IN FOCUS: MONETIZE THE ENTERPRISE OPPORTUNITY

Transcription

1 no 1/2013 [16] The Magazine of Comarch Telecommunications Business Unit IN FOCUS: MONETIZE THE ENTERPRISE OPPORTUNITY ARE YOU READY TO CATCH THE M2M MARKET OPPORTUNITIES 4 KEY ELEMENTS OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT FOR TELECOM OPERATORS

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3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 WHAT S NEW News in Brief 5 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS 6 Streamlining mutually beneficial partnerships between telcos and enterprises With operators across Europe increasingly seeing flat lined revenue growth from residential mobile customers, new sights currently are being set on cultivating and enhancing relationships with enterprise customers best practices to improve your offering for enterprise customers Enterprises are currently one of the key customer segments for every telecoms operator. The revenue opportunities stemming from this area not only come from the budgets that business customers are willing to spend on telecom services, but are also driven by employees who are becoming more mobile, devices which are becoming more powerful and secure, the increasing coverage of telecommunication services. Loyalty what loyalty? Telesperience Chief Analyst Teresa Cottam looks at why there is little loyalty amongst European SMEs towards their service provider, and argues this is both a business risk and an opportunity. To outsource or not to outsource Outsourcing is always worth considering, especially if coupled with the reshaping of business and operational procedures. The execution of any tasks outside company premises is no threat to the service provider s competiveness, as long as the main ideas, how to attract and address customers are kept in-house. Towards a perfect offer for enterprises from connectivity pipes to tailored business solutions Enterprises will be expecting the CSPs to not only deliver communication pipes, but a complete solution i.e. a comprehensive platform, which enhances the productivity of the enterprise customer s employees in their everyday work. This article will refer to it as a productivity platform. HOT TOPIC: M2M Are you ready to catch the M2M market 22 opportunities? Whether you believe the 50 billion connected devices forecasted by AT&T by 2020 or the 1 trillion connected devices projected by IBM for 2015, it is safe to say that M2M is an exploding marketplace that brings new challenges and opportunities to companies worldwide. 24 Impact of M2M and Internet of Things on IT architecture These days all Tier-1 operators have some Machine to Machine (M2M) offer that has been available for a couple of years and this market segment can be found on various positions of their list of priorities, being even sometimes placed at number 1. Because of the development of the business, many Communication Service Providers evaluate various options related to IT platforms to support sophisticated business models in the area of M2M. HOT TOPIC: DELIVERING TRUE QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE 294 Key Elements of Customer Experience Management for Telecom Operators Customer experience is currently all the hype for most businesses and the telecom industry, being on top of innovations and buzz as it usually is, has not been left behind. But what does providing great customer experience actually mean for a telecoms operator? Being able to quickly deliver new services? Delivering precisely these services that customers want? 33 Customer Experience-centric Network Planning & Optimization The era of voice-centric network planning and optimization is over. Nowadays, operators have to search for innovative services to generate new revenue streams. However, the introduction of such services usually entails increased traffic in the network, and thus requires constant capacity enhancements and quality monitoring. 36 Implementation of Comarch NG Service Assurance for MTS Russia The customer s perception of the service quality becomes the key issue which operators should try to address and assure that the various variables which influence it are prioritized. However, this is only possible by changing their approach to network management. MTS decided to face this challenge with a structured transformation. 39 Extreme OSS Service Quality and Customer Experience Management systems have continued to gain attention in recent years. Since the why and the how regarding business levels have already been discussed many times, in this article I would like to concentrate on the technical aspects of such systems. 42 How to Combine CRM and etom for Better Customer Experience? Operational excellence in customer relationship management helps companies build and sustain positive customer experience. The way I see it, using TM Forum s set of standards is a good foundation for designing and implementing new levels of operational excellence in service providers day to day activities. In particular, the etom Process Framework can come in handy. 44 Tier 1 Telecom Operator Automates Service Assurance, thus reducing CAPEX and OPEX with Comarch NGSA Comarch has proven to be a strong and reliable business partner, able to not only provide high quality, COTS software products and professional services, but also adapt to new business requirements when necessary. HOT TOPIC: CONNECTED ENTERTAINMENT 46 DLNA already works in millions of home networks does it work in yours? Shane Buchanan, Certification Administrator & Technical Operations Support at Digital Living Network Alliance is the first point of contact in all matters related with DLNA certification programs. Here he speaks about DLNA s objectives, its future and its most recent innovations. 48 Message from Tokyo: 2013 MirrorLinkTM in the consumers hands During the second week of November 2012, I was in Tokyo to attend the 2012 MirrorLink Summit. Let me share a few thoughts about this event with you. HOT TOPIC: CLOUD COMPUTING 49 Mobile Workforce Management How to Shift Enterprise Applications into Public Clouds for SMEs Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) generate more than 60% of GDP in all industrialized countries. They employ 2/3 of the available manpower. In times of crises, SMEs try to find new ways of making profit and to improve productivity. They outsource non-core activities, invest in tools which reduce paperwork, they also try e-commerce to increase sales and many others too. 54 Is it too late for telecoms to become Cloud service providers? We live in the advanced world of advanced technologies, the Internet and omnipresent services providing useful features available in the Cloud. Every day we use but even today not everyone fully understands what the popular industry buzzword Cloud really means. Isn t it really just another new word for what has already been available for quite some time? HOT TOPIC: TECHNOLOGICAL CORNER TETRA is the risk worth the gamble? 56 AS a wise man once said: Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity Unfortunately, everything else has its limitations. So, what is the best way to ensure constant connectivity for police forces, fire departments, ambulance services or military personnel when operations time can mean the difference between life and death and cellular networks are not available?

4 4 PREFACE T he monetization of opportunities presented by the enterprise market has been a hot topic in the telecoms world for quite a long time now. It has been discussed across industry blogs, during major events, like the Mobile World Congress and in the business strategy documents of telecom operators. This might be due to the fact that enterprise customers are becoming one of the most important customer segments for Communication Service Providers (CSPs) nowadays. Business opportunities seem to be far more worthwhile here than in the consumer segment. Where can these opportunities be found? CSPs must embrace new trends, such as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), employee mobility, broadening the range of services offered to enterprises (from traditional telecom services to offering office applications from a Cloud) or by striving to provide enterprises with the highest degree of service quality by delivering a unified experience and efficiently managing Service Level Agreements (SLAs). In this issue of Comarch Technology Review we focus on this very topic the opportunities offered by enterprise customers. You have in your hands the valuable thoughts of some of my esteemed colleagues who have chosen to share some of their knowledge and experience they have gained from various projects in this area. In the article written by Krzysztof Kwiatkowski you will learn about best practices which could help you succeed in the enterprise market. Lukasz Mendyk shares his thoughts on the necessary shift that CSPs need to make when building products for their enterprise customers, the importance of really understanding the needs of enterprise employees and the ability to translate business language into technology language. We could not have released a new issue without discussing one of this year s hottest topics Cloud services. In his article, Szymon Uczciwek shows how Mobile Workforce Management can be used to shift enterprise applications into public clouds for Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Adam Gowin ponders on whether or not it is too late for telecom operators to enter the Cloud market. Staying in the area of innovative services, you will also find interesting articles on the Machine to Machine (M2M) sector in this issue. Thierry Geraci of BuzzinBees talks about the many M2M market opportunities and Krzysztof Kwiatkowski writes about the impact of M2M and the Internet of Things on the IT infrastructure of communication service providers. And, to provide a bit of a different perspective on the Internet of Things, Grzegorz Kafel talks to Shane Buchanan from Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) about the organization s objectives, its future and its most recent innovations in the area of connectivity. And what about service quality? Jakub Zaluski-Kapusta elaborates on the key elements that telecom operators need to remember when embarking on a Customer Experience Management (CEM) transformation program. Andrzej Wąż-Ambrożewicz provides insight into the topic of customer experience-centric network planning & optimization, while Pawel Lamik offers some advice on how to combine CRM and etom for better customer experience. In another article, Pawel Sabina raises the subject of Extreme OSS. And, moving from words to deeds, we also present a case study concerning the implementation of Comarch NG Service Assurance for MTS Russia, to show you our vision in action. In the technical section, Jakub Stalmirski focuses on taking a risk so check if he thinks Tetra is worth taking a gamble on. So, sit back and relax with your favorite hot drink and enjoy the latest issue of Comarch Technology Review. ALINA WIETRZNY Comarch SA Editor-in-Chief Comarch Technology Review is a publication created by Comarch experts and specialists. It is created to assist our customers and partners in obtaining in-depth information about market trends and developments, and the technological possibilities of addressing the most important issues. Editor-in-Chief: Alina Wietrzny Alina.Wietrzny@comarch.com Copy Editor: Małgorzata Siwiec-Polikowska Malgorzata.Siwiec@comarch.com Layout & DTP: Adam Dąbrowski, Dominik Pietruszka Photos: Publisher: Comarch SA Al. Jana Pawła II 39a, Kraków Tel , Fax: Print: Skleniarz Printing House ul. J. Lea 118, Kraków Circulation: Technology Review is a free publication available by subscription. The articles published here can be copied and reproduced only with the knowledge and consent of the editors. The names of products and companies mentioned are trade marks and trade names of their producers. To receive your subscription to the electronic version or see the previous issues, please visit: tr.comarch.com Comarch s offices in Poland: Krakow (HQ), Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw, Poznan, Katowice, Lodz, Lublin Worldwide Offices: Americas Panama Panamá United States of America Chicago Europe Albania Tirana Austria Vienna, Innsbruck, Kirchbichl Belgium Brussels Finland Espoo France Montbonnot Saint-Martin, Lezennes Germany Dresden, Frankfurt/Main, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Muenster, Duesseldorf, Bremen Lithuania Vilnius Luxembourg Strassen Russia Moscow Slovakia Bratislava Switzerland Arbon, Buchs SG Ukraine Kyiv, Lviv United Kingdom London Middle East United Arab Emirates Dubai Asia China Shanghai Vietnam Ho Chi Minh City

5 NEWS IN BRIEF 5 News in Brief Comarch helps E-Plus Group increase network efficiency with NG Performance Management Comarch helps E-Plus Group transform their network performance management landscape, leading to improved customer experience and lower operational costs. Gartner s Magic Quadrants for IRCM and OSS place Comarch in the Challenger quadrant Comarch, a global provider of end-to-end BSS/OSS solutions, announced that it has been positioned in the Challenger quadrant in Gartner s Magic Quadrant for Integrated Revenue and Customer Management (IRCM), with a positive evaluation of its BSS portfolio completeness, modularity and standard-based architecture. Comarch Deploys a Connected Cars Solution for Application and Device Testing Comarch, a global software house and systems integrator, today announced a partnership with the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC), an organization driving global technologies for phone-centric car connectivity solutions, to host the MirrorLink Application Certification Management System (ACMS). Gartner s report on Customer Experience names Comarch as a vendor to watch Comarch, an end-to-end OSS/BSS software vendor was named as one of the vendors to watch in a report on bridging the customer experience gap, recently published by a renowned analyst company, Gartner. Comarch Partners with Telecom Operators in Deploying Cloud for Business Comarch, a global software house and system integrator, has just extended its Cloud Service Management platform with the brand new Cloud Marketplace Management module, as well as a set of pre-defined business applications and vertical services from Comarch s Cloud portfolio. Comarch M2M Platform recognized among leading connectivity solutions in Gartner s report Comarch, a global provider of IT business solutions and system integrator has been evaluated in a recent report issued by a renowned analyst company, Gartner. Comarch M2M Platform was assessed aside three other leading vendors of connectivity platforms. Kabel Deutschland Upgrades its OSS Capabilities with Comarch Comarch helps Kabel Deutschland build a consolidated OSS landscape embedded into a next practice approach to network plan, build and run to support its growing network infrastructure and a developing service portfolio. Comarch supports Turkcell Europe in ofering MVNO services in Germany A comprehensive BSS platform delivered by Comarch enables Turkcell Europe to run innovative and unique MVNO operations on the German market. Comarch Technology Review 02/2012

6 6 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS Streamlining mutually beneficial partnerships between telcos and enterprises W ith operators across Europe increasingly seeing flat lined revenue growth from residential mobile customers, new sights currently are being set on cultivating and enhancing relationships with enterprise customers. And while the transition towards offering comprehensive service bundles to enterprise customers can involve a lot of legwork on the telco side, companies like Comarch offer software systems and solutions helping telcos better support enterprises. The customer experience from the enterprise standpoint is a little different than the customer experience from the residential market side, says Piotr Machnik, EVP of product management and marketing at Comarch a global supplier of innovative software and IT services for telecommunications and a number of other industry verticals. When you have a fleet of connected devices, you expect not only quality from voice and data services you expect support for ordering systems and devices in different countries, a single point of contact [where enterprises can] place their orders, higher quality billing etc. In enterprise markets, there are a number of additional things that can enhance the customer experience with telcos. According to Machnik, the level of customer experience that telcos can offer enterprise customers is becoming a more important differentiating factor in today s very competitive market. The customer experience is very important on both a system and service level enterprises expect more than just invoices, he says. A significant value-added service that a telco can offer to enterprise customers is the opportunity to merge different devices, applications, tablets, smartphones personal computers and more onto one cloud platform. Comarch s Cloud Service Management solution, for instance, supports next-generation telecom operators in offering cloudbased services in multiple business scenarios, such as cus-

7 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS 7 Big OTT players are often from the US, and have hosting services there but for German or French companies, for example, it is very important to keep this data in their respective countries telco operators can meet this requirement offering local data centres and local connectivity. Being based in Europe, Comarch can make that happen for service providers in the region. Machnik adds that there are many other value-added services that telcos can offer to help streamline the everyday business operations infrastructure as a service (IaaS); communications with a guaranteed quality of services ie, enhanced video conferencing; and content delivery networks, to name just a few. In an economic climate where a huge amount of turnover happens with smaller, or start-up vendors, a telco s long track record can also be reassuring to enterprises looking for services and solutions, says Machnik. PIOTR MACHNIK Comarch SA EVP of product management and marketing Telecommunications Business Unit You can expect these telcos won t disappear from the market in three months time. Comarch s work with Dutch operator KPN is one example of how its solutions have helped an operator and its business customers create mutually beneficial relationships. tomer support/billing for partner-branded applications and authorisation, authentication and accounting in real-time. While the idea of storing important or sensitive data on a cloud platform has long been a security or privacy concern for companies, Machnik says that having a telco as the cloud provider should actually soothe enterprise executives. Telco operators could actually play the role of guarantor of security and privacy, he says, adding that while many of the bigger cloud platforms are often based abroad largely, in the US telco cloud solutions would often be based closer to home. Cloud solutions often cause big problem for larger enterprises, where their regulations, policies, etc... say that data should be stored in the country where it is being processed, he continues. Comarch is currently delivering a comprehensive set of business support systems (BSS) models to help KPN lower operational costs, improve customer satisfaction and launch new services faster. Having discovered a market opportunity for managed mobile services, KPN began delivering mobile communications to European multinational companies, which, as a result, saw end customers benefitting from the significant reduction in overall costs of mobile communications within the company. The real benefits come from the fact that, instead of having several providers from different countries, enterprises are provided with one contract which means a unified service in every country along with advanced self-service and mobile telephony cost reporting functionalities. Several modules of the Comarch BSS Suite were implemented at KPN, including convergent billing; customer management and data analysis and reporting. Another plus for KPN is the proximity of some Comarch offices (ie, Belgium and Poland), as the whole solution is hosted in Cracow and Warsaw, at the Comarch Data Centre, and provided as a managed service. Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, head of BSS product management at Comarch, said that through this partnership, everything is automated and integrated into a single platform: There is less manual work, everything is organised by consistent KRZYSZTOF KWIATKOWSKI Comarch SA Head of BSS product management, Telecommunications Business Unit IDEAS IN BRIEF: The customer experience very important on both a system and service level Unified service in every country Challenges in implementing BYOD at the enterprises

8 8 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS Instead of having several providers from different countries, enterprises are provided with one contract - which means a unified service in every country - along with advanced self-service and mobile telephony cost reporting functionalities. workflow management, a consistent dashboard, and unified communications, he explains. This plays into not only gaining customers, but maintaining customers. According to Machnik, at a time where the mobilisation of enterprises is also growing quickly, one of the biggest solutions that companies are currently looking for in the face of demand for increased connectivity has to do with the way in which the mobile workforce is shifting. With this, enterprises are currently trying to cope with the bring your own device (BYOD) trend, where employees bring personally-owned mobile devices to work, and use them for business and personal needs. Telcos can use the capacity of the BYOD market and offer workforce management in the cloud, says Machnik. There are of course, challenges in implementing BYOD, he said, such as certifying and testing process of mobile devices to ensure compatibility with an organisation s work standards. Another obstacle is privacy concerns over whether private accounts would remain inaccessible by employers, and important business documents would not spill into personal accounts. BYOD needs to be thought of like the managing of containers where the containers within these devices would be secured by the telecom operator or another vendor, says Machnik, explaining that a user s business container and personal container would remain two separate entities, from folder access to billing. He predicts systems accommodating BYOD could become so advanced a mobile device would switch automatically from personal mode to business mode as an employee enters their office building. Also, financial and corporate enterprises are not the only potential beneficiaries of such services. In the healthcare sector, for instance, says Machnik, telemedicine (the use of telecommunications and IT to provide remote clinical health care) could benefit: At the moment, I see companies offering professional telemedicine connecting professional devices to central monitoring systems, adding that he expects this segment to grow strongly given European doctor shortages. Machine-to-machine (M2M) communications in the automobile industry is also posing significant potential, from broadband connected devices in personal vehicles, to remote management of fuel consumption for fleets. With this, Comarch s M2M platform, for example, can help support mobile operators enter the M2M market, providing functions such as an efficient billing and rating module that can process vast amounts of data; an efficient CRM that enables managing all relationships with business partners; and a built-in resource and SIM management functionality that increases control over the M2M equipment. Overall, a lot of enterprises are, at the moment, feeling big pressures in terms of cost cutting and on the other hand, telcos need to improve their revenues, says Machnik, explaining that both sides have much to gain from enhanced partnerships and streamlining of operations. Operators in the past focused on transforming organisations from B2C, and transforming systems and almost forgot about the enterprise customer segment, concludes Kwiatkowski. Now, because of declining revenues from B2C, they are seeing that business customers generate a lot of revenue especially if you deliver a good service. The above article was published by: European Communications To watch the video with the presentation on the above issue visit:

9 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS 9 5 best practices to improve your offering for enterprise customers How Communication Service Providers can increase the role of B2B segment E nterprises are currently one of the key customer segments for every telecoms operator. The revenue opportunities stemming from this area not only come from the budgets that business customers are willing to spend on telecom services, but are also driven by employees who are becoming more mobile, devices which are becoming more powerful and secure, the increasing coverage of telecommunication services and the need for more comprehensive solutions such as Information & Communications Technology (ICM), Machine to Machine (M2M) and Cloud services.

10 10 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS Experience Offerings Services Broadband This is why delivering a superior customer experience to business customers is on every Communications Service Provider s (CSP) list of priorities. But how easy is it to achieve? Providing the right level of traditional telecommunications services, as well as entering new areas such as integrating IT systems or offering applications from the Cloud can be very challenging for CSPs, who are often faced with the challenges that go hand in hand with silo organizations and architectures. This is why transforming their approach to enterprise customers often requires substantial changes in organizational structures, as well as redesigning the IT architectures that support areas of business. New ways of thinking require new ways of working. Ask yourself 3 basic questions related to your enterprise customers For many enterprises security and cost are the main criteria for selecting a telecom service provider. But they are not the only ones. High flexibility, simplicity and speed are often Voice fixed Voice mobile Cloud offering just as important and may in fact be significant differentiators to gaining a competitive advantage over other providers. These three criteria are not only related to a technological approach (such as enabling Fixed-Mobile Convergence), but also to the way services are sold and how entities interact with customers. To meet customer expectations, your company should be able to answer a few basic questions: Who is the final user of the service you deliver? A company or its employees? The way you think about this will influence the way you sell a service and will help shape what you ultimately deliver. It is quite common for telecoms to sell services to businesses and thus design their offer for companies, however the services are then actually used by individual people the various types of employees who work for them. And these employees need proper support from the operator, just like any enterprise would. It means that various tools, such as business analysis, selfmanagement and cost control should not only be available for managers but also for other types of employees and they should be given the possibility to manage the services they use on their own. This includes split billing management for telecommunication services or using tools related to applications delivered in the Cloud. What exactly is the product you are going to sell? What s the best way to providing a single service experience? Services for enterprises are often delivered using separate silos for fixed broadband, fixed voice, mobile, Cloud and others. Unfortunately, these services are also sold in the same silos, and as a result they are perceived by customers as if they were delivered by many different telecom operators. Even if the customer gets a single invoice for all these services, this misconception still remains. Telecom operators need to be able to answer the question of how important it is for their customers to get a simplified, single service experience. This means having a single point of contact, a single bill, and a single self-care and analytical tool for all types of telecom and non-telecom services used by the enterprise. Sales departments may need to shift from a traditional selling model to consultative selling, where the CSP acts as an expert and is able to educate the enterprise on their requirements and the most suitable service package. For example, an enterprise should not need to go into the details of broadband technology restrictions (should we use copper of fiber wires?) or the quality of service needed by various types of employees. An enterprise needs tools to run a business and it is the telecom operator, who must know what should be delivered and what the optimal con-

11 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS 11 figuration of providing services is to a secretary or an international sales manager or technical employees. What elements are the most important for your customers? Prepare a priority list Enterprise customers do not always expect the full bells and whistles treatment. What they do expect however, is to be able to run their businesses in an optimized way and therefore they need tools to facilitate this. Business support systems (BSS) and operations support systems (OSS) platforms are two examples of such tools. We may think that the bringyour-own-device (BYOD) trend, i.e. managing employee-owned devices is a top priority that enterprises want to address right now, but this may not necessarily be true. It is security, together with simple cost management and mobility that really matters to them. While BYOD is an interesting opportunity and definitely a market differentiator, it doesn t have to hold the top position on a telecom operator s list of priorities. Another example? Let s look at acquiring new customers in the enterprise segment. The companies which telecoms are Experience Offerings Services Broadband Single experience Voice fixed Voice mobile targeting here are not greenfield companies, they are already using many telecom services. This is why acquiring new enterprise customers means that new providers must migrate them from one or multiple telecom operators. For enterprises all that matters is that the process is carried out smoothly and this can be the main differentiating factor that will make some telecoms companies broaden their market share in the enterprise segment, while others will lose business. Choose a partner willing to get involved Once your company decides to redefine its approach to the needs of enterprise customers, changes in the IT architecture will be necessary. You will then need to find a partner for the project, typically an IT software vendor or system integrator. Here s a piece of sound advice that should be heeded; forget about a typical vendor-customer relationship, where you simply tell a vendor what you need and they supply it without asking any questions. Find a real partner that understands your position, your restrictions and preferences regarding the desired changes, and one that comprehends exactly the best way forward for your business. Cloud offering ICT,... Make sure the vendor gets involved in the change management processes just as much as you do, and that the selected company has a perfect understanding of all the business and technical levels of the organization involved in the project. Cooperation with such a business partner should start long before the IT project launches. Make sure you partner with a company that is able to react quickly when something goes wrong (and make sure they will tell you, when it does) and that escalation paths for such situations are predefined. What s more, give them the chance to simply say no. Such cooperation will most likely result in the success of your transformation project. IDEAS IN BRIEF: Delivering superior customer experience to business customers define a good strategy to achieve it Finding a partner for the project willing to get involved Managing transformations in the context of end-to-end processes KRZYSZTOF KWIATKOWSKI Comarch SA Head of BSS product management, Telecommunications Business Unit

12 12 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS Think twice while deciding on your desired IT architecture and choose the correct elements In most cases a new, redefined strategy for selling services to enterprises requires a set of new tools on the IT side. This leads to substantial transformation projects, related to changes in the organization, processes and IT systems. The selected partner, described in the previous paragraph, should be able to help you manage these changes, making strategic decisions, as well as preventing unnecessary changes in the existing IT architecture. Once you embark on a transformation you should make sure the selected IT platform includes the following areas: Service level agreement (SLA) management and monitoring, Contracts, Customer relationship management (CRM), Billing, Selfservice, Product and service catalog, Automated fulfillment. Use the systems you already have When you decide on what areas you want to include in your solution, it is best to check if your existing tools can become part of the desired IT architecture. For example, in some cases it may not be necessary to introduce a new Enterprise Product. Sometimes your existing product catalog, used as part of a powerful billing system will be enough. A similar situation may happen in the case of service factories your existing fulfillment logic, spread across various silos, doesn t always have to be completely replaced. In some cases it is enough to treat existing systems as black boxes and move them to a higher level in a central fulfillment solution. The partner described in the previous paragraph should be able to help you with these difficult decisions and prevent too much unnecessary changes in existing IT architecture. Focus on end-to-end processes One of the most important lessons learned from transformation projects is that it is crucial to manage transformations in the context of end-to-end processes. Ready-made products delivered by some vendors are, for the most part, just elements of such processes. This poses a risk that there may be many specifications for you to prepare regarding specific requirements and processes. And once the organizational changes start, you may not be able to go into too much detail regarding your requirements. You cannot be 100% sure that your system vendor will be able to fill all the gaps with standard processes and elements of processes. The result of such a potential project is then easy to foresee. This is why it is better to manage the project (the analysis, the delivery, the tests etc.) in the context of well-defined endto-end processes such as Order-to-Payment, Request-to- Answer, Complaint-to-Solution and others (TMForum Frameworx lends a helping hand by defining such processes). By following this rule during the transformation, you will not be forced to face an unfortunate situation where all the systems work and pass all the required tests, but somehow the endto-end processes don t work properly. When it comes to your project methodology, think twice. Agility is trendy but it s probably not the best methodology for a large transformation project. Prepare operations and delivery for a new way of working Depending on the strategy defined in the first paragraph, you should adjust the roles of your operations and delivery teams accordingly. Traditionally, some of these new roles may have been played by your business partners in the past. Your operations and delivery processes must be transformed to Managed Services (both in the context of telecom and non-telecom services), instead of just Delivering Services like in the past. This means that you don t just provide fiber links to a few locations of your customer s offices and sell a hundred mobile subscriptions as an addition. Instead, you start delivering a comprehensive service for several business consultants and technical employees of the enterprise located in a few locations. Your enterprise customer shouldn t care about the details. Everything must work as it should, and it is up to you how you achieve this and how you care about it. A Managed Service may refer to much more than traditional telecommunication services Cloud or M2M applications may be provided in this model. To get a clearer picture, you can always refer to industry standards. The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is crucial in relation to your customers, as it covers such elements as End-to-End Incident Management and Performance Management. Some other standards may also be useful e.g. TMF Frameworx, with its business metrics for Revenue & Margin, Customer Experience and Operational Efficiency. Summary The main goal of redefining your strategy for the enterprise segment is of course to increase the number of enterprise customers and boost revenues earned from services sold

13 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS 13 to enterprises. How much these numbers can increase depends on the decisions made when defining a strategy, as well as on churn rates directly related to your operations and delivery teams. Finding the right partner for the project and planning the desired IT architecture carefully, based on your company s requirements and the vendor s expertise, will get you a step closer to improving the offer for your enterprise customers. However, in order to achieve your ultimate goal of complete satisfaction for enterprise customers, you have to analyze and understand the needs of your clients, find out what really matters to them and who the final user of your service is. By possessing that knowledge, you can perfectly tailor your products and services to fit the needs of your enterprise customers and deliver an offer that will push your success in that segment. The metrics related to the success of your transformation project indicate that it is always a good idea to redesign the strategy and, as a result, really improve customer experience and achieve a competitive position on the market. It is enough to take a look at some figures for telecom transformations: average time-to-market for new product offerings can be decreased from months to weeks or even days. Mean Time Order-To-Activation can even fall by up to 90%. Many other indicators can also be improved, depending on the areas of IT architecture that are part of the transformation process. To sell differently and operate in a new way, you not only need to have the right IT tools, but they also need to be delivered without any problems and the success of such a project directly depends on successful cooperation with the vendor or system integrator that you select, as well as on the methodology of introducing the changes in your architecture and organization. Enterprise customers do not always expect the full bells and whistles treatment. What they do expect however, is to be able to run their businesses in an optimized way and therefore they need tools to facilitate this.

14 14 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS Loyalty what loyalty?

15 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS 15 T elesperience Chief Analyst Teresa Cottam looks at why there is little loyalty amongst European SMEs towards their service provider, and argues this is both a business risk and an opportunity. The small and medium sized enterprise (SME) market is the new hot target for many European communications service providers (CSPs). Hyper competition in the consumer market, and thinning margins in the enterprise market, mean that many embattled CSPs are now turning the spotlight on the long underserved SME market. There are sound reasons for this strategy: the market potential is enormous and the timing is right. Over 99% of European businesses are SMEs, and they employ 67.1% of the European workforce. What s more, Gartner said in October that it is forecasting European ICT spending will move back into growth in 2013, reaching $1.247 trillion by The problem is though that, CSPs are starting from a weak position. Telesperience research reveals a very low level of loyalty in the SME sector 80% of SMEs we talked to during our recent programme said they are planning to churn or are open to churn. What does this mean in practice? Well, creating loyalty isn t easy. Transforming SMEs into loyal and engaged customers will require CSPs to have competitive and differentiated offers in place, be able to deliver against their promises, and be able to resolve problems quickly and efficiently. This means being able to create dedicated SME portals that encourage self-service in a manner that decreases the cost of supporting SMEs but also provides a better customer experience for them by giving them the tools to order new products, change tariff plans or adjust service or spending controls. By providing services that appeal to SMEs, CSPs can create stickiness attracting and retaining the most lucrative SMEs. Some services though are perceived as being more valuable to SMEs than others. To find out which these are download our Research Paper which is free thanks to sponsorship from Comarch. The paper reveals the findings from a study of 298 European SMEs, and explains which services SMEs value most, what frustrates them, and the differences between countries. With this invaluable insight you can start honing your SME strategy today and position yourself to be one of the big winners in this sector. It s true that low levels of loyalty are a business risk and do not provide a firm foundation for creating a SME business. However, rather than see this as a problem, the most strategic CSPs will see this as an opportunity. It means there are few entrenched incumbents in this market, and that customers are willing to be persuaded to churn to a better service. In other words, the sector is wide open for product and service innovation backed up by high levels of operational efficiency. To find out for yourself what SMEs want and value, go to our website and read the free report: (You will be required to register.) Telesperience Strategy Insight: How European CSPs can create new revenue streams by meeting the needs of SMEs Teresa Cottam is the Chief Analyst and Founder Telesperience, an independent telecoms IT analyst company. She has more than 18 years industry experience and was previously an Associate Principal Analyst with UK-based telecoms consultancy Analysys Mason, covering the billing, CRM and service delivery sectors. Before that she was Research and Publications Director at Chorleywood Consulting, a specialist BSS/ OSS consultancy which was acquired by Informa Telecoms and Media. Prior to this she was Managing Editor at industry analysts Ovum.

16 16 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS To outsource or not to outsource. Is someone else able to solve your problems? T oday s economic circumstances call for efficiency on all stages of business activities. This is particularly important for BSS/OSS vendors and telecom operators struggling with falling average revenue per user (ARPU), the cost of introducing new technologies and monetizing the surge in data traffic. Faced with these challenges, operators are looking for ways to transform their IT environments, to shorten time-to-market, improve customer experience and reduce operational costs.

17 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS 17 But this article is not just about monetary issues. Leave these to your accountants, while we ll examine other aspects far more fundamental to business operations. Mobile Network providers run numerous procedures related to network design and operations, as well as business and administrative activities. Examples of such activities range from network planning and optimisation, through to maintenance and operations, up to service assurance and billing. These processes have never been simple nor easy to manage, and the future will only exacerbate problems, as more technological platforms come into play. Outsourcing benefits Outsourcing these routine procedures in a Managed Services model may free up resources and allow operators to focus on core business processes establishing and maintaining relationships with clients. An outsourcing partner may be more effective, thanks to using a larger pool of IT expertise and resources. Scale effects may also be leveraged, as one Managed Service provider can offer the same kind of service to multiple operators (albeit with different KPIs specified for each one). As a result, routine engineering and administrative procedures can be executed in a better, cheaper and faster way. The abovementioned facts can justify Managed Services models as a serious alternative to executing in-house activities. However, the real gains from outsourcing are located elsewhere. Telecom operators often discover inefficiencies on various stages of their engineering, operational and administrative procedures. Historical reasons and the silo structures of telecom companies, as well as the necessity to continuously adhere to existing procedures, are usually the causes of these inefficiencies. It is worth remembering that the professional experience of telecom operators staff is usually limited to single project involvement, resulting in a lack of a broader view of the organization of engineering and administrative efforts. An experienced Managed Services partner can help a telecom service provider accumulate knowledge gained through involvement in numerous projects over time. Thus, commissioning a Managed Services deal to such a company enables a telecom operator to learn from any mistakes that have been made by others in the past. Outsourcing is not magical remedy - prerequisites of the effectiveness Regardless of the selected delivery model, outsourcing operations or resolving all issues in-house cannot be done quickly and effectively without an efficient, information-centric IT architecture. Breaking the existing information silos and correlating data coming from multiple sources is a key factor influencing the effectiveness and speed of problem solving. On top of that, such an architecture provides complete visibility regarding the context of issues and allows businesses to proactively design customized solutions to the most important issues affecting clients. In other words, superior performance is only possible when supported by a superior IT infrastructure. A properly crafted IT solution can help cut costs, speed up services and technology delivery times and create standardized, open and integrated IT ecosystems. Some business functions of such an ecosystem constitute a strategic asset of every telecom provider, therefore outsourcing options need to be considered with great care. Customer Experience is a good example of an area that should be carefully considered before outsourcing as it constitutes an important market differentiator. A critical business function, such as Customer Experience Management should be controlled by the operator itself. However, the underlying IT infrastructure supporting this function can be delivered in a Managed Services model. An experienced outsourcing partner can offer a far more advanced solution than any other telecom operator can design and operate on its own, but business logic should be developed and controlled by the service provider. In other words, a data processing platform can be delivered by an outsourcing partner, while the business logic should remain a proprietary one. and the winner is Outsourcing is always worth considering, especially if coupled with the reshaping of business and operational procedures. The execution of any tasks outside company premises is no threat to the service provider s competiveness, as long as the main ideas, how to attract and address customers are kept inhouse. A cost/benefit analysis, the current IT landscape and the efficiency and limitations of the existing systems and procedures should all be taken into consideration when weighing various delivery options. Managed Services coupled with business transformations can be particularly attractive, especially if delivered by a reputable and experienced partner. ANDRZEJ WĄŻ-AMBROŻEWICZ Comarch SA Radio Networks & Managed Services Product Manager, Telecommunications Business Unit IDEAS IN BRIEF: Outsourcing routine procedures in a Managed Services model An experienced outsourcing partner offering advanced solutions Superior performance only possible when supported by a superior IT infrastructure

18 18 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS Towards a perfect offer for enterprises from connectivity pipes to tailored business solutions

19 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS 19 A new era of CSP-Enterprise relationship It was not long ago that many enterprise customers, especially the ones with multiple locations, used to have their own infrastructure departments; managing all of the office communication infrastructure. This kind of enterprise customer had network expertise, as well as exact expectations as to what services were necessary to be delivered by their CSP (communications service provider). Those services were usually only raw communication pipes. Such customers also used to define precisely what connectivity service they needed e.g. the bandwidth required to have their location connected but also VPNs, traffic classes and their prioritization. In other words, it was the customer s responsibility to translate their own business requirements into low-level communication services and technology. ŁUKASZ MENDYK Comarch SA OSS Product Manager, Telecommunications Business Unit The economy slowdown has changed the situation significantly. Cost pressure has forced even big enterprise customers to consider outsourcing their existing infrastructure and IT departments. CSPs on the other hand, need to look for new sources of revenues, as those from traditional telecom services have gone flat or down. All of this means that there is room for both CSPs and enterprises to enter new areas of mutually beneficial cooperation. Enterprise customers need to delegate designing the connectivity and office infrastructure to CSPs. CSPs can thus generate new revenues through providing additional value for enterprises by taking the responsibility for matching their business requirements with the underlying telecom- IT infrastructure. This means CSPs can enrich their portfolio with hype services such as managed LAN or Cloud services. Enterprises, however, will be expecting the CSPs to not only deliver communication pipes, but a complete solution i.e. a comprehensive platform, which enhances the productivity of the enterprise customer s employees in their everyday work. This article will refer to it as a productivity platform. From connectivity pipes to a complete productivity platform Individual employees of an enterprise do not directly use the communication pipes, but rather the services that those pipes deliver. The communication-based services used by those employees may range from traditional voice services (including fixed and mobile phones), through access to collaboration suites (including a corporate system), to videoconferencing, Cloud-based office applications and business-specific IT systems (available from any office location as well as on-the-go). The business needs of an enterprise do not define what bandwidth is needed to connect individual office locations,

20 20 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS IDEAS IN BRIEF: How you can move from being a raw pipes provider to becoming a true business partner for your enterprise customers How to translate technology into business for your customers How to transform your product portfolio to better fit the current needs of enterprises How to orchestrate existing IT silos for providing enterprise services in a new way How to use product and service catalogs to help the transformation process what the necessary VPNs topology are, traffic classes and QoS. This is why they need to be translated into specifications of raw communications services, needed to support high-level business-related expectations. Traditionally, translating business requirements into raw communication services was done by the enterprise s internal IT and infrastructure departments, today a CSP can take over this role and benefit from additional revenues. At the same time, from an enterprise s perspective, being able to outsource this costly activity creates an opportunity for significant budget savings. Building a true partnership by better understanding your enterprise customers In order for CSPs to fully embrace this new role, better understanding of enterprise customers business is essential. It does not mean that CSPs need to become experts in banking, car selling, fashion retailing or any other industry, but it may mean that CSPs need to get a deeper understanding of what the business specifics of a given customer are and what requirements they create for a productivity platform; while also taking into account the necessary ICT (Information and Communications Technology) services. A good starting point is to understand what employees of an enterprise need for their everyday work. In order to achieve this, CSPs need to closely collaborate with their enterprise customers to establish a real partnership relation. It is important that the language used by CSPs to communicate with enterprises is more concentrated on value of the underlying technology, rather than on the technology itself. It is also crucial that CSPs identify the number of enterprise employees and their types, to take their individual requirements into account when designing the productivity platform. For example, a sales representative may need to access the enterprise selling platform or stay in touch with his / her customers, and do these things when both working from the office and on-the-go. A back-office employee, on the other hand, may not need such a high level of remote access, but may need to have an extended access to all back-office systems, located in the company s data center or in the public Cloud. Having defined the types of employees, who will be supported by the productivity platform, a CSP can more confidently speak the business language about a given enterprise. Speaking the business language of enterprise customers For a business-oriented manager, representing an enterprise customer, it may be challenging to justify paying a CSP for VPNs, support for high-quality traffic classes or other technology-oriented services, because of the difficulty in matching them with the high-level business needs. This is why CSPs need to learn to speak the business language that nontechnical managers can easily understand. Equipped with this new capability, CSPs will be able to offer products that are much more than communication pipes. For example, if a CSP can offer a productivity platform, which can support X sales representatives, Y back office employees and Z customers of the given enterprise, then a business-oriented manager can easily map the costs of the CSPs products with their value for the business. Moreover, in this model an enterprise s managers do not have to choose the underlying communication technology, leaving this decision to the CSP, who chooses the appropriate technology so as to provide a service that will bring the commonly agreed extra value to the given enterprise. Once more CSPs embrace this approach, enterprises will be able to freely choose between the offerings delivered by various telecom service providers. This will create a new dimension in the competition between telecoms whoever will have the competence to best transform the underlying communication technology into real business value, will win. As enterprises will be able to better understand the communication offers and the extra value that they bring to the business metrics, they will be more inclined to bare the extra costs. This creates a world of new possibilities for revenue from the enterprise segment for the whole CSP community. A new approach to services for enterprises where to start? Transformation from selling communication pipes to selling complete productivity platforms to enterprises entails a need to introduce new products. The old products may thus be degraded to technical services that will not be sold directly to enterprise customers, but will still be needed to support the new offers. Trying to look at it from the TMF SID model s perspective, it means that old products and the related Customer Facing Services (CFS) are degraded to play the role of Resource Facing Services (RFS). This relates to the concept of modeling business and technical aspect of telecom products, which is further elaborated in a separate whitepaper: How to align the business and technical side of products and shorten time to market. The best way to introduce the new products is to apply a stepby-step approach, where the existing products and the systems that support them don t need to be replaced. Instead, these old products and systems, quite often located in sep-

21 IN FOCUS: ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS 21 arate silos in a CSP s BSS/OSS ecosystem, can be orchestrated to deliver new value to the customer. To better understand this concept, please refer to the product modeling depicted on Figure 1. Product catalog «Product» EnterpriseWorkspace «Product» Employee profile «Product» CloudServiceBundle «Product» Fixed&Mobile «Product» Cloud Based Office Suite Service catalog «CFS» Employee profile «CFS» MobileVoice «CFS» FixedVoice VoIP «CFS» BroadBandAcces «CFS» VPN «RFS» VPN «CFS» InternetAcces «CFS» Cloud Based Office Suite «CFS» PC «RFS» MobileVoice «RFS» FixedVoice VoIP «RFS» BroadBandAcces «RFS» InternetAcces «RFS» Cloud Based Office Suite «RFS» PC Fixed&Mobile Silo Data silo Cloud Services #1 Managed LAN «Product» Fixed&Mobile «CFS» VPN «RFS» Cloud Based Office Suite «RFS» PC «RFS» Router «CFS» MobileVoice «CFS» FixedVoice «CFS» BroadBandAcces «CFS» InternetAcces Figure 1. New products spanning across multiple silos The picture presents a situation, where a new product called Enterprise Workspace is decomposed into many Employee Profiles, which play the role of enterprise products. These new products are mapped onto the old products, such as fixed and mobile phone services, VPNs and the related IT applications, which a given employee need to access to be productive. Even if an enterprise won t order these old products directly, but will instead, for example, define how many sales representatives will be using the product (modeled as an Employee Profile ), the system should be able to translate it to orders composed of existing products and then issue orders for VPNs, broadband accesses, fixed, mobile voice services etc. This article is an abstract of a more detailed white paper that will be available soon for downloading at Comarch website.

22 22 HOT TOPIC: M2M Are you ready to catch the M2M market opportunities?

23 HOT TOPIC: M2M 23 W hether you believe the 50 billion connected devices forecasted by AT&T by 2020 or the 1 trillion connected devices projected by IBM for 2015, it is safe to say that M2M is an exploding marketplace that brings new challenges and opportunities to companies worldwide. (Kontron) Revenue does not scale with cost Machine to machine (M2M) communication exacts as much toll on network resources as person to person (P2P) or person to machine (P2M) communication, in terms of attachment or location update capacity, paging requests or opened sessions. In fact, operators must add a new radio access network (RAN) access channel for each new 1000 devices. At the same time, M2M communication often generates very little traffic, hence commanding very low average revenue per unit (ARPU). Charging must be flexible and real-time To support the diverse world of M2M applications, subscription models must be highly flexible and allow basic composition: flat for life, flat per year, per connection, per message, In particular, M2M subscriptions must easily blend with prepaid models, sometimes in a very dynamic manner. For instance, consumers must be able to rent short lived M2M services and charge their prepaid account for these. Pre-provisioning is no longer an option Keeping expensive resources tied up to inactive M2M devices is simply not an option for operators. Routing entries in network databases must be provisioned at the time a device is first activated and used, not when the device is manufactured or registered with the operator. Furthermore, when devices roam to other networks, the inbound and outbound operators must have the option to re-home the device from home to visited network in a secure way, without exchanging highly confidential information such as encryption keys. Fortunately, in these issues lie opportunities to differentiate These challenges entice operators to think about how M2M affects network utilization and how to revisit the core infrastructure so that the cost of the RAN scales only at a tiny fraction of the M2M device growth curve. This is all about controlling network device attachments (priority and time control, number of M2M devices connected to the network, etc ), as well as pooling network addresses (MSISDN) among devices, along with real-time provisioning of network resources when devices get switched on for the first time. In addition to this, proper handling of M2M requires adequate billing with flexible and scalable M2M service commercialization. This can be achieved by integrating charging control in the core of the network, in a way that is fully compatible with existing online charging systems (e.g. prepaid). Last but not the least, enhanced security can also become a key differentiator: the ability of re-homing devices between partner networks, without compromising sensitive information such as encryption keys for example, or that of preventing invalid or misused devices from registering to the network can allay the fears of partner operators and thus make it practical to strike global alliances. Comarch partners with Buzzinbees who has developed patented technology allowing to deploy M2M solutions to address these opportunities. Do you agree that now is a good time to consider a M2M project? THIERRY GERACI Buzzinbees Global Sales and Business Development Director Thierry Geraci is in charge of Global Sales and Business Development at Buzzinbees since the company creation in Previously, he worked for the HP telecom division and was in charge of business development for large accounts -network equipment providers and software vendors- and product marketing. Prior to holding this position, he subsequently worked in R&D and sales, first as a project manager for naval communication systems and then as sales manager in the telecommunication domain. You can discuss the ideas expressed in this article on our blog: telcosphere.comarch.com or Facebook

24 24 HOT TOPIC: M2M Impact of M2M and Internet of Things on IT architecture KRZYSZTOF KWIATKOWSKI Comarch SA Head of BSS product management, Telecommunications Business Unit T hese days all Tier-1 operators have some Machine to Machine (M2M) offer that has been available for a couple of years and this market segment can be found on various positions of their list of priorities, being even sometimes placed at number 1. Because of the development of the business, many Communication Service Providers evaluate various options related to IT platforms to support sophisticated business models in the area of M2M. Depending on the selected options of the M2M platform and business models, it can have varying impacts on the entire IT architecture. There are various options regarding the implementation of an M2M platform in-house (build by own IT department), software as a service (e.g. Jasper Wireless), partnership (e.g. with Vodafone) or licensed (e.g. from Comarch). These options have already been discussed in my article How Telecom Operators Stay Independent in the Strategic M2M Business published in Technology Review no. 2/2012 [15] and in Pipeline, Volume 8, Issue 10. M2M impact on EAI architecture As presented in Figure 1, an M2M Platform must be integrated with the many existing systems that operators already use. The most important ones include: Provisioning System in most cases M2M platforms will not have direct access to equipment such as existing HLR. The existing provisioning system can be used however, and the M2M