OSS is an industry that's undergoing constant, and massive change. But it still hasn't been disrupted in the modern sense of that term. It's still waiting to have its Uber/AirBnB-moment, where the old way becomes almost obsoleted by the introduction of a new way. OSS is not just waiting, but primed for disruption. It's a massive industry in terms of revenues, but it's still far from…
Read More »Let's admit it; we've all worked on an OSS project that has gone into a period of extended stagnation because of a fear of the unknown. I call them "What if?" scenarios. They're the scenarios where someone asks, "What if x happens?" and then the team gets side-tracked whilst finding an answer / resolution. The problem with "What if?" scenarios is that many of them will never happen,…
Read More »U Mobile renews Business Support System deal with Ericsson. Ericsson has further extended its partnership with U Mobile Sdn Bhd to transform the Malaysian telecommunications service provider’s Business Support System (BSS) into an industrialized, real-time converged environment. Originally signed in 2012, the partnership has been extended for another five years until 2022. In the ongoing contract, Ericsson is responsible for competence development, solution design, deployment and…
Read More »Netcracker's Solution to Provide Tele Columbus Group With Comprehensive Billing and Charging Capabilities Across B2B and B2C. Netcracker Technology announced that Tele Columbus has selected Netcracker's Revenue Management solution as the single billing and charging system for the entire Tele Columbus Group, which has grown substantially following its acquisition of Primacom and Pepcom. The scope of Netcracker's solution covers both B2B and B2C markets and will…
Read More »In a post last week, we quoted Jim Rohn who said, "You can have more – if you become more." Jim was surely speaking about personal growth, but we equated it to OSS needing to become more too, especially by looking beyond the walls of operations. Your first thoughts may be, "Ohh, good idea, I'd love to get my hands on some of the CMO's budget…
Read More »Root cause analysis (RCA) is one of the great challenges of OSS. As you know, it aims to identify the probable cause of an alarm-storm, where all alarms are actually related to a single fault. In the past, my go-to approach was to start with a circuit hierarchy-based algorithm. If you had an awareness of the hierarchy of circuits, usually through an awareness in inventory, if…
Read More »Experts know a lot.... obviously. They have lots of answers... obviously. There are lots of OSS experts. Combined, they know A LOT!! Powerful indeed, but not sure if that's what we need right now. I feel like we're in a bit of an OSS innovation funk. The biggest improvements in OSS are coming from outside OSS - extrinsic improvement. Where's the intrinsic improvement coming from? Do…
Read More »"An organisation buys an OSS, not because it wants an Operational Support System, but because it wants Operational Support." So if our customers are not investing in our OSS, what are they actually investing in? Easy! They're investing in the ability to solve their own problems and opportunities in future. If we don't actually understand operations, what chance do we have to deliver operational support? We…
Read More »Nokia wins five-year managed services agreement to manage Optus' network. Nokia and Optus have signed a five-year agreement under which Nokia will manage and maintain key components of Optus' network infrastructure, operations and field maintenance. As part of the contract, Nokia and Optus will develop a Network Operations Centre (NOC), building on global best practices and leveraging local talent to deliver higher performance networks. Consumers are…
Read More »The exposure effect (no, not the one circulating through Hollywood) has a few interesting implications for OSS. "The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them." Wikipedia In effect, it's the repetition that drills familiarity, comfort, but also bias, into our sub-conscious. Repetition doesn't make a piece of information true, but…
Read More »Omni-channel is an interesting concept because it generates two distinctly different views. The customer will use whichever channel (eg digital, apps, contact-centre, IVR, etc) that they want to use. The service provider will try to push the customer onto whichever channel suits the service provider best. The customer will often want to use digital or apps, back-ended by OSS - whether that's to place an order,…
Read More »“You can have more - if you become more.” Jim Rohn. I believe that this is as true of our OSS as it is of ourselves. Many people use the name Operational Support Systems to put an electric fence around our OSS, to limit uses to just operational activities. However, the reach, awareness and power of what they (we) offer goes far beyond that. We have…
Read More »"It's not unusual for something to be positioned as the high performance alternative. The car that can go 0 to 60 in three seconds, the corkscrew that's five times faster, the punch press that's incredibly efficient... The thing is, though, that the high performance vs. low performance debate misses something. High at what? That corkscrew that's optimized for speed is more expensive, more difficult to operate…
Read More »Check out the video below, which gives an example of the 10 minute / 1 minute / 10 second challenge (you can check out more of them here). When given 10 minutes to sketch Spiderman, the result is far richer than when the artist is given only 10 seconds... well obviously!! But let me pose a question. If Sketch B was compiled from 60 sequential 10s…
Read More »"...good argument for a merged OSS/BSS, wouldn't you say?" John Malecki. The question above was posed in relation to Friday's post about the currency and relevance of OSS compared with research reports, analyses and strategic plans as well as how to extend OSS longevity. This is a brilliant, multi-faceted question from John. My belief is that it is a double-edged sword. Out of my experiences with…
Read More »"With the increasing pace of change, the moment a research report, competitive analysis, or strategic plan is delivered to a client, its currency and relevance rapidly diminishes as new trends, issues, and unforeseen disrupters arise." Soren Kaplan. By the same token as the quote above, does it follow that the currency and relevance of an OSS rapidly diminishes as soon as it is delivered to a…
Read More »"Change happens when YOU and I DO things. Not when we argue." James Altucher. We recently discussed how ego can cause stagnation in OSS delivery. The same post also indicated how smart contracts potentially streamline OSS delivery and change management. Along similar analytical lines, there's a structural shift underway in traditional business consulting, as described in a recent post contrasting "clean" and "dirty" consulting. There's an…
Read More »Yesterday's post about egos in OSS contained the following Dilbert cartoon: . It reminded me of a story from many years ago. I was working in a developing country, advising the board of a tier-one telco on the implementation of their first-ever OSS (they'd only ever operated their networks at NMS level previously). During the analysis phase I came across some data that showed an interesting…
Read More »"A long, long time ago Dennis Haslinger told me that most of the most serious mistakes I would make in life would be bad ego decisions. I have found that to be true." Gary Halbert. OSS is an industry filled with highly intelligent people. In every country I've visited to work on OSS assignments, perhaps excluding Vietnam, my colleagues have been predominantly male. Dare I say…
Read More »Yesterday we talked about the cuckoo-bird analogy and how it was preventing telcos from building more valuable platforms on top of their capital-intensive network platforms. Thanks to Dean Bubley, it gave examples of how the most successful platform plays were platforms on platforms (eg Microsoft Office on Windows, iTunes on iOS, phones on physical networks, etc). The telcos have found it difficult to build the second…
Read More »"The cuckoo bird is infamous for laying its eggs in other birds' nests. The young cuckoos grow much faster than the rightful occupants, forcing the other chicks out - if they haven't already physically knocked the other eggs overboard. (See "brood parasitism", here). Analogies exist quite widely in technology - a faster-growing "tenant" sometimes pushes out the offspring of the host. Arguably Microsoft's original Windows OS…
Read More »