Published in May 2012 TM Forum Insight Research Magazine on Managed Services
Industry Challenges
As forward thinking Telecom operators begin to engage thoughts of business improvement activities, they will cease now, more than ever, the true chance of becoming “Telecom 2.0” ready – an era where true Communication Services Providers (CSP) emerge as true service players in the communications space.
CSPs willing to embrace new IT-based opportunities will be faced with the challenge of fully optimizing and transforming IT into a continuous transformation cycle. A phenomena that will lead to the expansion and extension of product services interworking with “Over The Top” (OTT) players to achieve new incremental top line revenues.
Reference to industry trends (Gartner, IDC et al), Telecom operators who transform into Communications Service providers, will by 2015 attain additional 15% of their revenues from OTT players. This opportunity will be founded on the ability to adapt and adopt new business and operating models. Managing the risk of adopting new business models requires having the right partnerships – partnership that must possess the tenacity, technology prowess, scalability and relationships to deliver value.
Business Transformation
We are now in the last lap of the race to 2015, there will be winners and losers. With business models and transformation strategies spanning up to 24 months, Telecom operators must seize the opportunity now to gain the momentum of convergence through smart transformation services (STS). Huawei’s Software Managed services sets the stage to best bring the benefits of 2015 and beyond to Telecom operators now. Our flexible and adaptable BSS & OSS Managed Services offering brings opportunities to risk share with trusted partnerships to deliver services and innovation.
At Huawei, we understand the implications and era of the “true” CSP require an end-to-end integrated and real time environment pivoted on customer intimacy and experience paradigms. Data management will become more federated and integrated away from stovepipes. Data volumes will explode and require more aggressive analysis and proactive management (subscriber data, content, mail and contacts etc) to be adaptive. Real-time context and content enabling services are surfacing, emerging a new order of Value Growth Services (VGS).
CSPs will now than ever rely on proven partnerships and relationships with agile and responsive vendors, such as Huawei to innovate new ways of achieving flexibility, dynamism and profitability.
The Journey Ahead
The Growing importance of IT as an essential part of the new revenue opportunity confirms the evolution of IT as a Value growth Enabler (VGE) given the right partnerships and business models. More business executives now see IT as the next area for full transform towards delivering that expected delta growth (Figure 1).
Figure 1 – CEO and Senior Executive Survey of IT – Source Gartner
Mining Huawei’s BSS/OSS Managed Services to ready the journey beyond 2015
Through our aggressive growth (CAGR of 22%+ YoY) and intimacy with the Telecom sector, Huawei has developed a strong foundation of service oriented delivery methodology that is evolving to meet new market growth opportunities. In our evolutionary approach to Managed services, being flexible, innovative and bold in sharing initiatives, concepts and harnessing recognized sound business frameworks (e.g. eTOM) are essential to deliver compelling value to our customers.
With our intention to empower and lead the transformation of Telecom operators (mobile or fixed) towards true “CSP” status, we remain open to explore various dimensions of IT managed services, and to re-affirm our commitment stance to existing and prospective “customers”.
Emerging from a pure Network equipment supplier and support services organisation, our rich experience in Telecom operator operations have influenced, and continue to shape our Managed Services delivery and operations methodology. We are continuously evaluating, innovating and enriching our managed services offering and delivery framework around sound standards and process (e.g. eTOM, ITIL, ISO) and platforms (SOA, Open Architecture) in a move to sustain intimacy and deliver the promising results our “customers” expect.
Key Imperatives
Key imperatives of Huawei’s Managed services to Telecom Operators towards the quest for growth and new value are founded on Positioning, Opportunity Enablement and Value Transformation
- Positioning
Riding above rhetoric and pushing service boundaries, our Managed Services is positioned and positioning based on opportunities to harness “potentials” and manage business strategic outcomes through Internal positioning from pure Communications Technology provider to become a full fledged provider and enabler for Information Communication Technology services and products.
Our Internal positioning is aimed at enabling and facilitating the positioning of Operators by affirming or aiding the shift or movement within the “magic quadrant”[1].
- Opportunity Enablement – our Business alliance (BA) program
Through concerted efforts and initiatives, we are committing ourselves to engagements on behalf of operators to facilitate flexibility in the interaction with IT service providers, such as “OTT” players. Our flexibility mandate intends:
(a) Safe and Assured service innovation interworking with operators and powers Telecom operators towards becoming Telecom 2.0 players.
(b) Risk management programs using new business models, aiding transformation drives with risk managed proactively to deliver shared gains.
(c) Value Growth Services focusing on realizable business values. We leverage our multifaceted business dimensions to deliver compelling outcomes depicted on our TVO framework.(Figure 3).
- Value Transformation
Transformation as a Service – Experience MS in “overdrive” mode by Enhancing Business Agility through service fluidity around
(a) Time – to – Market of new products and services;
(b) Fast Delivery of Business requirements through our Service Oriented architecture facilitated through design, transition and operations management process.
(c) Service Performance based on an ubiquitous service capability framework on convergence that truly delivers the Multi-capability factor (service, network, operations) through a unified service and product management foundation.
- Increasing Cost Efficiency
With spending projections to dip towards 2015, Telecom operators will need to drive and attain leadership in communications services delivery. Huawei’s unique 3P-approach to cost efficiency aims at delivering compelling value through all arms of Managed services focus – People, Process, Platform
Fig. 2 Aligning IT Cost with Business performance indicators
Reference figure 2, a view of a Telecom operators cost over 9 years with an overlay of potential top line benefits, unpredictable and rising costs [2] increasingly driven by legacy infrastructure and ad-hoc resources drive Telecom operators to adopt radical cost cutting schemes that don’t yield the results intended.
Our experience in Managed services delivers a new compelling value that ensures IT is better aligned[3) to business, with each spend on our Managed services program translating to top line benefits [4].
In a view shared by business executives globally by Gartner, IT is now not only a service enabler but should institute confidence and growth [4] with imperatives such as innovation and customer collaboration as business value enablers.
- Platform
IT is plagued with various technology platforms that increase maintenance overheads and costs of making changes to facilitate business agility and response to market conditions.
Through the adoption of Service Oriented Architecture and true Open frameworks (eTOM, ITIL etc), our MS ensures service interface teams are able to match thinking with practice. With over 40% IT costs around Application development and maintenance (table 1) , Huawei’s BSS/OSS platform offers a unique positioning, unshackles the capability of “platform” to attain business alignment, squeezing out each dollar spent, realizable service and innovation potentials.
Table 1: Source: Gartner, 2011 Executive Advisory
With our award winning Next Generation “NGBSS”, SDP and foundations of Business process enabling services, we transform service management to re-immerse innovation into traditional Telecom IT management and realize true benefits such as Telecom 2.0 business models.
Through the benefits of people, processes and platforms we deliver a compelling Total Value Opportunity depicted below (figure 3b).
Fig 3. Huawei BSS/OSS Managed Services TVO promise
Based on the three dimensions to service delivery – Platform, People and Processes, we understand the power and value of People. With 13 global customization, delivery and operations centers situated in strategic locations globally – Romania, India, Germany, Honk Kong etc, Huawei continues to position and align People resources to better attain the flexibility, agility and responsiveness of our “Customers”.
- People
We bring a unique People transfer methodology based on a continual service improvement program that uses global best practices to enrich our portfolio of skills and expertise.
Exposing employee competencies into our global skills management network, we are able to harness and leverage employee technical skills strength to deliver more value from a global perspective and indeed create a career development path with heightened sense of achievement and contribution.
- Processes
Service experience starts from the quality and integrity of the gridlock between business process and IT service management. Process Harmonization, optimization and transformation enable reduce complexity and introduce business optimization by valuetizing processes.
Through our recognized contribution to eTOM, our business process management services are built on stronger interrelation between eTOM and ITIL to solidify and harness the Telecom operators’ business environment. We are going further to ensure the application of such frameworks indeed deliver sound benefits and meet or exceed industry standards and benchmarks by partnering with BSI to analyze, recommend and certify applications of our process frameworks around business operations.
Our process innovation prowess has, based on our results in real circumstances, contributed to greater customer experience and satisfaction, improved time–to–market (TTM) readiness and increased revenue assurance.
- Improving Monetization and Business Expansion
Growing disproportionate traffic vs revenue trends, new dimensions in churn to OTT players (Service Churn) and complex innovations stunt the monetization potential that Telecom operators can realize. By becoming prime enablers of the journey to Telcom 2.0, such as through our award winning NGBSS and NGSDP, Huawei’s BSS Managed Services leverages its global foot print and existing deepened relationship with 3rd party innovation and service providers to expand IT services to improve monetization.
With rich and deepened understanding of OTT services, Huawei establishes a Subscriber intimacy framework that delivers data mining services to gain and provide knowledge of the customers usage, deliver control to the customer to manage their usage proactively engaging the appropriate charging sequence. We have termed this service capability a “Know – Control – Advice – Charge” campaign. A versatile service model facilitating a 2-sided business campaign.
- Delivering an Integrated Customer Experience (ICE)
The value of service experience from customer’s perspective requires end-to-end technology management. However using proactive service management methods driven by real-time network, service and customer behavior insights services, Huawei is able to deliver a unique service capability to support the Telecom Providers marketing campaigns and programs.
This proactive service management approach can be delivered through personalized customer interaction in a convenient manner to offer a superior customer experience.
Turning business intelligence insight services into revenue opportunities is a growing trend in the era of convergence and high play of “OTT” services. Our BSS/OSS Managed Services provides strong Business Intelligence services for proactive customer behavior analysis and incident remedy.
The path to an Integrated Customer Experience requires device and end-point management services that must aim at harnessing value from “Customer activities” and delivering seamless customer experience.
Huawei BSS/OSS Managed Services – “Overdrive” to 2015 !
Our unique positioning is the enabling the foundation that aides the evolution from traditional Telecom operator to “Telecom 2.0” value operator. Our products and Managed Services are carefully interlocked into next generation suite of opportunities, delivering frameworks of interoperability, flexibility and transformation services to realizing value beyond 2015.
Our managed Service offering provides a complete business services management across Product & Market, Customer Management, Billing and Revenue management on a sound foundation of Communication services and resources management to deliver our service imperatives
A high level view of our BSS/OSS MS offering below.
Fig. 4 Huawei Managed Services Offering, 2011
[1] Gartner’s graphical competitive positioning of four types of technology providers in fast-growing markets – Providers fall into the domains of Net Entrant, Innovator, Challenger and Leaders
