Partnering to ensure success in today’s digital universe
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It’s probably fair to say that the information, communications and technology (ICT) industry is littered with the corpses of failed joint ventures, business partnerships and strategic collaborations that never quite achieved the ambitions of the parties involved. It’s an important remind...
Sub-brands, and how to win in this brave new world
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As already discussed in a blog from my colleague at Etiya, telecoms operators are beginning to see secondary brands with new eyes, regarding them less as a necessary evil and more as a vehicle for radical change. Indeed, innovative and fast-moving service providers are now taking the fight ...
The customer journey: the new life cycle in the digital economy
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We’re just a week away from this year’s TM Forum Live, which if past years are anything to go by will provide an excellent platform for discussions on the topics I have explored in my recent blogs. I started out by asking a couple of simple questions: what does it mean to be a digital...
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My recent blogs have explored why and how communication service providers (CSPs) are now evolving into digital service providers (DSPs), and also focused on the importance of innovation in BSS/OSS once the enterprise product catalogue (EPC) has been consolidated. Now that you have these fun...
Innovation is important — once you have the basics right
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In my last blog I discussed “how” communication service providers (CSPs) could successfully achieve their goal of transforming themselves into digital service providers (DSPs). Virtualization and cloud play an important role in this process, but innovation in BSS/OSS also needs to happen...
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In my last post I explored the reasons why communication service providers (CSPs) are now evolving into digital service providers (DSPs) in order to grasp the opportunities that the estimated $1 trillion digital economy will bring. The next question is “how” will they successfully achiev...
What does it mean to be a digital service provider?
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There is still a wide-held belief among many people in this industry that today’s communications service providers (CSPs) will fail because they will be unable to provide value to the end user in this new digital economy. But in fact the opposite is true. CSPs are evolving precisely in order t...
Orchestration everywhere – now what do we do?
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The B/OSS industry in general seems to have got a handle on network functions virtualisation (NFV) and the virtual network functions (VNFs), in part thanks to the work that some of have done in collaboration with TM Forum. Thoughts are turning to the actual building of services. The biggest focus...
BSS partnerships aren’t working, we need to change our approach
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On the face of it, you’d think that partnerships would generally - if not always - be a good thing for companies seeking new routes to market for their products and services. Relationships based on a partnership agreement are less cumbersome and demanding than mergers and ideally are based on ...
Are OSS/BSS vendors failing the telco community?
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Mobile World Congress is almost upon us. Over the coming week, Barcelona will be awash with representatives from operators and vendors alike, as we all make use of this opportunity to sit down with customers and peers and thrash out what’s really important for the development of this industry ...
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As we move into the latter half of January, our thoughts are already turning to what for many in our industry is one of the event highlights of the year. I am of course referring to Mobile World Congress, which takes place this year from 22-25 February. Yet aside from a few days in the beautiful ...
Event-driven marketing – buzz or reality?
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Only the fittest telecoms operators will survive in future, but how do they become the fittest? The answer is by differentiation through the CSP brand and personalisation. It is essential to provide a differentiated customer experience in order to provide personalised one-to-one automated campaigns ...
In search of the right telco CRM
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Telecoms operators are in a category of their own when it comes to customer experience and support. They often have millions of private and business customers, for a start, and customers are their most valuable assets. They also have to combine “legacy” systems with newer technology and ...
Open data drives decision making and investment!
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“Data drives decision-making and it drives a lot of the services we all consume… It’s a simple example: By publishing the data it allows everyone inside the city and outside to go in and add intelligence and services on top of it. Los Angeles is now rated the number one open data ...
To expand or not to expand, that is the question
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Half of the world’s population will be using mobile devices to access the internet by 2020. It is calculated that there were 2.2 billion mobile internet subscribers in 2013, representing approximately 30 per cent of the global population. GSMA Intelligence forecasts that an additional 1.6 bill...
