Inverting the iceberg to get more funding for your OSS

In the last couple of days, we’ve discussed frameworks that could allow CSPs to design disruptive business models around factors that our OSS / BSS can control. Not exactly riveting stuff for the tech-heads amongst the reader-base, but relevant for the amount of investment that gets directed into the tech projects that we all work on.

Let me get a little more specific today. We only get to work on cool OSS projects if funding is allocated to them. As we all know, OSS are the linchpin around which a service provider is built, but most executive sponsors don’t grasp the full extent of this dependence. There are a few reasons for this:

  1. OSS are perceived as not generating any revenue directly
  2. OSS projects continually disappoint (on time, cost and/or functionality)
  3. The full picture of OSS functionality is hidden (like an iceberg) and is boring to most. The Service provider’s customers certainly have zero interest in the back-end systems / functionality in use
  4. Our business cases tend to be built around cost reduction, not business growth. Let’s be honest, OSS cost reductions go in the same excitement bucket as a reduction in paper clips, pens and printer paper
  5. The technologies used by OSS seem to be obsoleted even faster than the network technologies they manage
  6. They tend to deliver more negative messaging (eg network outages, fall-outs resulting in poor customer experiences, etc), whilst others get the credits for any positive messaging that OSS have facilitated
  7. Due to the costs of implementation and change, OSS are seen by many as giant sinkholes of cost centres
  8. The list goes on!!

Aaarghhh! Why do we bother working in OSS?

For all of us in the OSS industry, we understand the justifications behind these derogatory remarks above.

It all comes down to the messaging going to executive sponsors. Like Steve Jobs, I have just three things (to help build a compelling story for your executive sponsors):

  • Break “the sink-hole perspective” by generating revenues – via APIs, via platforms, via metrics that show OSS contribution to revenues or anything else that shows real value, not just cost-out, to executive sponsors as well as the customers they’re trying to service
  • Invert the iceberg – show just how much capability is hidden under the surface by mapping how dependant the organisation’s positive outcomes are on its OSS (OSS as the puppet-master). All the sexy stuff (eg 5G, IoT, network virtualisation, etc) can only be monetised if our OSS pull all the strings to make them happen
  • Simplify – the massive (and increasing) complexity in our business is boring to non-OSS people and an impediment to us in our ability to deliver exciting outcomes for everyone else. Just take Google – they have an incredibly complex tech-stack to run… but what does the customer interact with on their search page?

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