Crossing the Chasm: How to avoid flip-flopping between OSS products and services models
Are you familiar with Geoffrey Moore’s famous, “Crossing the Chasm” concept from his book of the same name? It basically describes the large gap between early adoption of a product and getting it to mainstream utilisation. With the large amount of fragmentation in the OSS/BSS market, there are clearly many products that haven’t been able […]
Let us review your OSS product development backlog and I’ll predict if there’s growth in your future
In the last year, I’ve seen RFP responses worth an accumulated total of well over $1B for network services, systems and such. In almost every case, the carrier buyers have indicated that they’re seeking innovative solutions. That’s the outward-facing commentary at least. But the real, inward-facing story is that they’re just seeking cost-reductions in most […]
Telco’s burning exchange moment – a playbook of fixes
The previous article in this series, “Telecommunications has reached its burning exchange moment,” highlighted that the current telco business model is at risk. It described how we could be experiencing an era of creative destruction of capital based on the works of Schumpeter and Marx. It also described: Poll results where nearly half of Europe’s […]
Telecommunications has reached its burning exchange moment
I’ll start this article with an apology – for crossing into the world of politics. An important basis of the discussion comes from the concept of creative destruction of capital and references quotes from Karl Marx. I have no interest in politics, especially historical politics, so I have little awareness of what the groundswell of […]
Want to know where the next wave of OSS/BSS innovation is coming from?
Everything you know right now, and all the knowledge you have collected over your career, is diminishing in relevance at an increasing rate. For those of us who’ve been in this game for decades rather than years, a lot of the knowledge we accumulated during our “apprenticeship” years is losing its lustre. This is particularly […]
Do you know what the most widely used OSS/BSS application is?
As the title asks, do you know what the most widely used OSS/BSS application is? The answer might actually surprise you, but we’ll get to that a little later in the article. Late last year, we published an article that outlined that a A seismic shift is already underway in IT circles and how it […]
What’s your future in OSS/BSS more closely linked to – elements of scarcity or abundance?
Did you notice that our previous article (What does the future hold for telco?) touched on scarcity and abundance in telco as well as how the dynamics of those are changing? Have you ever stopped to think how these changing dynamics of scarcity / abundance might impact the business and revenue models of yourself personally […]
What does the future hold for telco? Can it inform long-term OSS/BSS supplier strategies?
Do you ever look into the past to determine whether commonalities / discrepancies could be used to inform how you might act into the future? When it comes to OSS/BSS and telco, I certainly do. I hark back into the days when CSPs were the world’s leading tech companies and innovators. They also had incredibly […]
How to revolutionise telco Customer Satisfaction via an OSS-led Mindset Shift
Just a word of warning. This article is quite long. However, it contains a message that I feel really strongly about…. as you’ll see. Change is a funny thing. Sometimes we love it. Sometimes we hate it. Sometimes we’re inspired by it. Sometimes we’re in fear of it. Sometimes we know we desperately need to change, […]
Telcos have 3 enduring assets. They might not be what you think. They’re almost definitely undervalued
Have you pondered what the greatest assets are for telcos with their current business models? We recently looked at their Fundamental telco differentiators but what about assets / strengths? Some may cite factors such as network infrastructure, spectrum, intellectual property (IP) or employees (and I’ll always include OSS/BSS in this list naturally). These might all […]
What changes would you implement to make the OSS/BSS industry more valuable?
How valuable is the OSS / BSS industry do you think? How would you measure it? How would the market measure it? Have you ever pondered these questions? By extension, have you also wondered how to make it more valuable? Or perhaps how to make certain players within it more valuable? If you have, would […]
Is innovationism, not capitalism, driving the decline in telco?
It’s a completely silly question to ask you whether you’ve noticed that the world of OSS is changing rapidly isn’t it? Of course you’ve already noticed that it has and is. Do you already have plans to learn new concepts to help you adapt to those changes in 2023? If so, are you thinking about […]
Does your Telco/OSS/BSS world feel like a Zero Sum Mental Model? There may be another way!
Do you ever get that feeling that your mental models of the telco / tech / OSS/BSS worlds are different to those of almost everyone else? Do you feel like there are the status-quo approaches that are kind of proven, but still not really as good as they could be? That there must be even […]
Fundamental telco differentiators… flipped on their heads
When you think about fundamental differentiators for telcos, what factors come to your mind? Perhaps it is one of the following (with a typical description of that differentiation factor provided): Coverage: Operators with extensive coverage (ie fixed-line footprint and/or mobile coverage) may have an advantage over those with limited coverage areas Network quality: Operators with […]
OSS User Interfaces or User Interactions? GUIs or MUIs?
The cool part of this time of year, the holiday period, is that it prompts you to look backwards and look forwards. To be honest, writing articles here on the blog prompts me to do that throughout the year too, but there does tend to be a bit more downtime for reflection around the boundary […]
The tree analogy – a tale of two eras of telco business models
With the holidays almost upon us in many parts of the world, I thought I’d share an analogy. Like many analogies, it’s a bit oversimplified. It’s also possibly a bit inflammatory in some circles. Hopefully though, it gives a different frame of reference for how the telco business model has changed over the years. More […]
A seismic shift is happening
A seismic shift is happening that will change the world of OSS/BSS so fundamentally in the next few years that it totally blows my mind. It will be the biggest in my 20+ year career in the telco industry. The following pic is from an IA Summit Keynote by Charles Lamanna, the Corporate VP of […]
How to buy or sell an OSS/BSS (the company, not the product). Conducting Due Diligence
Co-authored with Logan Laux of Verdant Advisers. Have you ever wondered about the process of buying or selling an OSS or BSS company? Are you potentially even thinking of buying or selling an OSS/BSS / telco / tech company? It’s not an event that happens very often, but given the amount of fragmentation in the OSS/BSS […]
The Football Analogy – How a kid with a ball shows telcos what to do next
Back when I was a little kid, not many of my classmates had footballs. The kid with the ball decided what game was played and who could play. They owned the key asset. The right to play. The other kids were drawn to the game because the asset was unique. These days, the balls are […]
Drawing parallels between Cloud Native, Cloud Enabled and Data Native, Data Enabled
Just sharing a playful analogy to end the week (and month). Like me, you’ve probably heard lots of conversations that contrast cloud-enabled applications with cloud-native. We’ve heard the arguments that an OSS or BSS application might be “on the cloud,” but not really the gold-standard “cloud-native.” We know there are lots of legacy OSS / […]