ODA Unboxed: 60% of Marand’s revenue contributed through ODA-based products

Marand Software recently achieved Ready for ODA status for their BSS product portfolio, showcasing the benefits of adopting Open Digital Architecture (ODA). This milestone underscores how smaller vendors can leverage ODA for competitive advantage. By designing their products on ODA, Marand facilitated a successful transformation project for Telekom Slovenije, earning 3 real-world Open API certifications. Their collaboration with Orange, contributing to the Gen5 Open API, highlights their commitment to ODA's ecosystem.

We spoke with Marand's VP of Product, Bostjan Keber, to understand how ODA benefits their organization and customers beyond conventional sales pitches.

What is the functional scope of your product(s) that have achieved Ready for ODA status?

We received the Ready for ODA status for our core commerce components, the unified product catalog, CPQ with product ordering, and product inventory. Drawing on decades of BSS expertise, we engineered this product family from the ground up. The product family enables our customers to fully benefit from its modular, composable software architecture. Software components are implemented in a modern, cloud-native microservice architecture.

Why was it important for you to align these product(s) to ODA?

Aligning with ODA is crucial for Marand. As a smaller vendor, our commitment to providing comprehensive BSS coverage relies on collaboration. ODA facilitates seamless software integration ensuring open standards for interoperability within a multi-vendor ecosystem. This strategic alignment enhances efficiency, adaptability, and underscores our dedication to delivering top-tier solutions in a dynamic market

What tangible benefits did it bring to you and your customers?

Marand is officially marking the end-of-life for our previous (non-ODA based) products by the end of 2025. In 2023, our ODA-based products contributed nearly 60% to our revenue and we anticipate this figure to exceed 80% by 2025.

Telekom Slovenije (TS), serving as our reference customer for ODA-based products, recently earned recognition for the implementation of 3 real-world Open APIs.

The main objective of the current BSS consolidation is to streamline TS’s operations replacing three systems with a unified BSS covering all business lines. This move aims to reduce OPEX and improve the ability to innovate by simplifying the IT architecture.

The consolidation is based on a unified product catalog using the SID model and TMF620 API, allowing TS to rapidly implement product changes. Already today, TS can push 50% of their product changes into production within a single day thanks to the catalog-driven approach.

The recent delivery of the quote management module accelerates B2B sales processes by efficiently creating and sending accurate quotes to customers.

Simultaneously, TS is upgrading its digital customer experience layer, unifying capabilities across channels to save costs and simplify change implementation.

In our projection, aligning with the ODA will save them at least one-third of development costs to re-engineer their digital customer experience layer through re-use of common capabilities exposed by the core commerce components.

What challenges did you face in adopting ODA as your reference architecture, and how did you tackle these?

TM Forum standards are continuously evolving, so member feedback is crucial for their further development. Initially, we may not have fully appreciated the evolutionary nature of these standards. However, active cooperation with other members through TM Forum's collaboration programs and SpecJams has proven instrumental in facilitating our adoption of the ODA.

How did your staff gain expertise with ODA and learn how to use it effectively?

TM Forum training provided a foundational understanding, but the bulk of our proficiency was gained through hands-on experience. As our team matured in adopting TM Forum standards, we seized opportunities for continuous improvement. Leveraging our TM Forum membership, we teamed up with a tier 1 telco and another partner to propose and publish a new API, marking one of the first Gen5 Open APIs. This collaborative initiative proved to be an invaluable learning and growth experience for our whole company.