“The challenge is that complexity is beguiling. Clever tricks and hacks can add to a company’s story and the benefit vs complexity trade off for each one can be well worth it. The problem comes over time when new tricks are added to the old ones to keep the story fresh. The complexity builds up all the time whilst the story only gets incrementally better because the older tricks are forgotten or not worth talking about any more.”
Nic Brisbourne.
In yesterday’s blog, we spoke of how compounding complexity can be as damaging as compounding interest is positive.
In the graph below, replace the $ values on the Y-axis with a measure of complexity and you see the concept.
The problem for telco operators is that they are so large, have so many products / bundles, have so many process variants and have so much legacy stuff, the complexity challenge for their OSS and BSS is overwhelming and only getting greater.
The bigger problem is that the telco industry is on the verge of massive change on so many levels that the current model for OSS is going to struggle to cope. But operational tools are the only mechanism via which disruptive technologies like cloud delivery, network virtualisation, escalating network security threats, Big Data, Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics, orchestration and automation, wireless sensor networks, IoT/ M2M, Self-organizing Networks (SON) and more can be viably implemented. My latest market research report, “The Changing Landscape of Operational Support Systems (OSS): Technologies, Solutions, and Organizational Impacts,” takes a closer look at these disruptors and the influence on / by OSS.
Ruthless simplification projects are an essential step to reduce the likelihood of being crushed under the weight of complexity in any big telco. Removing legacy services might alienate some customers but the downside risk of the alternative is significantly bigger.
Over the years, I’ve often referred to The Corkscrew Analogy or Momentum Spiral to describe a mindset of incremental improvement that’s needed to keep an
We’ve embarked on a journey of trying to plan for the future of OSS/BSS, not by predicting the future, but by seeking ways to be
As discussed in the previous article, “Future Scenario Planning: Have you given up on doing an OSS transformation? (part 1)” part of the fun of
Earlier in the week, a friend mentioned he was reading “Alchemy” by Rory Sutherland. It’s not an OSS book per se, but does provide some
Here at Passionate About OSS, we are exactly that – Passionate About OSS (Operational Support Systems). We’re also passionate about BSS, NMS, or any other names you call the tools that help to operationalise your network.
