OSS are tools have a big part to play in modern ICT organisations. They can make the difference between effective or ineffective operations of electronic assets. The Executive Series of blogs provide information that is targeted for senior executives on how to utilise OSS to deliver better business outcomes.
Across this series, we’ve looked at fragmented AI investment, the rush to launch AI projects, the AI dependence on OSS and BSS, and the need for combined planning as more autonomous systems begin to interact. We’ve discussed coherent planning a lot throughout the series, which raises two obvious questions: If coherence matters this much, does […]
So far in this series, we’ve looked at fragmented AI investment (shadow AI), the rush to get involved in AI, and what happens when those AI initiatives start depending on the OSS and BSS environment. But there’s another “coherence” challenge as we move from AI that recommends (humans in the loop) to AI that acts […]
In the first article in this series, about a $1.6m lesson, we looked at how AI can start to resemble shadow IT, with lots of sensible local decisions, but little shared enterprise capability. It’s not just Shadow AI that represents the risk here. There’s another force accelerating that problem. Right now, everyone wants to be […]
Our last article asked a simple question, “How much are you effectively paying to stay on the antiquated side of the Buyer-Seller Chasm?” Let’s be very clear here – the incurred cost (opportunity cost) of dated systems doesn’t stop while you’re deciding what to do next. Every month spent debating, aligning, lobbying, approving and re-approving […]
I recently went to my chiropractor with wrist pain. I assumed it was from years of playing tennis and typing on keyboards. That seemed fairly logical but my assumption was wrong. It didn’t take my chiropractor long to identify the source of the problem. Not my wrist, but tightness deep under my pectoral (chest / […]
As Daniel Priestley articulates well here, the disposable lighter is an extraordinary example of capitalism doing what capitalism does best – thousands of tiny improvements compounded over decades. A lighter can be manufactured, shipped and sold for almost nothing because decades of competition have relentlessly squeezed inefficiency out of the system. Yet OSS/BSS seems strangely […]
Given the topical theme of the World Cup final, we’ll go with a soccer story today. For the World Cup final, do you think Argentina ever considered replacing Messi with an attacking midfielder from a local Argentinian club simply because his wages are lower? Of course they wouldn’t. Not because the local player is useless. […]
For decades, scale gave large telcos purchasing power, infrastructure reach, extensive capability and millions of customers. It became one of the world’s most powerful and durable business models. But scale and complexity has created thousands of dependencies across OSS, BSS, networks, processes, vendors and people. Clay Christensen showed that disruption often begins with something that […]
Success in business, distilled to its simplest form, is often about arbitrage. The gap between supply and demand. The gap between value delivered and value received in return. In the OSS industry, we tend to view arbitrage through a technical lens – better automation, AI, features, use cases, architecture and transformation. But a recent trip […]
An OSS/BSS transformation often begins with excitement and urgency due to a desperate need for change. It also creates trepidation because the wrong decision could shape the business for years to come. There’s no doubt that there’s a long list of things to work through, but that tension can lead to procurement events that could […]
Daniel Priestley recently highlighted something as important for business owners as telcos seeking out their next OSS or BSS solution: “If I said to you, go and build your dream house, the first thing you’d do is imagine the finished product. You’d drive around beautiful neighbourhoods, look at the ones you wish you lived in, […]
In the the last month or so 8 different carriers, from a variety of places around the planet, have reached out to us to discuss their ambitions for reaching AN Level 4. There’s clearly a major groundswell behind it. The thing about AN Level 4 is it sounds like a clear destination. But it doesn’t […]
Most OSS experts focus on the implementation and post-go-live performance aspects of a transformation. That makes perfect sense, because they’re the most visible phases. But by the time implementation begins, many of the decisions that shape success or failure have already been set in place. The pre-implementation phase is often underestimated – treated as a […]
Telco keeps talking about being scared of an imminent skills cliff. But perhaps the real problem is not just that experienced people are leaving. It’s that the industry has stopped feeling like the natural destination for the next generation of brilliant minds. Meanwhile, the industry’s hardest problems – automation, AI-native operations, complex transformation, data integrity, […]
Phone books now look like a relic from another era. Stone. Cold. Dead. But they were once one of the most powerful business growth engines in the world. Owned by telcos! As they declined in importance, Telcos didn’t just lose a directory. They totally forgot they were matchmakers. Phone books were never just paper directories. […]
I have a really important question for you to ask yourself today. It’s a question that shapes a lot of our thinking about how I can help the OSS/BSS/telco industry. How does what I do make more money for clients? Not just what your company does. Not what your brand says on the website. Not […]
We’re releasing our latest report today. Click on the image below to download it. Why are transformation approvals (eg business case approvals, vendor selections, project transformation decisions) forced to look perfect when delivery is anything but? That is the quiet contradiction at the heart of many (most?) digital transformation programmes. We build business cases as […]
As seen in the diagram, for most of telecom history, the core business model has been simple: Build networks Sell access to those networks Recover capital (revenue) through subscription and usage revenues, and Protect margin through scale and operational efficiency But what happens if (when? after?) that model breaks? What happens if connectivity becomes so […]
If you’re leading an OSS/BSS transformation, one of the hardest parts is not knowing what needs to happen first (or second, third, etc). Not in theory. In practice. Most large transformation programmes don’t fail because of a lack of ambition. They fail because the early sequencing is off or steps are overlooked. Vendor conversations begin […]
With MWC upon us again, I thought I’d pose a question about how our industry, and the 500+ OSS/BSS vendor market within it, is currently evolving. Telcos spend billions on transformation programmes every year. They talk about massive disruption like cloud-native stacks, open architectures, AI-driven automation and next-generation digital experiences. On paper, it sounds like […]
