In the past, reliability was more important than customer experience. Historically, telecommunication service providers focused on the reliability of the communications networks and the usability of the devices. This was true for a long time and as a consequence almost strangled innovation because introducing new systems (without automation) was risky—and risk was not considered good. Sadly, the intimacy of the relationship with the consumer was often ranked as a “nice to have”. The Internet Service Providers disrupted the market without this fear, as connectivity was not their responsibility—so elements of their value offerings including pricing, experience, convenience and relevance were the prime elements of their value proposition. Rapid innovation and deep understanding of the end-customers experiences were the key differentiators. The value being emphasised in areas of personalisation and convenience of the service being consumed and crucially, not on the technology of how the service is delivered.
Telcos have started the journey to become Digital Service Providers, but it’s proving to be a slow, painful, and extremely expensive process. Trying to make existing legacy systems more relevant and performant, failed: quite simply these systems were and are too expensive to adapt to what the new uses require of them. The telecommunication service providers struggled to keep pace with the DSP’s, and looked to their long-established vendor community to provide newer, standards-driven technological solutions that would allow them to offer a digital experience. This instigated the super-vendors to create an ideal destination, huge amount of complex, and expensive, “transformational” multi-year programmes ensued to modernise the technology architectures.
These transformation programmes were very disruptive to an operator’s business. More often than not, service providers find these transformation programmes exceeded timeline predictions, demand substantial and ever swelling budgets while destroying their ability to innovate. It is extremely profitable business for these super vendors with a captive audience after all. Change request heaven! Inevitable business requirements are driving ever increasing profitable business for the vendors.
There is another way, with recent developments the technologies available now allow telecommunication service providers to change their models to compete or co-exist with the internet service providers in ways just not possible some years ago. These newer technologies, born from lessons learned from the internet service providers, applied innovation and open-source models, are typically much faster to deploy and significantly less expensive than the strategies offered by legacy super-vendors.
Openet Digital Business Platform – pre-built and rapidly deployed. Openet offers an alternative solution that addresses the biggest pain points for today’s operators (churn prevention and subscriber acquisition at a low cost) and consumers (personalised, simple and controllable). It can be deployed as a parallel technology stack to quickly meet the demands of digital consumers and enabling Digital 1st propositions. Flexible enough to plug-in to a service providers existing solutions (CRM, Data Analytics, Campaign mgt.) without dramatically impacting design or delivery.
We are calling foul on the super vendors, offering a more effective alternative to their model of vendor lock in through slow, ineffective digital transformation programmes. It is time to change the game.
Why not find out more about Openet and our approach to Digital Business enablement at MWC 18′, call by our stand, Hall 2 Stand 2F30.
