Christopher Smith: Our industry needs to know what good
looks like 
                            

                             
Operational systems provide core metrics for Business Quality Management processes 
                                  
The new concept of business quality management focuses on the continuous improvement and optimisation of operations to increase customer satisfaction, reduce unnecessary opex and cut capex wastage. The idea has grown out of service quality management (SQM), which primarily addresses service assurance-related operations, and is based on applying industry standardised metrics for the performance of core operational processes. This enables operators to baseline current performance and identify areas for improvement.
SQM is now well understood by operators. The need to deliver complex, bundled services using multiple technologies has driven operators to deploy SQM to deliver far greater insight into the end user experience than the traditional, network-focused services required. Performance indicators focused on network uptime are being supplemented with qualitative metrics to give a complete picture across all service components.
It has provided the foundation for standard metrics that are common across the industry, which enable operators to benchmark their performance. The TM Forum has been piloting the development of industry benchmarks and has built on its previous initiative to produce its Business Metrics Programme. “Our industry needs to know what good looks like,” explains Christopher Smith, chief operating officer of Clarity.
“It’s the new generation of services that are driving service quality management,” says Smith. “If I’m using MMS, I don’t care if it takes five or 50 seconds for a message to be received. If I’m using VoIP, it’s very quality dependent so, if the network has jitter or is bursty, that will destroy service quality. Similarly with video, if I’m watching free YouTube content, it’s not so important but if I’m paying $3 per movie, it’s a big customer issue. VoD and IPTV are major sources of revenue growth for carriers, so this is driving service quality management to the fore.”
Smith thinks the approach to industry standard metrics that now exists in service quality management should be extended to encompass wider elements of core operations. He’s pushing the concept of business quality management to provide a balanced scorecard across operator functions. “BQM is a different take on the service quality management market,” he says. “SQM is very focused on service assurance and, at a stretch, customer experience management, but the same processes can be applied across other areas. The same concepts can apply and deliver so much more for operators.”
“Our focus is very much on the OSS domain,” adds Smith. “We don’t want to become a business intelligence layer. We have a very deep knowledge of OSS processes and systems and believe key performance indicators can be defined around all the operational processes of our customers.” Metrics regarding order capture and management, fulfilment and network build can all be measured using the same applications.
Smith gives the example of a triple-play service. “The service provider’s quality indicators have to reflect every stage of the service lifecycle,” he says. “For example, how many times a customer enquires about a service before placing an order, how many times service provisioning fails, and which of the service components are causing the delays. This gives the underlying information to calculate time to cash and the effectiveness of the provisioning process.”
Business quality management (BQM) also means that, from an investment perspective, an operator can measure its performance and gain an understanding of what needs to be improved. “There might be people involved in what should be a zero touch provisioning process, for example,” says Smith, pointing out the obvious cost inefficiency involved. “Identifying these issues can deliver an ROI just the same as improving service quality.”
And it’s not just opex-related inefficiencies that can have metrics applied to them to deliver valuable business insights. “There’s so much opportunity to extend concepts of service quality management into new areas. I don’t think as an industry we should just focus on opex – it’s only half the picture when operators have billions of dollars in capital spending as well. The same measurements can be put around that.” says Smith.
Smith explains that Clarity’s solutions help to address capex efficiency. “Our Build, Sell, Deliver and Assure software suites have out of the box workflows for the four core operational processes our customers require,” he points out. “Take an example of a customer planning to increase network capacity in the west end of London. The whole process of site selection and survey, civil and network build and commissioning creates significant opportunities to optimise capex.”
Issues such as contractors arriving at the site of a new base station before the lease has been signed, or building approval has been received, are common and completely avoidable. It’s all a question of selecting the relevant measurements and then acting on the insight gained from them.
Smith also gives the example of a major Irish mobile carrier which uses Clarity’s Estate Management product to manage its sites. The solution provides the ability to compare site costs including rent and lease agreements and allows the carrier to negotiate from better informed position.
“Once you define those metrics, you can start to manage and optimise them,” adds Smith, who sees BQM as a natural progression for Clarity. “We are already managing these end to end business processes, so embedding TM Forum BQM KPIs and KQIs and exposing this information to our customers is a logical next step for us. Furthermore, our workflow and escalation capabilities mean we can enable our customers to identify issues and act on them in real-time. We’re already helping customers improve and optimise areas of their operations and we believe that every operator is going to adopt BQM because of potential massive impact on their balance sheet.” GTB