Clare Patterson offers advice on how companies can consolidate their OSS/BSS, and how to gain the maximum financial and business advantages from doing so 
 
 

As margins continue to be squeezed, telecoms operators are increasingly facing the challenge of consolidating their suite of operations support systems and business support systems systems to reduce the complexity overhead and the maintenance costs for multiple systems.
The consolidation of OSS and BSS systems is essential for realising the synergies expected from mergers and to rationalise existing disparate estates. Achieving real savings from consolidation is vital to achieving future profitability.
OSS and BSS systems consolidation is often a key component underpinning the benefits of deals and cost-saving initiatives. Rationalising these systems is also essential to speed-up the launch of new products and for IT to become agile in responding to changes.
Gathering the sufficient detail on the true costs of the existing systems is often challenging. Often legacy billing systems are fully depreciated and basic ongoing maintenance costs look relatively cheap compared to migration costs.
Business cases should include the cost of hypothetical future upgrades as legacy systems cannot continue indefinitely. The timing of a potential upgrade is subjective and can influence the viability of business cases.
To achieve the savings organisations must first invest in extra people and IT resources. For some organisations the consolidation process may have a couple of interim steps.
Once the business case is agreed the real challenge of how to achieve it begins. Consolidation programmes are complex and difficulties are only apparent when the detailed of mapping data and functionality begins. Many operators’ systems are outsourced and in-house knowledge of data structures and business rules implicit in the system is scarce.
Despite impacting the heart of the business, consolidation programmes have less kudos than new system implementations. The plans cannot predict the business changes which will undoubtedly impact the programme — for example new products, acquisitions, out-sourcing or internal reorganisations.
Pareto’s 80/20 law applies to the migration of customers or services, with the last 20% taking 80% of the effort to finally remove them from the old systems. Towards the end of the programme enthusiasm wanes, yet it is not until systems are decommissioned and the support team redeployed that final savings can be realised.
Despite the challenges consolidation programmes are essential. The business case and the plans need to be realistic and set expectations around the cost and complexity of achieving the savings at the outset.
In evaluating the options, organisations should not be constrained to the current suite of systems or current geographies and should consider the viability of migrating onto a brand new system. This could another country in the group’s system or an off the shelf solution from a third party.
In deciding, the organisation must consider the future business plans and not just the current functional requirements. It is essential to select an option which enables easy integration, cost effective support, is scalable, flexible and has an ongoing upgrade roadmap from the vendor.
It is imperative for the programme to promote the reasons for embarking on this treacherous journey. It needs to generate a sense of urgency based on the costs being wasted whilst the old systems remain and convey successfully delivering this programme will make change easier in the future.
It is critical to have the right level of business and technology support throughout the programme. To maintain momentum during the inevitable reincarnations due to business change, the programme should be divided into key milestones spanning three to six months.
The programme should be resolute in pushing forward a standard blueprint and insist on strict commercial justification for any customisation. The business case for customisation must include the true ongoing cost of maintaining a customised system, not just the cost of customisation.
Celebrating the success of achieving programme milestones will keep the business engaged. The business case should be revisited on completion of milestones to ensure the benefits are actually being realised and the programme is supported until the final systems are decommissioned.
All OSS and BSS consolidation programmes are challenging to plan and even tougher to complete. The complexity of the systems adapted to requests over the years and the high-level of constant change in which the consolidation programme has to operate, combine to make consolidation programmes particularly challenging to deliver on time and to budget. For those brave enough to embark on the adventure, the lessons learnt will undoubtedly be reused. Whilst the telecoms industry reshapes and margins are squeezed the next consolidation programme is never far away! GTB
Clare Patterson is performance and technology advisor with KPMG Europe