No telco wants to buy an OSS/BSS
When you’re a senior exec in a telco and you’ve been made responsible for allocating resources, it’s unlikely that you ever think, “gee, we really should give our operations teams some new operations systems (OSS/BSS) to work with.” It would be nice if they did, but that’s just not what they’re thinking about. For the […]
Technology proliferation: Navigating across the OSS savannah
Back in my early days of OSS, I knew there was soooo much to learn. As the signpost below suggests, as well as the OSS applications themselves, there were also adjacent / related fields like databases, networks, services, architecture, programming, and so much more. Pretty daunting! But after a few years in the industry, I […]
$500M at the speed of trust – One big difference between Warren Buffett and the OSS industry
We’ve recently been talking about the chasm between OSS buyers and sellers. OSS buyers and sellers desperately need each other to improve the effectiveness of the entire telecommunications industry. The size of the chasm is harming both sides. In part 2 of the “buyer-seller chasm” series, three of the biggest contributing factors were identified as: […]
The rise of the super-ISP and a whole-quilt OSS solution
The early 2000s (when I first started out in, and fell in love with, the OSS industry) saw many Tier-1 telcos make large OSS and BSS transformation investments. Prior to that, they’d largely run their operations from NMS level and/or using home-grown systems. Since there weren’t many existing OSS to unseat, these projects were mostly […]
Similarities and differences between airlines and telco industries
The airline industry is comprised of many regional carriers. There is no global carrier (although there are alliances). Each continent has multiple airlines. There are also local / regional airlines. Airlines of different sizes, business models and target customers. Different service offerings and different look & feel in terms of the customer experience (CX). This […]
What will you do if the telco industry dies?
Christel Heydemann, Orange’s CEO, brought to our attention at MWC 2023 that a survey of European telcos indicated that almost half of the polled CEOs do not expect their businesses to make it through another decade. That’s a pretty scary thing to think about if you’ve built your career around the telco industry and don’t […]
Closing the OSS Buyer / Seller chasm – More solutions (part 5)
This is the fifth of the “buyer / seller” chasm articles (pt1, pt2, pt3, pt4). We’d previously highlighted the issues, the pain points, the sources of friction and more about getting Buyers and Sellers together to build better telcos. But in today’s article we’ll complete the solutions list that we started on in part four, […]
Closing the OSS Buyer / Seller chasm – Solutions (part 4)
This is the fourth of the “buyer / seller” chasm articles (pt1, pt2, pt3). We’ve already highlighted the issues, the pain points, the sources of friction and more about getting Buyers and Sellers together to build better telcos. But in today’s article we’ll explore some possibilities for how to overcome those challenges by building bridges […]
Using a complete re-framing to reduce the OSS Buyer / Seller chasm (part 3)
This is the third part of a series that looks into the chasm that exists between OSS/BSS buyers (eg carriers, ISPs, utilities, etc) and sellers (OSS/BSS product vendors). In part 2 we pondered whether it’s possible to target a 10x reduction in operational costs. We’ll take a closer look into what this means with the […]
How can we reduce the size of the OSS buyer-seller chasm? (part 2)
Our previous post highlighted a chasm between buyers and sellers. It has sparked quite a lot of conversation, which is exactly as intended. In another earlier post about telco reaching its burning exchange moment, we wrote: In a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress (MWC), Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal market commissioner opined, “In […]
Could it be possible? Is the telco industry’s biggest constraint a shortage of bridge builders? (part 1)
I’m currently lucky enough to be involved in a couple of vendor selection processes where we’re helping carriers (buyers) to find the best-fit OSS vendors (sellers) for their needs. Most start a vendor selection process by preparing a looooong list of requirements. This approach takes forever to write, forever to respond to and forever to […]
The AIOps Venn Dilemma
Whilst preparing our recently launched paper, “AIOps of the Future: A Definitive Guide, ” one thing came through loud and clear from the carriers we spoke with – assembling the skills-mix required to support AIOps tools / programmes. The carriers simply don’t seem to be confident in being able to find, or keep, people with […]
Who are the real heroes of your OSS project? It might not be who you think!
When I first left uni with my freshly minted degrees, whenever I thought of salespeople, I had an image something like the one below in my head. This image might still be true if you’re on the hunt for a used clunker. However, nothing could be further from the truth for the salespeople that make […]
Selling the destination of OSS and AIOps, not the transportation
Many of the readers of this blog veer towards the technical side of OSS (that includes me too) and therefore we could all do well to consider the old phrase, “Sell the destination, not the transportation.” The phrase originally suggests that a salesperson should highlight the incredible experiences waiting for the prospective traveler in Paris, […]
The OSS fireplace that is running out of heat
There’s an old parable from Earl Nightingale that I think about every day in terms of the OSS industry and the business operations of Passionate About OSS. Earl was a motivational speaker and author known for his inspiring teachings. He gained prominence in the 1950s and continued his work until his passing in 1989. One […]
The Apple Vision Pro is here: It’s an indicator to how immersive next-gen OSS/BSS will shape our connected futures
Yesterday’s release of Apple’s Vision Pro virtual reality headsets [actually, they’re not quite here like the headline says yet – apparently they’re becoming available in early 2024] provides just one more piece of evidence that our ways of interacting, communicating and working in telco are set for a transformative shift. Not just in telco, but […]
How the TowerCo carve-out model is inspiring new ways of thinking about old telco assets
In a recent blog series, we described the potential for OSS to help drive entirely new revenue / business-models that leverage the many strengths that telcos retain – Telco’s burning exchange moment – a playbook of fixes. Today’s article will take a closer look at one of the ideas under Playbook #7 – They have […]
An AR/VR product I’d love to develop. What are your thoughts?
As some of you will have spotted in past articles, I’ve spent the last couple of years working with solutions at the intersection of OSS/BSS (data) and AR/VR for visualisations and new ways of working. A couple of animated GIFs from that work are shown below. An interactive 3D model with assets identified from OSS […]
Crossing the Chasm: How to avoid flip-flopping between OSS products and services models
Are you familiar with Geoffrey Moore’s famous, “Crossing the Chasm” concept from his book of the same name? It basically describes the large gap between early adoption of a product and getting it to mainstream utilisation. With the large amount of fragmentation in the OSS/BSS market, there are clearly many products that haven’t been able […]
Let us review your OSS product development backlog and I’ll predict if there’s growth in your future
In the last year, I’ve seen RFP responses worth an accumulated total of well over $1B for network services, systems and such. In almost every case, the carrier buyers have indicated that they’re seeking innovative solutions. That’s the outward-facing commentary at least. But the real, inward-facing story is that they’re just seeking cost-reductions in most […]