Architecture dilemma – Do Telcos have the answer?
An optimal BSS/OSS architecture should be able to support customers and products in a way that allows a 360 degree view across multiple channels, be able to support rollout of products and services in quick time, be able to bundle multiple product offerings, be able to instantly provision and activate them and have a single bill for all the products offering for the customer. But in reality most Telcos are quite far from achieving this optimal state
For example a Telco in the middle east region had a custom built all in one CRM and billing system that worked with an Access database based order management system that was neither scalable nor was in line with their ambitious go to market plans for their ADSL line of products. A slightly more matured telco had two stacks each catering to a different product line (mobile and landline) and were struggling to provide a single view of customer since the same customer would sit on each of these stacks if he was to order both landline and mobile from the same operator. Another tier 1 Telco had implemented piece meal point solutions for CRM, billing and product catalog each from a different product vendor and now had invested a lot of money into integrating them together. Each product had its own product support lifecycle and the business had to keep putting in more money to ensure product currency for each product and integrate these new product versions.
So clearly Telcos need to keep their end state architecture in mind based on their business priorities. While tactical decisions to cater to immediate business needs will be unavoidable, each step needs to be carefully chosen based on the end state architecture which will clearly be different for each Telco. Some dilemmas Telcos face today - do we go for an end to end suite from a single product vendor like Oracle, and leverage solutions like the Telco lab, which would offer a quick start and lower TCO due to lower integration and upgrade costs, or do we go for mix of best of breed packages and integrate each of these packages? Do we do a phased approach (remodel the existing legacy stack to reach the end state which would mean creating tactical interfaces with legacy until cutover) or go big bang (e.g. create a parallel stack and migrate customer into this new stack)? How do we reach our optimal architecture at the lowest cost and shortest time and how far are at present we from achieving this?
So clearly Telcos need to keep their end state architecture in mind based on their business priorities. While tactical decisions to cater to immediate business needs will be unavoidable, each step needs to be carefully chosen based on the end state architecture which will clearly be different for each Telco. Some dilemmas Telcos face today - do we go for an end to end suite from a single product vendor like Oracle, and leverage solutions like the Telco lab, which would offer a quick start and lower TCO due to lower integration and upgrade costs, or do we go for mix of best of breed packages and integrate each of these packages? Do we do a phased approach (remodel the existing legacy stack to reach the end state which would mean creating tactical interfaces with legacy until cutover) or go big bang (e.g. create a parallel stack and migrate customer into this new stack)? How do we reach our optimal architecture at the lowest cost and shortest time and how far are at present we from achieving this?
Comments
Good perspective and very living problem(s) for any Telco operator. My take is that given the very dynamic nature of the Telco and Entertainment space, the stacks are going to remain disparate and convergence on technology may never be possible. But I guess where many telcos miss out is establishment of an enterprise data architecture - that is vital. A disparate stack can very much function in harmony as long as it is compliant and in line with the enterprise data architecture.
Posted by: Somnath Mukherjee | April 28, 2009 7:21 AM