There are three journeys that today’s Communications Service Providers (CSPs) must make to become modern Digital Service Providers (DSPs):
- Operations innovation – “digitalising” the operations to be more on-line and automated for consumers
- Service innovation – providing new digital services
- Network innovation – supporting the business with an agile, virtualised next generation network.
In this BLOG post, I will outline the focus changes necessary in the current Operations Support Systems/Business Support Systems (BSS/OSS) to support the first of these – the digitalisation of the CSP’s operations. In future BLOG posts, I will drill down into several of the areas to provide a closer look at the BSS/OSS of the future as well as discussing how the next generation systems will become more “platforms,” says Mark H Mortensen, practice head, Analysys Mason.
Figure 1: Future operations platforms of a DSP will come from existing BSS/OSS areas [Source: Analysys Mason, 2016]
Revenue management monetisation platform
Revenue Management systems, currently comprised of charging, billing, and settlements is expanding its scope to include billing policy. This connection, which has become closer in the last few years, is critically important to keep controls on spending in the ultra-fast world of data. It also will become even more important in markets that will allow differentiated service levels that will provide new sources of revenue to DSPs.
Customer care brand management platform
The DSPs’ product sets will expand tremendously to include cloud services, SaaS, and digital services provided by both the operator and, increasingly, third parties. As this happens, customer care, long thought of as a cost centre dedicated to keeping customers satisfied at the lowest cost, will become more important as a brand management platform – establishing and maintaining the DSP’s brand perception, whatever it chooses to be (low cost, high-service, or in between).
Analytics business management platform
Big data analytics started in Telecoms handling large volumes of network data But it has been primarily used the last few years for customer care – providing data on customers to allow CSPs to sell more to existing customers, providing the most attractive solution to new prospects, and identifying and taking steps to maintain potentially churning customers.
However, the ability to gather and process large volumes of unstructured data is finding use in all aspects of the business. DSPs will use these systems – and this data – for overall management of the business, including customers, internal operations, and partners.
Service fulfilment service orchestration platform
Service fulfilment provides the process control, information, and connections to the network to instantiate services for customers. It is the job of engineering to have the right resources ready to allow this to happen efficiently – forecasted and built ahead of time.
In the future, with the virtualised network, the engineering process will be connected to the service fulfilment process, providing resources just in time for the services. This will allow DSPs to carefully match their investment with demand. This function is being called “service orchestration.”
Service assurance service security platform
Service assurance is one of the classic OSS functions – fault management and probe-based information help keep the piece parts of the network up and running (and, if the engineering is done right, the services perform properly) while overlay service management looks at the services themselves to ensure they meet performance promises.
The future DSPS will go further, depending upon this area to ensure not only the proper performance but the overall security of the services, which will be provided by both the DSP as well as its suppliers of many cloud services, virtualised network elements, and devices.
The author of this blog is Mark H Mortensen, practice head, Analysys Mason.
Mark is the lead analyst for Analysys Mason’s Customer Care, Service Fulfilment and Digital Economy Platforms research programmes, which are part of the Telecoms Software research stream. His interest areas include customer omni-channel self-service, operations systems enabling new CSP businesses in the digital economy value chain, and creation and support of differentiated services aimed at high-value customers. Mark was Chief Scientist of Management Systems at Bell Labs, and has also been president of his own OSS strategy consulting company, CMO at the inventory specialist Granite Systems, VP of Product Strategy at Telcordia Technologies, and SVP of Marketing at a network planning software vendor.
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