The OctopOSS is waiting for new business models itself, but also facilitates new business models for CSPs and their customers
“Mike Flint was Warren Buffett’s personal airplane pilot for 10 years. (Flint has also flown four US Presidents, so I think we can safely say he is good at his job.) According to Flint, he was talking about his career priorities with Buffett when his boss asked the pilot to go through a 3-step exercise. […]
“Most customers buy the basic and learn to love the features, but the whole customer experience is based on trying to sell the features.” Roger Gibson. This statement appears oh-so-true in the OSS sales pitches that I’ve observed. In many cases the customer really only needs the basic, but when every vendor is selling the […]
“To become a business asset, the role of data within an organization must move from being departmentally siloed to being centrally managed. Breaking down the siloes is not necessarily a technical challenge, but an organizational one. It requires a data strategy, the correct level of ownership and corporate governance. Data-as-a-business-asset means a single definition of […]
I recently met with an old friend who is now a leading Engineer in mega construction projects (I’m talking multi-billion dollar projects here). He told me that most of the lead construction companies struggle to make a profit from the main contract due to underestimating or perhaps just competitive bidding to ensure a pipeline of […]
“Many of you here are working on digitalisation projects but I would urge you to think bigger. You need to think about business model change – with existing customers or into whole new sectors. It isn’t just about product innovation. It’s about company innovation.” Deborah Sherry at TM Forum Live! I really like the way […]
I was due to speak at TM Forum Live today but wasn’t able to make it across to France this year. However, the talk will still continue on, so if you’re in Nice please drop in to listen to Amrit Singh and Crispin Blackall talk about how Infosys and Telstra are using microservices to deliver […]
“In the world of OSS, the blind men are like the 6 (or more) different departments – operations, business, IT, sales, marketing, executive, etc. Each interacts with the OSS elephant and each has a different experience with it.” Yesterday’s post on Six blind men and an OSS elephant. Each of us, and each of the […]
The concept of digital transformation can be massive… or it can stem from something much smaller. In digital transformation, there’s a mantra of simplify then transform. That makes perfect sense, in alignment with, “The chess-board analogy,” but often overlooked. But there’s another simplification perspective to take. Let’s take the 6 blind men and the elephant […]
. Did you notice that I was channeling Bonnie Tyler in the title there? No? No matter… The concept in the diagram above is courtesy of Roger Gibson (yes, I made you [more] famous Roger). Obviously, it is showing that business models and technology are increasingly overlapping. This simple diagram also shows why the business/technology […]
“A bear jumps out of a bush and starts chasing two hikers. They both start running for their lives, but then one of them stops to put on his running shoes. His friends says, “What are you doing? You can’t out-run a bear!” His friend replies, “I don’t have to out-run the bear. I only […]
When we distill it down, what are telcos selling? They’re selling connections. Whether it’s connecting with information, a group, another person, even a virtual assistant or machine-to-machine, we tend to use communications services to connect. Networks are an important component to establish those connections. OSS go a step further. They help to establish a connection […]
I’ve been seeing a lot of references to continual development methodologies lately (ie references to agile, DevOps, CI/CD, etc). Quotes like focus on projects rather than the mission statement, focus on products rather than projects, etc. The core principle is in chunking workload down into modular pieces that can be implemented to give flexibility and […]
“Don’t be involved in 50 or 100 things. That’s a Noah’s Ark way of investing – you end up with a zoo that way. Put meaningful amounts of money in a few things you know well.” Warren Buffett. There are a lot of OSS products on the market. From that list, you can probably name […]
If you’re using an OSS/BSS and/or IVR in your role with a service provider, are you able to tell what’s causing customer contacts and why? For example, do you know which customer-facing products are leading to the highest proportion of calls into your contact centre? If so, are you able to determine why (eg recharge, […]
Success leaves footprints… and so does failure. This statement is probably true in any field but especially so in OSS. One of the reasons I follow the OSS industry so closely is because I’m always on the lookout for clues. Clues that track both sets of footprints to understand why. An organisation that consistently gets […]
Whenever I look at telco provisioning projects, I can’t help but think at the complexity involved. Processes are lengthy, with multiple manual steps, mappings, data gathering, sequencing activities, approvals, settings and options. It’s no wonder that OSS evolutions and transformations are a nightmare for operators from the perspectives of effort, risk, cost, etc. If we […]
“When the dollar was the currency in the twentieth century, banks made a fortune by selling trust. If data is the new currency, who’s going to sell trust in the twenty-first century?” Anthony Behan on TM Forum’s Inform. Anthony also states in his blockchain-centric article, “The telco has a trusted position – even more trusted […]
“All the technological change in the telecoms industry is pointing towards a more final and ultimate change, the death of the old “telco” carrier model we have known for the past few decades. We have known it is coming but the last vestiges will be swept away in 2017. All telcos will finally abandon “telco” […]
A slightly divergent thought for you today. Most of you are probably familiar with the 4 Cs standard for describing the quality of diamonds: Color, Clarity, Cut and Carat Weight. For marketing of OSS or any tech, there is a need to stand out from everyone else. Seth Godin calls it the Purple Cow – […]
OSS has a bad name in certain circles (usually for failing to deliver on time / cost / functionality or being timely / costly to enhance). Despite all those factors, the real root-cause is almost always complexity (see here for a description of the triple constraint of OSS). But it’s not just internal factors that […]
