Building commercial agility is key to growth, amplified by AI

CSPs are focused on many things, not the least of which is how to drive growth. Scott Weir (S W), Hansen’s President, Communications and Media, explains the concept of commercial agility, how AI can act to amplify agility, and why communications service providers (CSPs) should focus on them in this Q&A with TM Forum. Weir will be taking to the stage with customer Telefónica Germany O2 on June 17 at 2pm on Stage A to co-present a case study entitled Transforming for Commercial Agility.

TM Forum: The theme for this year’s DTW is Pathways to Growth. Where does Hansen see the opportunities for growth for CSPs?

SW: Without a doubt, given the competitive nature of the communications industry and the challenges of moving beyond traditional telecom services, growth is top of mind for every CSP right now. At Hansen, we believe the biggest opportunity lies in creating this notion of what we call an agile commercial engine.

What does that mean in practical terms? It’s about enabling CSPs to respond faster to market demands, launch new offerings with greater precision and adapt to evolving customer expectations. The reality is the network alone won’t drive growth. It’s the ability to commercialize that network, quickly and flexibly, that unlocks real monetary value.

We see this as a shift from just building infrastructure to building commercial agility. That means having the systems and processes in place to experiment, iterate and scale new services – whether that’s 5G, IoT or digital marketplaces. That’s where Hansen is focused: Helping CSPs move beyond the network to capture new revenue opportunities.

TM Forum: What are the key ingredients to achieving commercial agility?

SW: At the heart of commercial agility – and ultimately a CSP’s business – is a simple truth: Your products and services are the most important thing. Strip away all the noise, and it comes down to three things: the quality of the products and services the CSP offers; how easy it is for customers to assess choices and buy these offerings; and how well they are delivered.

We call this the ‘create, sell, deliver’ paradigm. To do this well, CSPs need a few key ingredients. First, a robust, catalog-driven architecture. This allows you to define products once, make them instantly sellable and orchestrate their delivery across complex fulfillment chains. This is especially important as services become more bundled and partner-driven.

Second, you need the ability to experiment efficiently. Take something like launching new fiber-based services. They come with complex eligibility rules, dependencies and third-party components. If your current systems are stretched and can’t handle that complexity, you lose agility.

Finally, it must all be standards-based and ecosystem-ready. Open APIs, modular architecture and interoperability are no longer optional – they’re essential for speed and scale. When you get this right, you unlock a faster concept-to-cash cycle and a more responsive business.

TM Forum: Everyone is talking about AI. How is Hansen leveraging AI to create real-world value and growth opportunities for telecom organizations?

SW: At Hansen, we see AI not as a standalone solution, but as a powerful amplifier of commercial agility. AI is being infused in all aspects of our product portfolio to solve real problems and deliver tangible results. It’s not about doing AI for AI’s sake, it’s about leveraging AI to amplify CSPs’ ability to create, sell and deliver new products, and to better engage with their customers.

As an example, to create new offers, we're using AI-powered virtual assistants within our catalog to help product managers build them more easily and effectively. Instead of being constrained by traditional capabilities, they can use natural language to describe what they want. The AI assistant applies best practices and data-driven insights to recommend optimal pricing and offer structures. The same assistant can also analyze the existing catalog and suggest refinements to market offers to maximize both market impact and commercial success.

To sell and deliver better, AI will enable personalized offers and recommendations, while also reducing fulfillment costs through intelligent, AI-driven integrations with downstream systems. On the operations side, we're using AI for predictive cloud resource scaling – helping reduce infrastructure costs and improve overall system performance.

In looking at how CSPs engage with their customers, our latest generation of virtual agents and AI-driven interactions can significantly enhance the customer experience. These tools create more scalable, efficient ways for service providers to connect with their customers, unlocking new revenue opportunities through smarter, well informed and more responsive engagement at the same time.

TM Forum: If people want to learn more about unlocking new revenue opportunities to take them on the pathway to growth, how they can find out more?

SW: To learn more about any of the opportunities we’ve discussed today, I encourage people to book a meeting or demo with us at DTW Ignite. We have a big team on site across the three days and would love to highlight our work in broadband as a growth accelerator, our marketplace offerings, monetizing network APIs via our Catalyst project, Spatial Web: Open gateway to the immersive future, and other initiatives underpinned by AI. Together these amplifiers and exciting innovations will genuinely support CSPs on that pathway to growth and commercial agility.