Blogs

• Big Data and the BI buzz – the missing link?

  Posted September 13, 2017

  The value of big data and the business intelligence it yields is undeniable. If you haven’t started on this journey yet, you risk going the way of the dodo.   Because of our long-standing relationship with a customer, in the last few years we have participated in the development of an a...

• B2B telecom revenue will go down 50% - Are are ready for it?

  Posted July 5, 2017

  Did I get your attention? It’s the Trump era now so to get ahead of everything else in this noisy world, I feel I need your attention. So what am I trying to say? Unbundling or retail purchasing of telecom services instead of corporate account buying for the business need will break the lon...

• Enterprise business customers finally get their due

  Posted May 26, 2017

  TM Forum Live in Nice last week proved how important it is to gather periodically to assess the market, the technologies and the service provider business. It was encouraging to see a lot of new companies venture out and show their wares. For me personally, the maturing of SDN has proved what my co...

• The role of OSS & IT: Another change? Really?

  Posted May 4, 2017

  It’s been a while since I last posted anything here. But there are lots of interesting things going on out there, for sure. And I’m back just in time for our annual gathering at TM Forum Live, which should be a fascinating event given all the changes of late in technology, networking &md...

• Federated inventory does not work – so what is the answer?

  Posted May 5, 2016

  Coming out and ranting against federated inventory has been interesting given the amount of anonymous feedback I have received. Anyone wanting to talk about it, let’s connect at TMF next week! First, any reasonable order management or workflow product out there regardless of federated data ...

• Federated inventory management solutions do not work

  Posted November 19, 2015

  The idea of federated data became big when some of our venerable industry leaders decided it would solve the ongoing challenge of inventory management systems.   Ideas come and go, so my initial reaction was that we would just have to wait a little while for this idiotic one to pass by. Howev...

• Brokering in the technology selection process

  Posted October 30, 2015

  Continuing the theme from last time, this is the challenge faced by service providers: how do they get access to the right technology? How do they find the non-legacy technology or the innovative solutions that have not yet become widely known?   This is an issue that concerns both the servic...

• RFP technology selection: the good, the bad and the ugly

  Posted September 17, 2015

  In my previous blogs I’ve stressed the importance of picking one key IT system at a time on which to build your business, rather than trying to transform everything at once and building a new Frankenstein held together with sticky tape and pins.   However, there is one major process tha...

• TM Forum: Use it, or lose it

  Posted July 20, 2015

  Early in June, I donned my sunglasses and made my annual trip down to the sunny South of France to join colleagues, competitors and others at the TM Forum Live event in Nice.   Like many of my peers, this event provides a valuable opportunity to get together with those from a similar business...

• Is it business transformation or just another Frankenstein?

  Posted May 30, 2015

  I am going to say it again: business transformation within telecoms as we understand it does not work, has not worked so far and will not work unless we fundamentally change what we want to do.   I have already discussed some of the issues that telcos really need to think about in my previo...

• The plague of customization

  Posted April 2, 2015

  Spring is almost here, and it’s time for me to resume my blog after a brief hiatus. What with Christmas, New Year, a big family wedding and travels to Asia and back, there was no time to think outside the box. Now, I want to link back to my previous posts, starting with a question for you a...

• The service provider kitchen is in a mess!

  Posted September 24, 2014

  If you have read my previous blogs, you will have noticed that my world revolves around the service provider and customer service. The challenges faced by service providers in the context of customer experience are also firmly rooted in the history of their back office systems, but these systems are...

• The plight of the CSR

  Posted August 26, 2014

  The next time you call your communications service provider to complain about an issue with a broadband or cellular phone service, spare a thought for the customer service representative on the other end of the line. Depending on their size, CSPs can hire hundreds or even thousands of CSRs every yea...

• Customer experience: an unfulfilled promise

  Posted July 17, 2014

  In my regular dealings with service providers across the globe, it’s fair to say customer experience is a topic that crops up frequently as an aspect of service provision that requires constant monitoring and improvement. During industry events, service providers engage in earnest discussions ...