“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 in a recent post contrasting “clean” and “dirty” consulting. There’s an increasing skepticism in traditional “gut-feel” or “set-and-forget” (aka clean) consulting and a greater client trust in hard data / analytics and end-to-end implementation (dirty consulting).
Clients have less need for consultants that just turn the ignition and lay out sketchy directions, but increasingly need ones that can help driving the car all the way to their desired destination.
Consultants capable of meeting these needs for the telco / service provider industries have:
- Extensive coal-face (delivery) experience, seeing and learning from real success and failure situations / scenarios
- An ability to use technology to manage, interpret and visualise real data in a client’s data stores, not just industry trend data
- An ability to build repeatable frameworks (including the development of smart contracts)
- A mix of business, IT and network / tech expertise, like all valuable tripods
Have you noticed that the four key features above are perfectly aligned with having worked in OSS? OSS/BSS data stores contain information that’s relevant to all parts of a telco / service provider business. That makes us perfectly suited to being the high-value consultants of the future, not just contractors into operations business units.
Few consultancy tasks are productisable today, but as technology continues to advance, traditional consulting roles will increasingly be replaced by IP (Intellectual Property) frameworks, data analytics, automations and tools… as long as the technology provides real business benefit.