Livewire

Organisations are facing unprecedented challenges in the given economic environment. Their customer’s expectations are ever increasing where as the resource availability is fast plummeting.

Gone are the days when linear injection of resources, computing and infrastructure, would lead to more revenues and better satisfaction. In my recent interactions with clients these days, all of them are aiming for better services at optimum cost, more efficiencies in lesser time and this originates from their end-users. As the focus shifts from merely providing services to ensuring better customer experience that too right first time, telcos have to innovate, innovate fast or be obsolete.

I think this is the part of new rules of the game now, and is evident with the strategy telecom service providers have adopted: switching over to networked IT services, not because of merely protecting their market share but to realise the full potential of their core assets – “Network Infrastructure” and hence the customer experience.  Service providers are evolving new Operating models - from providing vanilla network services to providing managed services to providing Utility type telecom services and this is what makes the telecom sector extraordinarily competitive, globally. While they evolve their service models, it is providing them with ample opportunities to transform their asset base, their capabilities so as to provide Software Services on network and connected infrastructure by leveraging the powers of virtualised landscape than relying on dedicated estates. Cloud Computing based  platforms, for example, are fast becoming reality as they allow better utilisation and allocation of computing power and thus enabling QoS based computing resource availability in this regime of ‘on Demand’ rules of the game. In the end, this is aimed at better asset management, better customer management and experience. Winner remains the ‘customer’ but the telco too!

Are you seeing the same trend or the reasons of movement to this new regime?

Posted by Sanjeev Arya at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Are you satisfied with the service provided by your telecom provider? When was the last time when you had a good experience with your telecom service provider? To many, the answers to above questions are: no and never!! This blog attempts to bring an aspect as to why this might be the case. 

Let’s go back to basics and discuss what telecom services are used for. In the good old days, there was, and still is, the traditional post delivery service where communication between people and organisations are through the exchange of written materials (e.g. letters). Then came the telephone where speech communication was made possible. As technologies move on, we now have emails, the Internet and mobile technologies. What is the common theme of all of the above? It is the transport of information or data from one place to another. That sounds simple enough. However, in this information age, providing and managing telecom network and technologies to do that are much more complex.

With these complex telecom technologies, the keys for designing an end to end telecom service are: the ability to turn these network technologies into something that the customers want to use; making the customers feel that they are being looked after whilst using the network capabilities; providing the capabilities and tool for the operational personnel to looking after the customers and ensuring that customer payments are collected to make the business viable - all at the same time.

The major difference between Service Design and product development is the concept of providing a service. Designing a service is about providing the capabilities for monitoring and maintaining the service performance and designing the facilities to deliver after sales support. These are much more complicated than designing products that are sold without any maintenance agreement. This is especially important for managed telecommunications services and managed IT solutions, where the service providers are expected to resolve the problems or to fix faults before the customers or end users realise. A good service is supported by well thought through operational processes, well designed support systems as well as good underlying network technologies. The Service Design skill is the expertise to design, create and enable such service supporting functions.

Many companies think that introducing a new piece of technology is the be all and end all of launching a new service. On the contrary, this is only a small part of the equation as demonstrated above. In an increasing competitive telecommunication environment, it is the service that really matters. Having an advanced network technology is no longer enough as customers/ end users have taken the technology for granted and it is the personable service that really makes the difference and enables you to differentiate your services from your competitor.

Introducing new services will also result in introducing changes into the operational environment. This change management concept is not well understood by most. Hence many service introduction programme fails as a result. In summary, telecom services are actually very complex, involving many network technologies, support systems and operational processes as well as managing changes into the operational environment. These principles and the methodologies for designing a service are poorly defined. Many services are cobbled together by people without such appreciation and right skills to do so. Hence there aren’t many great services around.

What is your view on telecom services? Do you feel being served or do you feel that the telecom providers are just selling network capacity? What does service mean to you?

Posted by Sauming Pang at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)