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.
The business case justifications of OSS tend to fall into four categories: Revenue increase – the operationalisation and monetisation of an operator’s assets Cost reduction – improving the operational efficiency of the operator Insight generation – by leveraging the valuable data that an OSS collects Brand value – this is a catch-all for many different […]
The problem with OSS is that there are too many problems. We don’t have to look too hard to find a problem that needs solving. An inter-related issue is that we’re (almost always) constrained by resources and aren’t able to solve every problem we find. I have a theory – As much as you are […]
“When you start out in your career, you have a blank canvas, so you can paint anywhere that you want because the shit ain’t been painted on yet. And then your second album comes out, and you paint a little more and you paint a little more. By the time you get to your seventh […]
Every project starts with an idea… an idea that someone is excited enough to sponsor. But where are your ideas being generated from? How do they get cultivated and given time to grow? How do they get pitched? and How do they get heard? How are sponsors persuaded? How do they then get implemented? How do […]
What is a service provider’s greatest asset? Now I’m biased when considering the title question, but I believe OSS are the puppet-master of every modern service provider. They’re the systems that pull all of the strings of the organisation. They generate the revenue by operationalising and assuring the networks as well as the services they […]
“What will telcos do about the 30% of workers AI is going to displace?” Dawn Bushaus That question, which is the headline of Dawn’s article on TM Forum’s Inform platform, struck me as being quite profound. As an aside, I’m not interested in the number – the 30% – because I concur with Tom Goodwin’s sentiments […]
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 […]
“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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
“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 […]
With the holiday period looming for many of us, we will have the head-space to reflect – on the year(s) gone and to ponder the one(s) upcoming. I’d like to pose the rhetorical question, “What do you expect to reflect on?” It’s probably safe to say that a majority of OSS experts are engaged in […]
The diagram below provides a time-sequence view of how tech-debt accumulation eventually strangles new OSS feature releases unless the drastic measures described are taken. At start-up (t0), the system is brand new and has no legacy to maintain, so all effort can be dedicated to delivering new features (or products) as well as testing to […]
Are your OSS better today than they were 5 years ago? (or 10, 15, 20 years depending on how long you’ve been in the industry) Your immediate reaction to this question is probably going to be, “Yes!” After all, you and your peers have put so much effort into your OSS in the last 5 […]
“Corporate innovation is far more dependent on external collaboration and customer insight than having a ‘lab’.” Andy Howard in a fabulous LinkedIn post. Like so many other industries, OSS is ripe for disruption through innovation. Andy Howard’s post provides a number of sobering statistics for any large OSS vendors thinking of embarking on an Innovation […]
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” Bill Gates. The pervading OSS business case paradigm is to seek cost-out by introducing automation that reduces head-count – […]
“The original management consultant was Frederick Taylor, who prided himself in having discovered the “one best way” which would be delivered by “first-class men”. These assumptions, made in 1911, are still dominant today. Best practice is today’s “one best way” and recruiters, HR and hiring managers spend months and months searching for today’s “first-class men”. […]
When looking at a telco org chart, where does the highest staff turnover tend to occur? Contact centres? Network Operations? The fact that these two groups tend to have the highest turnover indicates that their employers see them as expendable resources. They’ll never come out and say it directly, but actions speak louder than words. […]
I have a really simple philosophical question to pose of you today – Are we measuring our OSS at the wrong end? It seems that a vast majority of our OSS measurement is at the input end of a process rather than at the output. Just a few examples: Financial predictions in a business cases vs Return […]
