Time is money. That sounds like a cliché, but it’s also the truth when it why mobile CSPs are getting serious about slashing the lead time for developing and launching services, writes Robert Emery
Mobile CSPs typically require six months to develop and launch a service. That means two financial quarters before a new service starts driving revenue and helping the CSP attract and retain customers. If the new service is a response to a rival’s offering, the CSP is at a competitive disadvantage for up to half a year.
The competitive disadvantage can be even worse if the launch needs to occur before the holiday shopping season but doesn’t happen until January. If postpaid dominates the market, that delay means the rival has locked up a bunch of customers who would have to be willing to pay a hefty termination fee to take advantage of the new service when it finally launches.
The good news is that operators now have the ability to slash lead times to less than one week. Nextgeneration mobile order management systems enable nearly immediate time to revenue and the ability to respond right away to changing market conditions. That’s the kind of nimble operator that third parties want to partner with and Wall Street wants to invest in. For operators that target younger demographics such as twenty-somethings, the ability to launch a service that capitalises on a new fad is critical for staying relevant in those customers’ eyes.
CSPs’ enterprise customers also benefit because the new mobile order management systems enable them to launch services quickly and provision devices
immediately for individuals, employee groups or the entire company. For example, an insurance company could push out a new sales tool app to its agents’ tablets and smartphones, a travel-concierge app to Clevel executives and a calendaring app to all employees. This flexibility helps the CSP attract and retain enterprises, government agencies and other coveted types of customers.
For operators, the first step is to scrap their traditional order management process and replace it with a catalogue-driven model, with a set of components that can be quickly assembled to produce new product offerings, including all of the related technical and third-party requirements. This architecture is the foundation for next-generation mobile order management systems.
The mobile order management solution also works with the CSP’s other OSS/BSS platforms to collect information about the network capabilities and then coordinate that infrastructure to provision the new service or device. This automation makes it easier for CSPs to provide the kinds of self-service options that consumers increasingly prefer. That also helps the CSP’s bottom line because when it’s fast and easy for customers to sign up for a service or change its settings, contact centre overhead costs are significantly lower.
The catalogue-driven model also gives the CSPs’ enterprise customers – or even MVNOs and partners – the option of providing their users with self-service portals for provisioning apps and new devices. That’s attractive to enterprises because self-service frees their IT staff to focus on revenue-generating projects and other tasks.
These benefits aren’t hypothetical. One real-world example is a Tier 1 North American CSP that deployed a centralised catalogue that now drives all order processes. This CSP’s next-generation mobile order management system also features a common set of business rules and a single database that streamlines operations to the point that customers can get access to new services quickly.
This infrastructure also enables new services to launch with minimal impact to downstream systems. Meanwhile, the CSP’s customer operations staff can work more efficiently because the new system lets multiple order operations be conducted from a single screen.
That’s just one example of how savvy CSPs are slashing launch times and improving both their competitive position and revenue opportunities in the process. Will your company be next? If not, it’s a safe bet that one or more of your rivals will.
