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More structural holes

"...When the familiar pen-and-paper methods of self-analysis are enhanced by sensors that monitor our behavior automatically, the process of self-tracking becomes both more alluring and more meaningful." Gary Wolf. In yesterday's blog, we presented this image, which shows the gaps in EMC's social networks that prevent "perfect" information flow across their orgnas. The other message that leaps out of this diagram for me is how these…

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18/01/2014 No Comments

Structural Holes and Sociograms

"The best ideas lose their owners and take on lives of their own." N. Bushnell. In yesterday's blog, we discussed a new product to infuse innovation more deeply within a CSP via its OSS, partly based on the concept of EMC|ONE. On the back of EMC's work, they propose "Ron Burt’s theory of structural holes has proven to be influential in explaining how innovation transpires. Burt…

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17/01/2014 No Comments

Suddenlink Selects NetCracker

Suddenlink Selects NetCracker for Customer Management and CRM Transformation NetCracker Technology announced that Suddenlink Communications will implement NetCracker’s Customer Management and CRM solution to accelerate ordering and problem resolution, improve customer service efficiency, reduce training cost and effort, and minimize overall “time to serve,” in order to increase customer satisfaction. Suddenlink is a top 10 cable TV and broadband provider in the United States with approximately…

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17/01/2014 No Comments

Procera Networks selected by Tier 1 Mobile Operator

Procera Networks Receives Multi-Million Dollar Order from Tier 1 Mobile Operator in EMEA Procera Networks announced it has received a first-time, multi-million dollar order from a Tier 1 EMEA mobile operator. This operator owns ~40% market share in their home market, and is aggressively deploying advanced services that require a higher level of Internet Intelligence for both analytics and enforcement. Procera believes it was selected due…

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16/01/2014 No Comments

Swisscom selects cVidya

Swisscom selects cVidya to manage sales performance cVidya announced that Swisscom has deployed its Prospero™ system to manage the performance of 13,000 internal sales executives and external channel distributors. Using the comprehensive and easy-to-operate sales and service performance management solution, Swisscom can set business rules, adapt incentives to sales strategy and manage large volumes of commission payments. Prospero also provides individual members of the sales force…

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16/01/2014 No Comments

Net Neutrality Ruling

"The US Federal Communications Commission’s open internet rules, passed late in 2010, enforced  transparency around how ISPs handle network congestion (e.g. by prioritising certain traffic types); prohibited them from blocking certain types of traffic, such as Skype or Netflix; and barred ‘unreasonable’ discrimination, such as a telco giving Skype traffic a low priority in order to boost its own voice services. Verizon, however, challenged those rules, and…

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16/01/2014 No Comments

Institutionalised Innovation

"There are no old roads to new directions." The Boston Consulting Group. It seems apparent to me that the most successful companies are also the best at harnessing innovation. I guess there is no commoditisation at the bleeding edge. And by "harnessing," I mean establishing an environment where innovation activities are not just ad-hoc or part of some business units, but the cultivating of ideas from…

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16/01/2014 No Comments

Watch this (virtualised) space

"We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas." Michael Crichton. Thought you might be interested in this video showing the provisioning a network in software using NSX from VMware. Further info on the NSX suite can be found here: The interesting part about the second link is that Cisco is the stand-out omission from the ecosystem partners, even though they have cohabitation…

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15/01/2014 No Comments

Big ticket OSS (part 2)

"Here is a simple but powerful rule – always give people more than what they expect to get." Nelson Boswell. In yesterday's blog, we spoke of the imperative of providing a perception of having added more value to the CSP than the OSS has cost. If you're an integrator, when you finish off your OSS projects, what unexpected value-add can you easily throw in for free…

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14/01/2014 No Comments

Big ticket OSS

"Always give more in use value than what you take in cash value." Wallace D. Wattles. What does this mean exactly? Well, in the context of an OSS, it basically means that the CSP gets more value from their OSS than what they've paid a supplier / integrator for it. Given that OSS are big ticket items for most CSPs, it also means that the OSS…

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13/01/2014 No Comments

Redknee wins orders from APAC

Redknee Announces Major Follow-on Orders with APAC Tier-1 Service Provider Redknee Solutions Inc. announced that it has established pricing and terms with an acquired APAC Tier-1 service provider for Redknee’s real-time rating and charging solution for a three year term over which the customer estimates that it will purchase products and services resulting in aggregate revenues of $50 million to Redknee. The customer has issued binding…

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12/01/2014 No Comments

Just remarkable

"A company that has always done a great job of storytelling on its blog is General Electric. It’s a multibillion-dollar, multinational company, but it has always done a masterful job of creating an emotional connection to its products, services, and history through stories. In 2010, the company invited its scientist customers from around the world to submit the most beautiful medical photos they had taken with…

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12/01/2014 No Comments

ONF announces NBI working group

Reflections, Predictions from ONF "Northbound APIs will accelerate app development. While ONF has been reluctant to push for de jure standard APIs, we’ve seen demand from developers of application, orchestration, and management software for assistance in understanding northbound APIs as a critical component of a complete SDN solution – and for such APIs to be open. Verily we formed a Northbound Interfaces (NBI) Working Group to…

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11/01/2014 No Comments

Michelin stars

"Like a waiter in a Michelin-starred restaurant, a service provider needs to strike the right balance between neglecting customers and being overly attentive." Executive Leadership Summit. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has a tendency of kicking in when a customer calls a CSP, equivalent to a diner calling for the waiter to complain about the service / meal. I imagine this doesn't happen often at a Michelin-starred…

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11/01/2014 No Comments

Network Function Virtualisation Resources

"Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) explicitly targets the two biggest problems facing network operators: bringing costs in line with revenue growth expectations and improving service velocity." Rajeev Tiwari. Two helpful opinion pieces regarding NFV are shown below: Why Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)?? by Rajeev Tiwari WTF is... NFV by Tony Smith The network functions described by Mr Tiwari as suitable for virtualisation include (but certainly not limited…

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10/01/2014 No Comments

AT&T Selects Amdocs for Connected Cars

AT&T Selects Amdocs for AT&T Drive Studio, New Center to Drive Connected-Car Innovation Amdocs announced it has been selected by AT&T, the leader in the connected car, for the AT&T Drive Studio, a new center to spur the development of connected-car services and applications. AT&T announced its connected car initiative Jan. 6 at the 2014 Developer Summit alongside the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Expanding…

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09/01/2014 No Comments

OSS SMAC-down

"Wherever I see people doing something the way it's always been done, the way it's 'supposed' to be done, following the same old trends, well, that's just a big red flag to me to go look somewhere else." Mark Cuban. Has your OSS been SMAC-ed yet? Social Mobility Analytics (Big Data) Cloud (and Virtualisation) Have you implemented any OSS innovations to make use of these "next-generation"…

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09/01/2014 No Comments

Convergys to Acquire Stream

Convergys to Acquire Stream for $820 Million Convergys Corporation and Stream Global Services, Inc., both premier providers of customer management services, announced entry into a definitive merger agreement under which Convergys will acquire Stream for a total enterprise value of $820 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments, from funds managed by Ares Management and Providence Equity Partners, as well as from LiveIt, the BPO investment…

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08/01/2014 No Comments

Pareto Listening

"Sometimes, we're so eager to have an opinion that we skip the step of working to understand." Seth Godin. I'm currently reading "Power Listening - Mastering the Most Critical Business Skill of All" by Bernard Ferrari. In it, the author speaks of applying the Pareto Principle to listening. In other words, spending 80% of the time listening and only 20% talking. It's such an important trait…

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08/01/2014 No Comments

Global Warming hits OSS

"Scientists have been warning about global warming for decades. It's too late to stop it now, but we can lessen its severity and impacts." David Suzuki. We’ve all heard the stories of global warming leading to increasing occurrences of cataclysmic weather events. Further to yesterday’s blog about big data and the ever-increasing data flowing through our B/OSS, have you noticed that the frequency of event storms…

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07/01/2014 No Comments