Do I support the death penalty (of OSS RFPs)? Hmmm….

As per yesterday’s post, I’ll continue to reference a TM Forum report called, “Time to kill the RFP? Reinventing IT procurement for the 2020s” today. Mark Newman and the team have captured and discussed so many layers to the OSS/BSS procurement process.

There’s no doubt the current stereotypical RFP approach to procurement is broken. It needs to be done differently. That’s why we have been doing it differently with customers for years now (another hint regarding a project we’re getting excited to announce this Monday).

The TM Forum report is really powerful and well worth a read. There are a few additional (and somewhat random) thoughts that go through my head when considering the death of the RFP:

  1. The TM Forum report is primarily coming at the problem from the perspective of a carrier that is constantly steering the development of its own systems, as implied through this quote, “The fundamental problem with the RFP process is that in a fast-paced technology environment, where cloud and software are fast becoming preferred options, it is difficult for CSPs to describe in lengthy, written documents what they want and need. The processes are simply too complex and cumbersome to support modern, Agile methods of working.”
  2. That perspective is particularly applicable for some buyers, ones that have committed to having significant developer resources available to build exactly what they want. That could be in the form of in-house developers, contract developers, long-term panel arrangements with suppliers or similar
  3. Others, perhaps such as utilities, enterprise and some telcos want to focus on their core business and delegate OSS/BSS configuration and customisation to third-parties.
  4. Some of those rely on COTS (commercial off the shelf) software to leverage the benefits of innovation, cost and development time that have been spread across multiple customers. Their budgets simply don’t allow for custom-built solutions
  5. COTS, be it on-prem through to cloud service models, are almost never going to be a perfect fit for a buyer’s needs. They’re designed to generically suit many buyers, so a certain amount of bloat becomes part of the trade-off
  6. In recent weeks, I’ve seen two entirely in-house developed OSS/BSS. They fit their organisations like a glove and there’s almost no bloat at all. In fact it would be almost impossible for a COTS solution to replace what they’ve built. In both cases it’s taken a decade of ongoing development to get to that position. Most buyers don’t have that amount of time to get it right though unfortunately
  7. Commercial realities imply a pragmatic approach is taken to procurement – which product/s provide default capability that best aligns with the buyer’s most important objectives.
  8. RFPs often get bogged down at the far right-hand side of the long-tail of requirements (where impact tends to be negligible), or in trying to completely re-sculpt the solution to be the perfect fit (that it’s unlikely to ever be)
  9. In my experience at least, the best-fit (not perfect fit) solution, or very short list of solutions, usually becomes apparent fairly quickly [we’ll share more about how we do that tomorrow]. It’s then just a case of testing objectives, assumptions and gaps (eg via a proof-of-concept) and getting to a mutually beneficial commercial agreement
  10. As one respondent in the TM Forum report put it, “The RFP glorifies the process, not the outcome.” A healthy dose of outcome-driven pragmatism helps to reduce glorification of the RFP process
  11. Also in my experience at least, scope of works quotes from vendors (which RFPs tend to lead to) tend to be written in a waterfall style that don’t fit into Agile frameworks very effectively. That can be partially overcome by slicing and dicing the SoW in ways that are more conducive to Agile delivery
  12. With so much fragmentation in the OSS/BSS market already (there are over 400 in our vendor directory), that means the talent pool of creators is thinly spread. Many of those 400 have duplicated functionality, which isn’t great for the industry’s overall progress. Custom development for each different buyer spreads the talent pool even further… unless buyers can get economies of development scale through shared platforms like ONAP

In summary, I love the concept of avoiding massive procurement events. I still can’t help but think the RFP still fits in there somewhere for many buyers… as long as we ensure we glorify the outcomes and de-emphasise the process. It’s just that we use RFPs like a primitive instrument and inflict blunt-force trauma, rather than using surgical precision.

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