"Being selective — doing less — is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest." Tim Ferriss. When speaking with a great friend of mine today, Eddie, I came to the startling realisation that in nearly 700 blog posts, I have forgotten to speak about a major misgiving that many people have when setting expectations for their OSS. Many of…
Read More »"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are." Roy Disney. In this earlier post about decision engineering, I spoke of "closing the loop" to help operators to make better decisions using their OSS / DSS (Decision Support System) tools. Today, I thought I'd use a diagram to better show what I had in mind. The following helps to describe this diagram: Action…
Read More »"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be." John Wooden. An attribute of many games is the ability to fail, get back up and try again in a slightly different way. If you fail again, you keep getting back up and trying again in slightly different ways, getting better at the game each time. If you're an operator, does your OSS allow you to…
Read More »Shaw Communications Selects NetCracker to Drive Business Agility and Speed to Market. NetCracker Technology announced that Shaw Communications Inc. is deploying the Order Entry, Order Management, Product/Sales Catalogue and Service Library from the NetCracker 9 Product Suite. These new products will assist Shaw in better serving its customer base by cutting operational costs, improving speed-to-market for new services, and accelerating its order-to-cash cycle. Shaw Communications Inc.…
Read More »"The Sabre (Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment) central reservation system, which was originally a part of American Airlines, pioneered online transactions. For the first time, computers were connected together through a network that allowed people around the world to enter data, process requests for information and conduct business. This system revolutionized the entire travel industry and formed the beginnings of the comprehensive and established system used today…
Read More »ThingWorx Powers Largest Japan Mobile Service Provider NTT DOCOMO M2M Cloud Solution "ThingWorx, a leading Internet of Things (IoT) platform provider, announced NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s largest mobile service provider, has partnered with ThingWorx and Nippon Systemware Co., Ltd (NSW) for its new M2M cloud solutions powered by the ThingWorx platform. Serving more than 63 million customers, NTT DOCOMO operates a high-quality nationwide 3G network and one…
Read More »“When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience of nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like, but in all my experience, I have never been in any accident of any sort worth speaking about…I never saw a wreck and never been wrecked, nor have I been in…
Read More »"Always speak politely to an enraged dragon." Steven Brust. Regular readers will have noticed my penchant for referring to the Pareto Principle (aka the 80/20 rule). I'm a big believer in focusing on streamlining the high-use or highly important items of OSS implementations. OSS are simply too big and too complex to get bogged down in the minutiae. But for those with a slant for the…
Read More »AT&T creates $500M joint venture for a Netflix-style TV service AT&T, America’s second largest broadband provider and wireless company, is getting into the streaming business with a $500 million joint venture created to acquire, invest in and launch a Netflix-style video streaming service. As the television distribution model that’s been in place for decades collapses online, this deal marks the first time a big U.S. ISP…
Read More »NewWave Communications Agrees to Long-Term Extension for Converged BSS with NetCracker. NetCracker Technology announced today that NewWave Communications has agreed to a long-term extension for its converged BSS and customer self-service solutions. NewWave Communications provides cable TV, broadband and voice services to consumers and businesses in the Southern and Midwestern United States. This five-year agreement renews NewWave and NetCracker’s ongoing partnership for advanced, converged revenue management…
Read More »"A merger is hard to pull off under any circumstances. It's harder when everybody is against you." Carly Fiorina. As mentioned yesterday, in a merger / acquisition situation where there are two distinct OSS, it's common for the stronger of the organisations in the partnership to dictate the technical direction. It's also for the stronger group to proceed with the systems they're familiar with and perhaps…
Read More »"Every single time you make a merger, somebody is losing his identity. And saying something different is just rubbish." Carlos Ghosn. Today's blog is derived from a wonderful question from a subscriber to the PAOSS blog. She asked: I would be interested to know more about Data integrity/Synchronization approach and challenges, especially when various mergers/acquisitions involved. Due to this reason service provider has various Inventory systems and none of…
Read More »Champion Broadband Signs Multi-Year Renewal for NetCracker Revenue Management Solution. NetCracker Technology announced that Champion Broadband has agreed to a multi-year renewal for its fully hosted Revenue Management solution. This managed service will continue to support and enable Champion’s end-to-end order-to-cash process for its residential, SMB and B2B service offerings. Founded in 2003, Champion Broadband is a cable TV, Internet and telephony provider serving major urban…
Read More »China Unicom deploys Impact 360 Speech Analytics from Verint Systems. Verint(R) Systems Inc. announced that Shanghai Unicom, a subsidiary of China Unicom--a leading telecommunications carrier in China--is gaining continued value, following its implementation of Impact 360(R) Speech Analytics(TM) . The organization uses the software to help uncover underlying customer issues and key drivers of calls into its contact center. Using Verint's speech analytics software--part of the…
Read More »"If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will." Mother Teresa. In recent times I've regularly blogged on mining and presenting data collected from OSS databases. But today I have a fascinating paper on human psychology to discuss that may make you think again at how you wish to present your information if you wish to persuade.…
Read More »"To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life flowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future." Bertrand Russell. Wow! A team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has developed Wi-Power technology that…
Read More »"Our communications services revenue growth is being driven by continued strong top-line performance in data, Internet and international - three of the fastest growing and most profitable areas within communications services." Bernard Ebbers. For those of you who don't know, Bernie Ebbers was the CEO of WorldCom. He was also convicted of fraud and conspiracy in 2005 in relation to falsified financial reporting at WorldCom and…
Read More »"Datafication" is a new term used to describe the process of turning an existing business into a "data business." Bersin. We've had industrialisation and digitalisation. Are we already on the brink of a new business model mindset? Datafication. Many industries are now producing and storing prodigious amounts of data, of which OSS is one of the leading exponents. The digitalisation age and it's technological improvements is ensuring…
Read More »"You can motivate by fear. And you can motivate by reward. But both of these methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self-motivation." Homer Rice. When it comes to OSS operators, I'm not a particularly strong believer in the carrot or stick approach to motivation to gain outstanding results using the tools they're provided with. I'm going to divert slightly here with an analogous…
Read More »"Strategy making needs to function beyond the boxes to encourage the informal learning that produces new perspectives and new combinations... Once managers understand this, they can avoid other costly misadventures caused by applying formal techniques, without judgement and intuition, to problem solving." Henry Mintzberg. Henry Mintzberg described the following strategic approaches / perspectives: Strategy as plan – a specific set of actions intended to achieve a…
Read More »"The fluttering of a butterfly’s wing in Rio de Janeiro, amplified by atmospheric currents, could cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later." Edward Lorenz. I'm currently reading "The Click Moment" by Frans Johansson. It discusses many interesting stories about rapid change and randomness in our daily lives. One such story describes how Edward Lorenz ran a weather prediction simulation using the number 0.506127 as a…
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