Erwan Ménard: telcos must be able to open their systems
and processes to become more inclusive

 
There’s a famous saying that, in Hollywood, everybody wants to be someone else. That statement is increasingly relevant to our industry these days as it tries to transform its business models and processes to exploit advances in technology and meet the demands of the new communications future.
There’s no doubt that some kind of transformation is essential – but what precise form that transformation should take is open to question. Just as in Hollywood, some are content with rehashing old classics while others are attempting to evolve the business with new techniques and distribution approaches.
Sensibly, many communications service providers are taking a measured approach and one grounded in business realities, not in abstract and untried organisational theories.
If service providers are to leverage their considerable assets, moving from a technology focus to become true business and social enablers for an ever-widening range of industries and communities, then they must be able to open their systems and processes to become more inclusive. That inclusivity must reach inwards as well as outwards, breaking down internal silos while simultaneously exploiting outsourcing, partnerships and cloud-based models for the benefit of both themselves and their customers.
Such a strategy involves exploiting existing assets, processes and data, and combining these in original ways with new tools to solve emergent problem sets. Although service providers have been making sweeping changes to their systems and ways of working over the last decade or so, these have been driven primarily by cost reduction strategies and often targeting technology rather than business — such as all-IP networks, 3G and fibre to the home.
The next stage, a strategy I call “technology to business transformation” or T2B, has to be about reinventing the service provider’s actual business.
Recognising that the main challenges are now going to be focused on customer experience management, growing revenues, competing against “over the top” suppliers and escaping from the trap of being relegated to the low value-add role of connectivity provider, service providers must instead embrace new business models. This means focusing on what they can add to the customer experience and becoming both IT — via cloud services — and content providers.
One direct example of this type of transformation can be seen with Thailand’s mobile operator DTAC. By assembling a number of solutions that individually dealt with fault management, network performance, trouble ticketing, configuration management and SQM issues, and then wrapping these under a common umbrella repository of methodologies, best practice and intellectual property, DTAC’s customer care staff become able to resolve 70% of complaints there and then on the first call.
This achievement brings puts them above benchmarks from the Customer Contact Council for Telecommunications, according to the council’s contact centre benchmarking results 2008.
Through one project like that, DTAC was able to dramatically improve its customer experience — with all the benefits that brings in terms of increased loyalty and reduced churn while also meeting operations cost reduction and mean time to repair improvement goals.
A similar focus on customer experience, but also on internal efficiency and time to market was also applied at triple-play service provider Magyar Telecom. Here, Magyar was able to develop a single consolidated service provisioning and activation platform to handle fixed, mobile and broadband services, replacing three separate legacy systems. This has increased efficiency, reduced costs and shortened implementation times for Magyar, while also improving the experience customers have with the ordering and activation process.
Cloud services are also driving business transformation in service providers. Drawn by the concept of inclusivity and the enormous potential of cloud services, a growing number of industry sectors including financial services, content owners and power utilities involved in smart-grid initiatives can see imminent win-win opportunities by working more intimately with CSPs. In this context, the building blocks of a telco’s network and systems assets can be reconfigured and exposed in appropriate ways to create real added-value for everyone, right through to the end customer or user.
These building blocks, or what I call cross-business assets, could include policy and subscriber data management, location, presence, real-time charging, service delivery platforms, assurance and fulfilment, analytics and, specifically for the content sector, media control and media workflow.
The DTAC example shows how this company is taking advantage of a consolidated cross-business approach to assurance. Supporting these cross business assets, are the increasingly important disciplines of corporate governance, data retention, regulatory compliance and financial transparency. These factors are all critical in the next phase business transformation that CSPs are engaging in.
While the last few years have meant a necessarily intense focus on cutting costs, the next stage of our industry’s transformation must rely on assembling and managing the building blocks of our industry and our close relatives in new, innovative and appropriate ways.
Only by exposing these cross-business assets can we begin to monetise the true value that our industry brings to the world, delight and satisfy both partners and customers, and become the kinds of organisation that our customers and our stakeholders will truly value.
As in Hollywood, the telecommunications industry needs to evolve and transform to continue to attract customers, drive new revenues and profit from the latest advances. With 3D and digital media advances that the film industry is evolving, and the good news is that CSPs also understand the need to evolve their business as well as technology and are starting to embrace the needed changes whole-heartedly.
I confidently predict that — just like Hollywood and the film industry — our amazing industry will reinvent itself, one more time! GTB
Erwan Menard is vice president and general manager of Communications & Media Solutions at Hewlett-Packard