70% of OSS RFPs miss the Best Vendor. How to improve Your odds
Most carriers still rely on traditional RFP processes to select OSS/BSS vendors. These methods are seen as rigorous and comprehensive. However, they are slow, inflexible and often fail to surface the best-fit vendor. Despite consuming vast time and effort, statistically, they are only ~30% likely to find the best-fit vendor for your needs. We’ve continually […]
The Chicken or the Egg – OSS/BSS or Market Change – Which to Reboot First?
Telcos have tolerated lengthy OSS/BSS rollouts as a necessary evil for years, but what if those same systems are the chains holding the telco world back. Which is the chicken and which is the egg? Is it OSS/BSS and/or the market that needs a radical reboot? Which must be rebooted first? OSS and BSS are […]
OSS isn’t just a Battle. It’s a Quest. And every Quest needs more than Just Dragon Slayers
You’ve already got your dragon slayers. Your team is filled with seasoned OSS professionals who’ve faced complex, high-stakes problems and lived to tell the tale. They’re reliable, sharp, and tested. But if you’re the King / Queen, the one responsible for building the team, then you need more than just experience. You need adaptability. Perspective. […]
From Indispensable to Overlooked and Back: Making OSS Dragon Slayers Valuable Again
Many OSS veterans, the people who built the OSS of today, are no longer being offered full-time roles. Clients often assume they have become obsolete or are simply too expensive. However, these same experts are still solving the toughest OSS problems, drawing on decades of hard-earned experience. They are just not doing it from inside […]
The Buyer-Seller Chasm Series Summary
This article provides a summary of our Buyer-Seller Chasm series of articles, where we start with the guiding principle that: The buyers (carriers) desperately need better tools to transform their operations. The sellers (vendors) already have better tools, which they desperately want to sell. The problem worth solving lies in the extraordinary amount of time, […]
PAOSS Podcast Ep020 – Turning AI from Buzzword to an Implementation Plan with Simon Wilson
We love doing The Passionate About OSS Podcast, but it’s been a loooong time between episodes. Too long. We love the conversations, but the post-processing takes around 8-10 hours depending on the episode. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we’ve been so busy with client work over the last few years that the podcast has taken a […]
For 50 years, we’ve been building better calculators… and OSS. Now it all changes!
For decades, OSS has followed the same pattern: design, then keep adding lots more “baked-in” capabilities into a complex OSS UI, process inputs, generate outputs. At incredible scale. We made them faster, (somewhat) more automated, and vastly more scalable. But we never made them think. Until now… If… (we’ll come back to the if shortly). […]
The OSS Transformation Secrets Tier-2 Operators Use That Tier-1s Ignore
In the telecommunications industry, Tier-2 (smaller) network operators often look up to their larger Tier-1 counterparts as models for building networks, telco standards and operational support systems (OSS). However, and the Tier-1 operators will never admit to this, but the lessons don’t always need to flow top-down from T1 to T2. In fact, the pragmatic […]
Build, Buy, or Blend? The First Step on Your Path to OSS Transformation Success
Are you about to embark on an OSS transformation? It’s a huge journey that awaits. It won’t be without risks and fears either. Like any journey, it all starts with the old cliche of starting with the first step! When helping organisations embarking on their transformation journeys, there’s typically three primary transformation models for you […]
It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small… It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow
The great thing about the holiday period is you often get the chance to step away from business as usual (BAU) activities. As customer projects go into a brief hiatus, it clears a little space in the calendar to read and plan for what to do in the year ahead. This book “It’s Not the […]
Challenger carriers are the high-speed traders of the telco world: How does this manifest in their OSS?
In the last week alone, I’ve had two potent reminders that the world of OSS is simply (pun intended) too complex. This manifests in many ways, but I’ll start with the standards that underpin our industry. The standards bodies do fantastic work. I’m a huge fan. Enormous credit should go out to everyone who has […]
AI is going to destroy (some) OSS architects and consultants. Does Good Will Hunting provide an antidote?
It seems fairly obvious (to me at least) that AI is an existential threat to many traditional information-based roles like consultants and architects. I’ve already seen one wave of this happen, so the next seems inevitable too. When I first entered the field of IT and telco consulting back in 2000, our clients engaged us […]
Are your OSS RFPs feeling horny baby?
In case you hadn’t already picked up on it, today’s title paraphrases Austin Powers, the flamboyant British spy and comedic character created by Mike Myers. What does a fictional British spy have to do with today’s article on OSS RFPs? It’s a bit of a tenuous link, but let’s give it a go anyway. Did […]
Applying ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ to OSS: Lessons I Learned about Market Testing, Prototyping and Automation
Have you read the book, “The 4-hour work week” by Tim Ferris? It was one of those relatively rare books that inspired a complete mindset shift and new ways of working for me. It’s one of the many books that have nothing to do with OSS (at face value), but have so many learnings for […]
MacGyvering Your OSS Budget: A Contrarian Approach to Solving an OSS Cost Conundrum
There are many reasons why it’s hard to get an OSS transformation project off the ground. One of those reasons, a big one, is the catch-22 situation that arises when setting the budget for a project. How much does an OSS cost? How long is a piece of string? Some carriers, especially the smaller telcos […]
An OSS design principle I need your guidance on
I find that writing these blog articles is a fantastic way of assembling a variety of ideas and distilling them into coherent stories / concepts (well, hopefully they’re coherent). I always welcome feedback and corrections because it helps to round out my understanding of concepts relating to OSS. Feedback from you, dear readers, is highly […]
Closing the OSS Buyer / Seller chasm – More solutions (part 5)
This is the fifth of the “buyer / seller” chasm articles (pt1, pt2, pt3, pt4). We’d previously highlighted the issues, the pain points, the sources of friction and more about getting Buyers and Sellers together to build better telcos. But in today’s article we’ll complete the solutions list that we started on in part four, […]
Closing the OSS Buyer / Seller chasm – Solutions (part 4)
This is the fourth of the “buyer / seller” chasm articles (pt1, pt2, pt3). We’ve already highlighted the issues, the pain points, the sources of friction and more about getting Buyers and Sellers together to build better telcos. But in today’s article we’ll explore some possibilities for how to overcome those challenges by building bridges […]
How can we reduce the size of the OSS buyer-seller chasm? (part 2)
Our previous post highlighted a chasm between buyers and sellers. It has sparked quite a lot of conversation, which is exactly as intended. In another earlier post about telco reaching its burning exchange moment, we wrote: In a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress (MWC), Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal market commissioner opined, “In […]
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 […]