to configure. For CSPsto establish consistency across multi-network,multi-access environments, they will need toconsolidate subscriber identification, serviceand policy management, rating and chargingcapabilities in a single platform.

• Does the policy platform have modular policy, AAA and charging functionalitybuilt-in?

• Does it allow extensions to be developed – and if so is it a bolt-on approach as opposed to a platform that has been architected from the ground up to support a feature-based architecture?

• Is multi-threading supported across policy plug-ins and is it designed to handle multi-access, multi-enforcement, and quota/charging extensions dynamically?

• Is the platform useable on COTS-based hardware and using an open OS?

• Can it build new use cases without the need for software customisation?

• Does it support charging based policies, two-way subscriber interaction, personalsed services, multiple PCEF (Policy and Charging Enforcement Function) coordination and fixed access policies?

• How open is the vendor to interoperating with partners and third-party software and hardware suppliers? Are there real-world examples?

Can it be roll out newservices quickly?A critical component to an advanced policymanagement platform is its ability to quicklyroll out news services and monetise thoseservices. Previously, new services could takemonths to roll out. Advanced policymanagement platforms can accomplish this ina matter of days, with no custom coding – asignificant value-add in competitive markets.

• How quickly does the policy management platform enable the development, test and deployment of new policies – days, weeks or months? The correct answer here should be days.

• Does it allow the application of policy decisions to all subscribers and services?

• Can policies be applied based on a wide range of triggers and criteria?

• Is it possible to link chains of more complex policies and states?

If CSPs are going to address today’sincreasingly complex and distributed networksand the growing subscriber bases they serve,they will need to take a new approach topolicy management – a platform approachthat enables operators to introduce newservices in a matter of days, resulting in atremendous cost and time savings. By askingprobing questions and embracing anadvanced policy management platform, CSPscan significantly increase the value of theirnetwork and improve customer relationships.Much like investing in a new set of wheels –one that is purpose built for speed,performance and efficiency – by embracingnext-generation policy management you’ll beable to leave the competition in the dust.

A critical

component to an

advanced policy

management

platform is its

ability to quickly

roll out news

services and

monetise those

services


POL ICY MANAGEMENT

Policy management is a key part of the solutionfor communication service providers (CSPs)addressing these challenges. However, as anisolated function within a CSP ecosystem, policycreates gaps between the network and thecustomer; a long-term customer-centric approachmust have solid policy management – and gobeyond.

For example, CSPs need to know in real time:which customers are trying to do what;authorisations, permissions, spending limits;subscriber type; device type; relevantpromotions, and more – and they must respondto that information immediately, with optimalcustomer-centric actions.

CSPs must combine subscriber and networkinformation, and share this information acrossthe organisation and across multiple customerchannels – including social media – to capturethe value of the connectivity in the most efficient,customer-centric manner.

BSS and policy must work as one.

A smarter approachto data monetisationWith data traffic growing exponentially, this needfor a smarter approach to data monetisationmust consider both customer and network tocapture the value of the data CSPs deliver. Toachieve this dual approach, Comverse addedpolicy management to the Comverse ONE®single-system converged BSS solution.

The Comverse ONE product catalogue includespolicy as a dimension, allowing policy to be afeature of any plan or offer, speeding time-to-market. This essential capability for

implementing subscriber – and network-awarepolicies and charging schemes also facilitatesmarket testing. Since policies associated withany given offer are easily modified, offers areeasy to change upon market feedback.

Comverse’s Policy Studio offering furtherremoves complexity, enabling success in thedigital world. This marketing-dedicated policycreation environment introduces flexibletemplates covering a broad set of businesscategories and is pre-loaded with ready-to-usepolicy plan templates drawing from Comverse’sextensive experience with operators around theworld. In connection with Comverse ONE, itaccelerates introduction of revenue-acceleratingdata plans with comprehensive monetisation.

Success in the era of theconnected customerAll Comverse ONE functions share a singlereal-time view of product and customerinformation for a consistent and highlypersonalised multi-channel customer experience.Targeted campaigns, real-time promotions andaccount information are pushed to customers –irrespective of payment type – for self-drivenaccount management and spend control – a realcustomer pleaser.

This consistent customer experience extends tosocial media via Comverse Share, a service-oriented cross-organisational platform adding asocial layer to services and business processes.A powerful and versatile social media enabler,Comverse Share empowers CSPs to utilise socialchannels to drive marketing and sales activities,improve customer care, and enrich theconnected user experience with value-addedsocial services.

In the evolving telecoms landscape, smart devices, consumer expectations foron-demand access to data-intensive services – including OTT – and newbusiness models, such as M2M and enterprise cloud computing, profoundlyaffect network capacity and performance. This raises new monetisation,marketing, competitive and customer and offer management challenges,writes Alice Bartram.

The author,Alice Bartram,is associatevice presidentof productmanagementand productmarketing atComverse

Policy linked with BSS helpsCSPs mind the gap

The Comverse ONE

product catalogue

includes policy as a

dimension, allowing

policy to be a

feature of any plan

or offer, speeding

time-to-market


Africa Com 201213-15 November, 2012Cape Town, South AfricaOrganiser: Informaafrica.comworldseries.com

Mobile RoamingWorld Summit13-14 November, 2012London, UKOrganiser: Informawww.roamingconference.com

LTE North America 201214-15 November, 2012Dallas, USAOrganiser: Informaamericas.lteconference.com

Finance and InvestmentForum for Commonwealth IT16 November, 2012London, UKOrganiser: Broad Groupwww.commonwealth-fif.com

Telecoms Fraud & RiskManagement26-28 November, 2012London, UKOrganiser: IQPCwww.telecomsfraudandriskmanagement.com

ManagementWorld Americas3-6 December, 2012Orlando, USAOrganiser: TM Forumwww.tmforum.org/Management-WorldAmericas/13834/home.html

M2M Now MoneyTalks e-Health20 May, 2013Las Vegas, USAOrganiser: We Know Mediam2mnowevents.com

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CLOCK ING OFF!

It's often said that if you took an infinite numberof monkeys and gave them enough time andtypewriters, they'd “almost surely” recreate thecomplete works of Shakespeare.

Whose idea was this? The history of thesestatements can be traced back to Aristotle's OnGeneration and Corruption and Cicero's Denatura deorum. Presumably neither Greekphilosophers nor Roman orators had access to atypewriter – even IBM wasn't around in the year43 BC - so it's quite possible the keyboardreference was added to Monkey Theorem later.

The point they were making has been lostanyway. In this context, say experts, "almostsurely" is a mathematical term with a precisemeaning. Meanwhile, the "monkey" is not anactual monkey, but a metaphor for an abstractdevice that produces a random sequence ofletters and symbols ad infinitum.

The relevance of the theory is open to questionanyway. The probability of a monkey or a typistexactly recreating Hamlet is so tiny that thechance of it happening is extremely low – even ina period a hundred thousand times longer thanthe age of the universe. (Believe me, I've sat inpress conferences that long at CSPs and nothinggood comes out).

Whether monkey theorem is rooted in satire, orthe foundations of statistical mechanics, is amoot point. But we do know one thing. It wasn'tmeant to form the creative strategy for today'sCSPs. Sorry, the content strategy, as we have tocall it. But that's how it appears to have beeninterpreted by many people in the industry.

If those monkeys did recreate, say, A Tale of TwoCities or Macbeth or a number of sonnets, wecan be sure the manager in charge of deliveringthem would declare these writings as 'greatcontent'. Doubtless, he 'may have to make a fewminor changes' which he'd have to explain to themonkeys in a four hour online torture session

involving Microsoft Word's Track Changesfeature. “Charles, I just want to say I love yourstory about Paris and London. Really do like it. Ijust want to make a few minor tweaks, if that'sOK. It's kinda negative, if you ask me. Was thatdeliberate? These are two major Europeancapitals. These aren't just cities – they're iconicbrands. And, if you don't mind me saying so,your intro could do with tightening up. You'vewritten 'It was the best of times, it was the worstof times.' Did you mean to leave that in? Wereyou hedging your bets? I think we need to make apositive statement here, Mr Dickens. That's whatwe're paying you for – to write engaging content.”

If there's anything that sours the digital age forme, it's this insistence that all creative works, bethey visual, aural or literal, can be lumpedtogether as content. The word content suggeststo me something that fills a space, a sort ofelectronic ballast that can be cut and pastedbetween various files.

People have favourite musicians, personalanthems, life defining films and loved comediesbut I've never met anyone who has a favouritepiece of content. I've noticed that nobody whouses the phrase 'engaging content' has everwritten any. Or indeed anything that can hold theattention for long. In fact, the very appearance ofthat dreaded term drives my eyeballs off thepage quicker than you can hit Alt and F4.

Surely, if mobile operators and communicationservice providers are to become broadcastersand publishers and hope to profit from this 'overthe top' material, they need to show a little bitmore respect for the various disciplines involvedin producing these art forms. Surely, if one is tobecome a music impressario, for example, ithelps if you know the difference betweenBeethoven and The Beatles. Band managers andrecord company executives are legendary fortheir supposed lack of interest and indifference tothe talent on their books, but they are aesthetesin comparison to the talent handlers you will findat a CSP. Or content directors, as it'll say on theirbusiness cards.

If you reduce anything to its basic elements, youcan make it seem absurd. Anyone who thinksfootball is about 22 men kicking a pigs bladder isn'tgoing to make a good commercial manager forArsenal, because they obviously don't understandthe appeal of the game. The fact that films, playsmusic and all works of art can be digitised, thencopied and paste from server to server, shouldnot make you treat them as mere content.

If you took an infinite number of bards, and fedthem an infinite number of peanuts, they're likely toproduce an infinite amount of unmentionable stuff.And at some stage, it'll come flying back at you.

Reducing the arts to content will make monkeys of us all, warns Nick Booth ashe muses on the role of the CSP content director as a patron of the arts.

The author,Nick Booth, is acontributor toVanillaPlus anda technology journalist.

Shakespeare enterswinter of disk content

People havefavourite musicians,personal anthems,

life defining filmsand loved comedies

but I've never metanyone who has afavourite piece of

content


D R I V I N G P R O F I T S F O R C O M M U N I C A T I O N S E R V I C E P R O V I D E R S

CEO GUIDE TO MANAGEMENTWORLD AMERICAS 2012

SUPPLEMENT OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2012

TALKING HEADSWeDo Technologies' Silvestriexplains how businessassurance can providea firm foundation

TALKING HEADSWeDo Technologies' Silvestriexplains how businessassurance can providea firm foundation

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EVENT PREVIEWCSPs' future roleexplored and defined

CSP PROFITABILITYLook inwards and outwardsto seize profit opportunities

CASE STUDYFree ice-cream:Inside SFR'slocation basedservices team

EVENT PREVIEWCSPs' future roleexplored and defined

CSP PROFITABILITYLook inwards and outwardsto seize profit opportunities

CASE STUDYFree ice-cream:Inside SFR'slocation basedservices team

▼

Turn

mag

azine ov

er

for V

anilla

Plus

Octo

ber/

Novem

ber

2012

issu

e• Stratecast report on new business

models and monetisation • Analysys Masonresearch into transformation ingredients

PLUS!

December 3-6, 2012 Rosen Shingle Creek Orlando, Florida

Everything that can be digital, will beTM Forum's Management World Americas 2012, is the only conference that brings together 1500+ professionals from communications and beyond to brainstorm, debate, share and learn everything you need to succeed in the digital world.

Digital and M2M Service Enablement

Big Data Analytics

Customer Experience Management

Agile IT and Cloud

Cyber Security

The agenda includes a Cable Summit and five Forumscovering the hottest topics:

New for 2012■ Re-imagined, highly interactive

conference formats – brainstorm,debate, share and learn

■ Workshops and TM Forum Trainingon hot topics, and even more networking time

■ Pecha Kucha Theater – a rapid-fire innovation showcase!

■ The Hub – a networking, discoveryand solution zone with live Catalystdemos and a bustling Expo

Platinum Sponsor:

Gold Sponsors:

Featuring speakers from these companies and more:

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• NET Serviços

• Rogers Communications

• SAS

• Sprint Nextel

FIVE-STAR KEYNOTES & PANELS

Transforming an industry – where do we go from here?

Where are the Big Three putting their money?

The digital services forecast - identifyingthe best trends to bet on

Service providers join forces on M2MExperts weigh in on CTIA’s

Indices ReportAnd more to come!

Learn more and register:www.tmforum.org/mwa12VPPhone: +1 973 944 5100Email: [email protected]

Follow @tmforumorg on Twitter and search #mwa12

Save 15% on a Gold Pass!

Use Code PMQ1S8

C3 INTRODUCTION

C4 TALKING HEADSBrian Silvestri, vice president of businessdevelopment for WeDo Technologies,explains that when the only constant ischange, business assurance processesand systems can be relied on to provide afirm foundation

C7 EVENT PREVIEWManagement World Americas 2012 takesthe theme of exploring what CSPs’ futurerole will be. VanillaPlus previews thefour-day conference

C9 CASE STUDYGeorge Malim interviews SFR’s MathieuGras to learn about the CSP’s approach tolocation-based services

C11 CSP PROFITABILITYJudi Gill says CSPs must look inwards aswell as outwards to seize profit generationopportunities

C13 ANALYST REPORTStratecast | Frost & Sullivan’s KarlWhitelock presents analysis of businessmodels and monetisation

C17 RESEARCHAnalysys Mason’s Glen Ragoonananreveals the results of the firm’s survey intowhat CSPs regard as the essentialagreements for successful transformation

C3CEO GUIDE SUPPLEMENT VANILLAPLUS OCT/NOV 2012

CEO GUIDECONTENTS

Constant changebecomes thedefault setting

That need not be a bad thing. Many elements of telecoms industry are still indire need of change. While so much of our industry has changed in the lastdecade, many CSPs can still draw a direct line back from the multi-platform,multi-service offerings of today to their heritage as state-owned and runproviders of landline voice services.

CSPs have largely completed the migration from national treasure status tobecome providers of integrated, converged services but now they need toengage with third party organisations if they are to make sense of theinfrastructure investments they have made. Put simply, CSPs must now interactwith partners in content production, consumer electronics, payments andsectors such as M2M. They need to identify where the next generation ofrevenues is coming from because access, mobility and voice are all nowsaturated and if not fully commoditised, commoditising rapidly.

In this arena of omni-directional partnership, CSPs are grasping for a role and ashare of the revenues. They shouldn’t be struggling, though. They still bringunique capability to the market in addition to simple bandwidth. Only the CSPhas the experience of handling transactions at great scale, assuring them andbilling for them.

CSPs are also ably supported in this by the vendor community, which sometimeshas been quicker to understand the future shape of the CSP sector than theCSPs themselves. Vendors have portfolios of innovative solutions – which nowgo far beyond simply selling software [or hardware] – that can be adapted tosupport multiple business models. Critically, those systems are capable ofmetamorphosising in deployment as the services they support change yet again.

Just like their CSP customers, vendors are also getting to grips with going tomarket with new business models. It’s clear now that, to alter a well knownCSP’s UK marketing tag, while the future is no longer orange, CSPs can deriverevenue from everything, everywhere if they continue their transformationinitiatives and partner with the right businesses.

Welcome to Orlando and enjoy the show.

George Malim, Editor, VanillaPlus

WeDo Technologies is a worldwide leader inrevenue and business assurance, providingsoftware and services to intelligently analyselarge quantities of data from across anorganisation, helping to negate or minimiseoperational inefficiencies and deliver asignificant return on investment via revenueprotection and cost savings. WeDoTechnologies works with 140telecommunications operators from almost80 countries, through more than 400 highly-skilled professionals. Revenue and businessassurance are the domains where WeDoTechnologies has become recognised as aconstant innovator and true market leader.www.wedotechnologies.com

Supplement Cover:

C O M M E N T

George Malim,Editor:VanillaPlus

We used to talk of transformation as a project or a processwith an end in sight. It is now becoming clear that change isa permanent fixture.


Brian H. Silvestri is vice president of business development for WeDo Technologies, whichprovides business assurance systems and services for the telecoms industry. WeDoTechnologies recently purchased Connectiv Solutions, a company Silvestri co-founded andsuccessfully grew within North America. Prior to Connectiv Solutions, Silvestri was theexecutive director of engineering at Telecorp PCS, AT&T Wireless' largest affiliate until itsacquisition in 2002 for US$5.6 billion. Here, he tells VanillaPlus how the acquisition willbenefit CSPs as the industry grapples with technical and business model shifts.

VanillaPlus: WeDo Technologies hasrecently acquired Connectiv Solutions.What benefits does the combined companyencompass and what efficiencies do youexpect that to bring to the business?

Brian H. Silvestri: It really goes back to thestrengths of the two companies. I startedConnectiv Solutions with a business partner in2003. We had both worked within CSPs and sawan opportunity because the market was movingtowards unlimited voice – with free evening andweekend calls – back then. As a result we wereseeing usage volumes and variable networkexpenses explode and believed CSPs needed asolution to help address and reduce these coststo increase margins. That’s how netCLARUSevolved. We grew the business to about 40employees and focused on cost avoidance andcost management.

At Connectiv Solutions our goal was to transformbillions of records into actionable informationwith measureable results. netCLARUS helpsCSPs become more efficient and pinpointstrategies to reduce variable network expenses.From a financial perspective, we’re essentiallyhelping clients reduce their cash cost per user(CCPU) since their average revenue per user(ARPU) was declining or flat. Our solution wasdelivered in a software-as-a-service environmentand provided our clients with a playbook of waysto drive efficiency.

Our main sponsors for netCLARUS were fromthe engineering groups and interconnect

organisations within CSPs. By early 2010 wewere being approached by both revenueassurance and fraud groups for assistance, butwe didn’t consider ourselves a revenueassurance or fraud company. We had experiencein analytics, but no case management or alertingcapabilities.

I met WeDo Technologies in 2010 and swiftlyestablished a partnership that offered the meansto bring them into some of our clients. Wesuccessfully deployed WeDo’s revenue assurancesolutions in our data centre, or SaaSenvironment. Because of the good fit, thatpartnership grew and moved quickly on to M&Adiscussions.

VP: So value has been created by bringingthe two capabilities together?

BHS: There are a lot of great positives from thismerger and I’m excited about the future for ourclients and WeDo Technologies. First off, WeDoTechnologies’ footprint within North America hassignificantly increased. We have the personnelhere in North America to support our clients.Secondly, we have a strong product portfolio. Weare now a one-stop shop for CSPs looking forrevenue assurance, fraud management or costavoidance solutions. And third, we’re enhancingour delivery options through license, SaaS andmanaged services. These are all great things forour current and future clients.

VP: As the discipline of business assurancematures, how is it being applied to

Business assuranceprovides a firm foundation

I met WeDo

Technologies in

2010 and swiftly

established a

partnership that

offered the

means to bring

them into some

of our clients

CEO GUIDE SUPPLEMENT VANILLAPLUS OCT/NOV 2012C4

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optimise CSP businesses and provideopportunities for cost avoidance? Isbusiness assurance equally applicable toexisting issues as to those associated withnew services and opportunities?

BHS: We didn’t invent business assurance; it’s amaturity process and a holistic methodology thatCSPs are beginning to embrace. We look at oursolutions as a catalyst to streamline theeffectiveness of business assurance processes.

The telecoms market is accelerating rapidly. Ican’t get over how fast it has been moving overthe last few years. It took ten-plus years for themobile market to move from the first to thesecond generation, and now CSPs are buildingout 3G and 4G networks at the same time. Thereis a radically increased velocity of newtechnology being introduced. The philosophy ofbusiness assurance is to support both the newtechnology and the old, ensuring backwardscompatibility. CSPs support second, third andnow fourth generation networks simultaneouslyand therefore have to ensure compatibilityacross their systems. CSPs must have systemsand procedures that are forward-thinking, andhave the capability to adjust in line with newcustomer expectations and usage patterns.

VP: What trends are you seeing in businessassurance as its scope widens beyondtraditional revenue assurance? What impactdoes the emergence of services such associal networks, M2M and cloud andtechnology such as LTE have?

BHS: When we look at the rapid evolution of themobile market there are several dimensions tobusiness assurance. Let’s talk about fraud first.Five to ten years ago fraud scenarios were verydifferent because most CSPs maintained tightcontrols by only allowing limited access to theoutside world. Now, though, with apps andinternet access, phones have truly become minicomputers. This really opens up opportunities for

fraud. Exposure has become so much greater,and so will the costs.

M2M is also different from what we’ve seenbefore because revenue per device is so muchsmaller, but volumes of transactions and numberof devices across the network will be massive.Putting the procedures in place to support theseis a critical challenge. When I deployed networksback in the 1990s it was acompletely different environment.The revolution of M2M andsocial media is coming, soCSPs need to adjust and beproactive so they are readyahead of time. They need tobe looking past the wave ofchanges that are happeningtoday in order to prepare forwhat’s ahead.

VP: How has the growth indata relating to transactionsor sessions and the need toprocess it effectivelyimpacted upon businessassurance?


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BHS: We are going past just collecting CDRs –today we’re talking about correlation of data.There is a danger here because there needs to bea balance. It’s easy to say: let’s collect everything– until the provider sees the cost of doing that.We also need to consider if the queries willreturn valuable results in a timely manner. Thereare hardware vendors that can supply theequipment to do that, but you could easily betalking about investments of more than tenmillion dollars being required to address theamount of data we’re talking about. Under LTE, Ibelieve the complexity and volume of datainvolved is going to easily increase ten-fold, andtherefore a balance between the cost and thevalue of what is achieved is needed.

The important challenge is turning what’scollected into actionable information. Justputting data into a large data warehouse is notgoing to be the answer to CSPs’ problems. Firstyou need to know where to look. Businessassurance is like finding a needle in a haystack,and most CSPs don’t have the resources or theexpertise to support these challenges andgrowing demands. We have to extract thatinformation and give them the tools they need tofind where there are discrepancies.

One perfect example – we look to see if anoperator’s data is being enriched with accuratenumber portability information. Sure, numberportability (NP) has been around for some yearsin the US, but it continues to generate multiplechallenges around routing and auditing. We justreleased an updated report on this topic andbelieve most CSPs don’t realise how NP isimpacting their bottom line. For many newcountries just launching NP, these CSPs need tobe very aware of potential pitfalls, and it all startswith actionable information.

VP: CSPs are in a state of transformationas new technologies are deployed andsystems are migrated. How can businessassurance help CSPs do this smoothly andefficiently?

BHS: What we are seeing from talking to CSPs isa new way of offering services. The market is goingback to rated plans for certain data offerings afteryears of all-you-can-eat propositions. We believethat the new service offerings are going torequire major migrations to new billing systemsthat can support today’s growing complexity ofservices, devices and content.

Billing systems have so much downstreamimpact that revenue assurance solutions reallycan play a major part in protecting yourcustomers’ experience as well as protectingrevenue within an existing organisation.

The other area we’ve been focused on is dataroaming. It’s hugely expensive and you reallyneed to have a flexible solution and definedprocesses within business assurance to makesure you are not leaking revenue, and that youare protecting your bottom line profits. Lastly,just this year we’re starting to see anotherdimension of complexity in North America withshared data plans. Business sssurance helpsCSPs ensure they are delivering on what hasbeen promised and that price plans remainprofitable.

VP: What is you view of the future?

BHS: I’ve been monitoring how things haveprogressed – I’ve been involved in CDMA andGSM deployments at CSPs – and I truly believewe’re in a perfect storm right now in whicheverything is in play. The underlying feature ofthe market is change; whether you’re introducingLTE on mobile or moving to an IP-centric world incable or landline. CSPs are changing the waythey bring services to market and the way theyrun their businesses. User expectations arechanging as well. CSPs need to have a strongbusiness assurance plan in place along with a setof processes to cope with that change. Nowmore than ever, CSPs need to rethink revenueassurance, business assurance and costavoidance strategies or they will be in a muchchallenged environment five years from now.



The important challenge is turning what’scollected into actionable information. Just

putting data into a large data warehouse is notgoing to be the answer to CSPs’ problems

Martin Creaner:Where next forthe industry?

Management World Americas 2012 will feature case studies, unique insights, inspirationand new connections into a four-day conference designed to give attendees the tools tosucceed in the digital world. VanillaPlus previews the event to be held in Orlando, USA on3-6 December 2012

As the information age continues to rewritethe rules on partnerships, vertical roles andcustomer expectations, TM Forum againreturns to Orlando for its Management WorldAmericas event. The Forum expects towelcome 59 CSP speakers, which will include25 C-level speakers. It will also welcome tenspeakers from verticals markets and estimatesdelegate attendance of more than 1,500people. Understanding the impact on yourbusiness is critical to your future success.

The theme of the conference will be exploringthe future role of CSPs. The event begins witha series of keynote presentations. MartinCreaner, the president and chief executive ofTM Forum will set the scene with a speechexploring how the industry is transformingand where it goes from here.

Creaner will then hand over to Robert Hackl,senior vice president of channel managementat T-Mobile and Fari Ebrahimi, senior vicepresident and chief information officer atVerizon who will discuss where CSPs areputting their money in order to invest mosteffectively to address the opportunitiespresented by the industry’s transformation.

Digital services are at the forefront of CSPs’minds and have been identified as one of thegreatest areas for new revenue generation forCSPs. Dr Bob Roche, vice president ofresearch at CTIA, will provide a market updateusing the organisation’s Indices Report.Roche’s research will establish a basis for athe participation of a series of seniorexecutives in a session that will seek toidentify the best trends to bet on when itcomes to digital services.

Participants in this will include: Steve Hilton,lead analyst, Analysys Mason; Eric Krauss,director, M2M product management, AT&TMobility; Jürgen Hase, vice president, M2MCompetence Center, Deutsche Telekom;Wayne Ward, vice president, EmergingSolutions Group, Sprint Nextel; and EricTroup, chief technology officer, WorldwideCommunications and Media Industries,Microsoft.

That will be followed by a case study onglobal collaboration on cyber security,presented by Sarah Granger, founder, Centerfor Technology Media & Society and former

Management WorldAmericas 2012

E V E N T P R E V I E W

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chair, Digital Government Committee of theU.S. Public Policy Council for ACM (theAssociation for Computing Machinery).

The event will also feature five streamedforums in addition to a full Cable Summit andExecutive Roundtables.

Digital and M2M ServiceEnablement ForumAs the digital economy grows, the linesbetween traditional verticals such ascommunications, healthcare, financial andenergy are quickly blurring, creating a newwave of opportunity for life-changing servicessuch as eHealth, Smart Grid and ConnectedHome. This Forum examines the managementand enablement challenges that complexservices bring, including:

• How to build partnerships that last – ensuring service levels, quality and the right customer experience to deliver success

• Driving digital innovation in an established business

• Tracking trends and opportunities in digital and M2M service management

• Overcoming the complexity of seamless billing, charging and revenue assurance for digital services

• Identifying and developing best practices for digital service management

Big Data Analytics ForumEvery player in the digital economy isgathering data at an astonishing rate. Behindthat data, every transaction holds a story – aninsight into customer behavior and experiencethat can transform business decisions, andfortunes. But analysing such massive amountsof data and extracting its value isn’t easy. ThisForum will explore:• Best practices in big data analytics – lessons

learned from multiple industries • Using big data to enhance your customer’s

experience, add value and spot new product and service opportunities

• Utilising and monetising customer data • Privacy - what’s acceptable? Regulatory,

legal and social constraints

Customer ExperienceManagement ForumEffectively managing customer experience isessential to customer retention, satisfactionand growth. But managing that experienceacross a single business, let alone a value-chain of partners, is a daunting task. ThisForum will provide the tools needed to deliverthe best customer experience possible by

delving into topics such as:

• Managing the customer experience end-to-end across a value-web of partners

• Using social media to understand and enhance the customer’s experience

• Managing your enterprise customer’s experience and expectations

• Measuring and benchmarking your own customer experience maturity

• Best practices and practical lessons in delivering world-class customer experience

Agile IT and Cloud ForumIn the digital economy, an agile business is aprofitable business. Flexible, efficient IT is coreto delivering that agility, providing theplatform for automated, self-managingservices that fit individual customerpreferences and return a healthy margin. Buthow do you deliver real agility – where do youinvest, and where should you partner? ThisForum takes on the tough challenges,including:

• Aligning IT with business goals and requirements

• Deciding what, where and when to moveto cloud

• Managing IT in a multi-cloud, multi-partner ecosystem

• Using disruptive technologies to drive positive change

• Using TM Forum Frameworx as the foundation for successful enterprise IT transformation

Cyber Security ForumWith the digital economy forecast to representmore than one-seventh of all sales flowingthrough the world economy by 2013, cybersecurity is a growing threat for business today.As services gravitate towards the cloud, thequestion for CSPs – and their customers – ishow safe is it? This Forum explores the latestthinking on cyber security, including:

• How big is the threat today, and what’s nextfor cyber security?

• How secure is your value-chain partner, and what data should you share with them?

• How to architect and design services with security in mind

• Device security and the challenges for enterprises of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

• Monitoring and managing security breaches

For further information visit:www.tmforum.org/

E V E N T P R E V I E W


Every player in the

digital economy is

gathering data at

an astonishing

rate. Behind that

data, every

transaction holds

a story

CSP CASE STUDY

French CSP, SFR has deployed the IGLOO Geolocator location based services system fromIntersec in order to generate new revenue. Here, Mathieu Gras, head of location basedservices at SFR, tells George Malim how LBS opportunities should be addressed in orderto benefit the user, the CSP and the advertiser

CSPs have been targeting location-basedservices for many years as a means to increaserevenue. There are obvious benefits in terms ofusing customers’ location data to targetmarketing and advertising campaigns but CSPsmust be conservative in terms of what they canprovide if they are to ensure a non-intrusive andrelevant service is provided.

Among the first areas that geolocation is beingapplied to is advertising. That’s because it canprovide a clear source of revenue. “We launchedlocation based advertising two years ago with acampaign to sell ice cream to users on thebeach,” says Gras. “We worked with Unilever tomake a proposition that if you want a Cornettoyou can get one free. For people on a beach,that’s a nice idea.

However, such programmes have to be rolled outwith caution. For example, there’s little value inpromoting free ice cream to people that are atwork in a city centre. In addition, such advertisingcannot be allowed to become irrelevant orintrusive. If that happens, users will opt out ofthe service altogether and the CSP could damageits relationships with its customers.

“In France, we need to conform to French mobiledata privacy [regulation] so people have to optin,” explains Gras. “It is our customer thatchooses the frequency of the advertising and wenever send more than one [promotion] per week.Users can also choose which advertisementsthey receive. They can specify no sports, norestaurants or no perfumes for example.”

That cautious, non-intrusive approach has madethe service a success, says Gras: “The success ofthe service is explained by the relevance of themessages. You have the profile of subscribers,their location and the time to work with so youcan ensure only relevant offers to made. Forinstance, you wouldn’t want to promote icecream to users in the Alps or offer a lunch deal ata restaurant in the early afternoon.”

Another reason for the success of the service isthat the propositions made are selected by SFRon the basis of their attraction to users. Theyhave to deliver real value. “We’re not looking forthe best deal from an SFR sales perspective,we’re looking for the best promotional offer forour customer,” adds Gras. “A brand might tellSFR they want to target a specific demographic

Geolocation provides CSPswith means to ensureadvertising offers are relevant

Mathieu Gras:It is ourcustomer thatchooseswhether toopt in

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but if we think it’s not relevant, we won’tdo it.”

Gras gives the example of deodorantbrand Axe (Lynx in the UK) which had amarketing campaign involving a yachtentering French ports and promoting anew product. Axe used SFR to send apromotional SMS to its users offering afree glass of champagne to users thatvisited the boat. Geolocation was vital totarget local users but, when Axe wanted toget information on where users camefrom, SFR declined to provide it. “We havethe information in the device and thenetwork to provide that but we have tomeet French privacy law,” he says. “Weunderstand what you can and can’t do andwe are more conservative than we need tobe in order to ensure our users have agood experience.”

Even so, SFR has identified the opportunitythat exists in the knowledge it holds onwhere its customers are and how theymove during their daily lives. It is possible,for example, to anonymise location data toaid planners in areas such transport. Graspresents an example of tracking thedispersal of people after a large footballmatch in the Stade de France in Paris. “Wecan track where users are at intervals afterthe game has finished,” he says.

That would mean a user that leaves thegame, routes across Paris and takes a trainto another city can be tracked. The railcompany could assess from that datawhether a need exists to put on directexpress services next time there is a largematch. Such location-based data couldalso be used to inform infrastructureplanners or aid retailers in their researchabout new store locations. There is clearvalue to be unlocked.

However, Gras is keen to emphasise thecaution SFR exercises in protecting itscustomers. “SFR delivers studies, neverdata,” he says. “We have to take care ofour customer – spam would lead to themopting out or even churning away from usso we have to take care of all that.

CSP CASE STUDY


The search for profit is leading CSPs to exploit parts of their business that are nottraditionally viewed as revenue centres. Areas such as network management and the OSSare ripe for investigation argues Judi Gill

In this truly digital age, network speeds havenever been faster and the devices available tocommunicate have never been easier to use.From our homes, offices or on the road, wecan find the information we need aboutvirtually anything immediately. Ascommunications service providers (CSPs)invest in 4G/LTE and superfast broadband

networks to support the demands of theircustomers, usage habits are changing yetagain to take advantage of the superiorbandwidth, changing our communicationhabits for ever. More and more ourcommunication is visual, whether watchingvideos online, or using face-to-facecommunication instead of a simple voice call.

CSPs must look inwards aswell as outwards to seize profitgeneration opportunities

C S P P R O F I T A B I L I T Y

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What remains as a question over the telecomsindustry is how to best turn a profit to on theinvestment required to support are ever-growing demand for data.

Although their services are more in demandthan ever before, the challenge for many CSPslies in how to balance the need to maximisecustomer satisfaction with overall profitabilityand return on investment to the business andultimately shareholders. It is well establishedthat much of the premium revenue for dataservices is being diverted to third party, socalled over the top players (OTTs), whileoperators bear the burden of the investmentrequired to carry the data between the thirdparty and the ultimate consumer. Even as theyupgrade their networks, CSPs are facilitatingthe deterioration of steady revenue streamssuch as voice and SMS. Where only recentlythe service quality on alternative voice andinstant messaging services was inferior andoften unreliable, it has improved dramaticallywith higher bandwidth networks.

This erosion is unlikely to abate, and so CSPsneed to find new ways to generate revenuestreams, by assessing their core value in thesupply chain and the value-added businessskills that they can bring to the market. Acritical factor for success will be the agilitywith which an operator can respond to marketdemands. The wider operational landscape ischanging quickly and new offerings andfeatures must get monetised as quickly and asefficiently as possible. No longer can they takemonths or years to rollout new products. OTTplayers deploy products much faster, evendeploying products, such as new deviceoperating systems, to the market that mayhave performance or other issues – and thenquickly responding to market complaints torectify problems.

This does not mean that CSPs should throwout their rigorous and robust processes fornetwork and systems deployments. Customersdefinitely place a very high value on servicestability, but CSPs must find ways to be moreresponsive to the market, by ensuring theyimplement systems and processes to moreclosely integrate network, IT and commercialenvironments so that the whole enterprise canreact in truly dynamic ways.

There is also the opportunity for CSPs to

exploit parts of their business that are nottraditionally viewed as revenue centres butprovide value-add processes and data that canbe used to create a superior marketadvantage. In particular, areas such asnetwork management and the OSS are ripe forinvestigation. The network is an extremelyvaluable source of data about the real timeoperations of a CSPs business. By utilising theperformance, capacity and service qualityinformation and combining this with otherinputs from the BSS, SDP, mediation andprobe systems to monitor and measure corebusiness KPIs, CSPs can have real-timedashboards that taps into the nerve centre oftheir business to manage a balancedscorecard of operational performance.

CSPs can also tap into their existing enterpriseofferings, such as value added assuranceproducts like usage and analysis reports orguaranteed service levels. Customers whosebusiness depends on their network reliabilitywillingly pay a premium for such things.

Offering their robust and proven assurancecapabilities externally, either to otheroperators or to myriad companies that arebeginning to appear in the extendedcommunications supply chain for cloud andM2M services, is a natural progression of suchofferings and potentially a hugely lucrativeopportunity for CSPs. Sophisticatedapplications will demand a premium price andend users will expect a corresponding serviceperformance and availability. Extending thecarrier grade processes of the networkprovider to the wider supply-chain, bymonitoring third party networks, ITinfrastructure and applications makes a lot ofsense as offerings evolve and mature,particularly for business and public services.

The successful CSPs of the future will beleaner and more agile than ever before,incorporating the highest levels of automationand proactive management of their business.CSPs are not just valuable for their networks,but also the fact that they can enter this valuechain as trusted suppliers, leveraging theirexisting customer relationships and servicequality assurance capabilities. With the rightfocus on investment and operationalprocesses they can be in prime position toprofit by adding extensive value to the nextgeneration of services and products.

The author, JudiGill, is directorof marketanalysis andstrategy atClarity

The network is anextremely valuable

source of dataabout the real

time operations ofa CSPs business

C S P P R O F I T A B I L I T Y

The last big land grab within the communications sectorhappened nearly 20 years ago. It was focused on networkcapacity build out. The second wave, happening now, is centredon cloud-based capacity and solution offering expansion. Here,Karl Whitelock, director of OSS BSS strategy at Sratecast |Frost & Sullivan, explains the change of thinking that requiresfrom CSPs.

The market requirements to support and monetise cloud-basedservices are keeping communications service providers (CSPs),network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) and software solutionsuppliers very engaged. While pass through of software as a service(SaaS) propositions is better than being a victim of an over the top(OTT) play, the dilemma is in how to ensure that SaaS enablement willactually provide a recognisable value add for the end customer and inthe process generate new CSP revenue.

CSPs now deliver a number of functions that many enterprises can onlydream about. These include: highly available multi-technology networkconnectivity; agreements with other network operators for near ubiquitousglobal coverage; configurable customer service options with built-in privacyand security safeguards; and individual knowledge of the billing and customersupport relationships with millions of customers.

Although the network technology business has been extremely profitable in thepast, declining revenues for both voice and data traffic indicate that a newbusiness focus, not far from current roots, is an essential next step strategy.Demand-based offers tied to infrastructure and even platform services, hold afair level of appeal; but, ultimately, the long-term customer sustainingopportunity will involve delivery, accountability management and, in somecases, augmentation of the content that flows across each connection. This is inaddition to the bit pipe business that facilitates broadband connectivity from justabout any location to any other.

Cloud services significantly changethe OSS BSS game planMost CSPs either deliver or are planning to deliver non-traditional network-based services to larger enterprise and SMB customers. Services such as webhosting, off-site storage and VPN, are bundled with on-demand infrastructureservices or come as a standalone offer. From a SaaS perspective, repackaging ofpartner-provided solutions – including email, office automation, documentmanagement and collaborative communications services, to name a few – arethe trend.

The benefit from an enterprise customer’s perspective – business productivityapps packaged and sold by the same provider of network connectivity services

New business modelsbring new monetisationstrategies and achange in thinking

A N A L Y S T R E P O R T


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– can be found in reduced managementcomplexity and software subscription costsavings. However, these factors are not enough.If the apps are augmented with network-basedfunctions tied to presence, location, end-to-endSLAs, service quality monitoring and single signon security, then such SaaS-based packages maymake more business sense than the enterprisedirectly negotiating and managing SaaS servicesfrom multiple suppliers.

The downside for the CSP community is that theplatform to manage SaaS partner interactionslooks like another adjunct silo of business andoperations management software that must beintegrated into the complicated menagerie ofpreviously installed systems. In an attempt tomove beyond commoditisation – for example,becoming a bit pipe provider – and to avoid totaldisintermediation in the customer/contentdelivery process, many CSPs presently acceptthis silo type of business solution architecture.However, it is extremely limiting for futurebusiness expansion as will be explained later.

SaaS enables CSPs to be more,but does it deliver more revenue?Most SaaS-based revenue, regardless of howmany augmented network capabilities the CSPmay provide, are likely to be passed through tothe SaaS suppliers or consumed byintermediaries; unless the value add networkfunctions compel an enterprise to sign up via anend-to-end managed package. The packageapproach must be at a respectably higher level ofmargin than that from the resale of SaaS appsalone. In addition, to reduce margin erosion fromeach SaaS package sale, the aggregationfunction, with all the options in business rule-driven product management, could be donewithin the CSP. Even then, margins associatedwith SaaS sales may not be worth the added riskassociated with end-to-end solutionmanagement and the increased effort to keepcustomers satisfied, especially for service

capabilities that are not generally within theCSP’s direct control.

Key questions every CSP should consider whenentering into a SaaS solutions strategy are:• Does reselling SaaS from an aggregator, or

directly from the developer, enable the creation of a new value chain? Do customers perceive added value? Are the new SaaS app margins significant enough to cover the costs of solution management and the very likely reality of first tier customer support?

• Can the CSP incorporate SaaS applications in different types of bundles? For example, can a product manger define the customer experience through bundled contracts that include a business rule driven framework for new bundles? For upgrades or for cross-sell opportunities, can a product manager define service bundles that automatically incorporate network access via fixed line, mobile, value added services (VAS) and an account hierarchy structure that flows on an end-to-end basis? End-to-end, in this case, includes not just components of the service, but support for the full service lifecycle – such as concept-to-cash, where the SaaS is fully incorporated into the business process logic.

• Can the CSP price the flexibly defined service bundles and make changes that can meet market conditions in marketing time – generally hours at the most, rather than the weeks and sometimes months it took in the past to update billing processes for the sale of network connectivity services?

• Can the CSP aggregate SaaS, IaaS and PaaS along with all other resources or devices,



Most SaaS-basedrevenue,

regardless of howmany augmented

networkcapabilities the

CSP may provide,are likely to be

passed through tothe SaaS suppliers

or consumed byintermediaries

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and then make them available so that multiple virtual service operators (VSOs) or tenants can re-package them, if necessary, to suit their industry, segment or business rule-driven requirements?

• Does the CSP have a roadmap of how it can evolve each of the above into a fully monetised assurance framework – not just backups but also for assurance of service level agreement (SLA) cloud bursting scenarios that can be defined in monetary contracts – with automated revenue sharing for all of the contributing parties?

The longer-term implication is that, as customerservices are consumed, all parts of the end-to-end service definition and supply chain processmust be reconciled in shorter time intervals.Hence, to achieve future business success, it isimperative that new service offers andimplementation of new business models are notsaddled with the limitations of currently definedsystems that cannot show a high degree offlexibility and configurability along with thebusiness processes they support.

Enabling more to do more: Whycross-industry 2.0 makes senseThe cross-industry 2.0 model allows a CSP toenhance the products from many organisations,in multiple verticals, with those of thecommunications marketplace, to create new orimproved service offers. This model embodies anecosystem involving partner-suppliers, the CSP,sometimes other external entities and end-usercustomers. Yet, to take advantage of theopportunities that are now available, a CSP mustfundamentally change its business model from aprovider of technology-based services – voice,

data, and bandwidthaccess – to ahorizontally-focusedfederator of services

developed and enabled by companies acrossmultiple industries. This is much more than thevalue adds that many now envision to bebundled with a broadband network connection,such as enabling SaaS applications and orexposing certain network functions.

The successful launch and ongoing support ofcomplex partner-involved virtual services,enabled through the cross-industry 2.0 approach,requires solution support functions such asservice order orchestration amongst all resourcecomponents, service package activation andsolution-level quality of service monitoring.Business support functions include: customersupport via a web portal or downloadable app;usage transaction management; partner usageaccountability; policy-driven rating and charging,partner catalogue management, and SLA-basedoperability via level of payment.

How cross-industry 2.0 virtualcollaboration services workShown in Figure 1, the cross-industry 2.0business model consists of multiple workinglayers driven by both supplier relationships andstrategic partnerships. Central to this strategy isa concept-to-cash monetisation andmanagement platform focused on theenablement of partner capabilities and not theinternal broadband connectivity business andoperations processes of the network provider.Each layer of this model is fueled by an alwayson and always available broadband connection.

Supplier layerThe supplier layer is at the base of the model.Here suppliers come together to create newservice packages involving industry-specific orcross-industry content. For example, supplierscan be application developers, retailers, datastorage providers, content owners, solutionaggregators and logistics suppliers. To turn a

service package idea into reality,suppliers work with the CSP and itsbusiness technology partners to


The longer-termimplication is that,as customerservices areconsumed, all partsof the end-to-endservice definitionand supply chainprocess must bereconciled in shortertime intervals

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describe how such services need to work, and todefine functional dependencies. Theserelationships can cost-effectively create productsthat virtually use the capabilities of multiplesuppliers to collaboratively satisfy a businesschallenge.

CSP business enablement layerAt the centre of the model, the CSP orchestratesthe business definitions created by the suppliercommunity and supports them in a facilitationrole. Through the virtual services businessenablement platform the CSP presents eachservice package directly to end-users, or to otherorganisations acting as virtual service operators(VSOs), in an n-layer fashion, as business needsdictate.

The cross-industry 2.0 business enablementplatform fills the role of orchestrating solutioncomponents from the CSP, with the necessaryelements from other suppliers. The platformprovides secure data links between variousapplications or data sources, which arecombined to deliver a new end-to-end solution toany user within the defined partner ecosystem.

Virtual service operator layerThe virtual services operator layer is next. A VSOis an entity generally external to the CSP. Thiscan be a strategic business technology partner orothers that will ultimately sell one or moreservice packages to end users. The VSO willcultivate the necessary industry-specificexpertise and business relationships with keysuppliers, to define, establish and sell to theseend users. As an alternative, the VSO role can befilled internally by the CSP. This means the CSPmust define the needed business relationshipsand solution packages with the right applicationpartners or solution suppliers in addition tooperating the business enablement platform. The

CSP must also forge business relationships forthe advanced services it will provide tocustomers that are the recipients of theseservices. For either scenario, the businessenablement platform must support multiple bi-directional data flows to facilitate themonetisation and partner managementprocesses.

Customer layerAt the top of the model the customer layerreceives the outcome of the CSP-Supplier-VSOcollaboration. The key to success is fullyautomated flow-through offers to meet thedesign requirements of cost-effective servicedelivery and support. The billing processinvolved should be flexible and adaptable to thecustomer audience, and configurable enough toallow rapid changes in pricing and/or partnersettlement strategy, as market conditions dictate.

Realizing the SaaS and cross-industry 2.0 vision requires helpFor many CSPs, the cross-industry enterprisebusiness enablement approach is a step into newterritory – and is likely to be an alternative thatmay not have been considered by most in thequest to simplify operations, lower costs,improve customer satisfaction, and build newrevenue streams through partnerships andchannels.

While the enterprise business enablementplatform at first may sound like another BSSand/or OSS silo it is really an enabler thatsatisfies a different set of business objectives. Itis an orchestration layer requiring significantabilities to interface with a CSP’s established OSSBSS environment and the systems of otherindustry suppliers/partners. It is not another add-on to the hundreds of systems that alreadyaddress the internal business and operationsneeds of network operators worldwide. Thebusiness enablement platform is a tool designedto orchestrate the contributions from externalsuppliers and partners with CSP network-basedfunctions, in support of next-generationcustomer services.

The strategic value to the CSP in facilitating thebusiness enablement platform is in the ability towork with partners and suppliers within multipleindustries. A platform-based business strategyalso enables suppliers from different industriesto work together to create service offers notpreviously possible. Central to service offerplanning is the ability to address partner-definedor end-customer defined pricing scenarios andpartner settlement options with real-time ratingand charging. This type of approach enables theflow of new revenue for the CSP from each layerof the model in addition to any broadbandconnectivity the various players must obtain.

Source: Stratecast

Figure 1 – Cross-Industry 2.0 Business Collaboration Model



For many CSPs,

the cross-

industry

enterprise

business

enablement

approach is a

step into new

territory



Analyst firm Analysys Mason has developed a list of the essential ingredients forsuccessful transformation projects through surveying CSPs. Here, Glen Ragoonananexplains what CSPs need to do to ensure benefits are not lost in transformation

Analysys Mason defines transformation as aninitiative led by business objectives, the successof which can be measured by financial andoperational key performance indicators (KPIs).The key business benefits of transformation tocommunications services providers (CSPs) arecost savings and improving customerexperience in order to enhance a CSP’scompetitive position.

Analysys Mason surveyed 12 major CSPs andvendors about their top 6–10 transformations.This is equivalent to a sample size ofapproximately 70–110 transformation projects.From this data, the analyst firm has derived alist of essential ingredients for increasing thesuccess of transformations by CSPs.

Key KPIsTransformation activities are expected to bringpositive measurable results against theiroriginal benchmarked metric. In competitivetelecoms markets, quality KPIs are measured

according to indicators of improved customersatisfaction such as a reduced churn rate – ametric that CSPs measure.

In order of priority, the major KPIs that dictatethe success of most transformation projects are:• annual cost savings• customer experience indicators• operational metrics• network metrics.

Good project managementTime, cost and quality are the three criticalcornerstones of managing the three kinds oftransformation we have defined.• Large, complex projects require

organisations to use programme and portfolio management governance.

• Programmes are defined as a collection of integrated projects designed to meet specific objectives, and are typically governed by a temporary project management office.

The essentialingredients for effectivetransformation

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The key businessbenefits oftransformation tocommunicationsservices providers(CSPs) are costsavings andimproving customerexperience in orderto enhance a CSP’scompetitive position


• A portfolio is a collection of projects, programmes and other work – for example, retraining of staff – aimed at meeting important business objectives, and is typically governed by a strategic business unit of an organisation.

All tier one suppliers view transformation as aseries of related projects – a programme – thatwill achieve a significant return. Smallersuppliers will continue to view transformationas projects because of their lack of capacity andskills to take on transformation in a moreholistic manner.

Getting the right mixof price and timeAccording to Analysys Mason’s survey of 12CSPs and vendors, the average cost oftransformation varies according to technologytype and software segment. There is acorrelation between time and cost for thesetransformation categories – the longer thetimeline, the higher the cost.

The firm has observed that for significantbenefits to be realised, transformation shouldtake at least 18 months, including pre-implementation activities such as requirementgathering, planning and design. Logisticalcomplexities and higher capex are the mainreasons network infrastructure transformationis significantly more costly than other types oftransformation. Billing systems and associatedprocesses continue to be the core of the CSPbusiness, which is why the CSPs in our surveyspent more on revenue management softwaretransformation than other software segments.In 2010 and 2011, CSPs conducted more servicefulfilment transformations than previouslybecause they were trying to improve theirprovisioning and inventory processes andsystems in order to reduce opex in these areas.

Expect the unexpectedAlthough the objective of a transformation is toreduce cost, it is to be expected that costs willincrease initially before the return is realised.CSPs aim to reduce costs annually, and typicallyfocus on opex savings.

The initiation and planning phase is critical; theobjectives, scope, deliverables and governancestructure need to be agreed from the outset.The levels of risk and uncertainty peak in theearly phases of the project because the CSP willmake its expectations clear, which may bedifferent from the supplier’s expectation.However, the cost of changes at this stage isminimal because little effort has beenexpended. As implementation progresses, thecost of changes tends to increase exponentially.

In order to avoid costly changes, the planningphase for transformation programmes can beas long as 12 months. Continued CSPengagement and management coupled withsuppliers adopting an agile developmentmethodology will further reduce the risk ofcostly changes as transformation projects andprogrammes progress.

Key lessons learntThe following are key lessons that CSPs andsuppliers have learnt from a number oftransformations during the past five years.

• Use measureable KPIs to determine success: opex is the most common.

• Never underestimate stakeholder management: the best transformation will be a failure unless all stakeholders, not just senior management, buy into and adopt it completely.

• Good project management techniques go a long way: risk and change management are critical skills required to steer transformation to success.

• Local resources can be invaluable: using skilled local resources ultimately reduces costs, and knowledge of local language and culture can reduce the common issue of stakeholder resistance to changes introduced by the transformation.

• The transformation could have been done in less time and at a lower cost:suppliers and CSPs agree that there were and will continue to be lessons to be learnt from transformation projects.

• The phases of a transformation programme need to be carefully prioritised: failure to identify interdependencies between the phases and project components of a larger transformation programme leads to duplication of effort and consequently cost.

• At the beginning of the transformation, it is important to identify that contractual obligations supersede good faith: the risks, complexities and uncertainties related to transformation force CSPs to seek a supplier they trust.

This is an edited extract from the report: Lost intransformation: increasing rewards andreducing risks in systems transformationinitiatives, by Glen Ragoonanan. For moreinformation about the report, please contact:[email protected].

GlenRagoonanan

In order to avoidcostly changes,

the planningphase for

transformationprogrammes can

be as long as12 months


VanillaPlus Magazine October-November 2012 Edition

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