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Driving technological and cultural innovation from inside an established company

Luis Rodríguez-Ovejero Gómez, OSS Product Director of alvatross, Satec, describes the cultural and technical challenges involved in establishing an independent OSS technology start-up from within the structure of a successful systems integrator and how TM Forum’s Open APIs helped surmount them.

18 Nov 2021
Driving technological and cultural innovation from inside an established company

Driving technological and cultural innovation from inside an established company

Luis Rodríguez-Ovejero Gómez, OSS Product Director of alvatross, Satec, describes the cultural and technical challenges involved in establishing an independent OSS technology start-up from within the structure of a successful systems integrator and how TM Forum’s Open APIs helped surmount them. When we set up alvatross we faced a transformation challenge that might be familiar to some communication service providers (CSPs). We had to create a completely new business model and independent, ready-to-sell structure within Satec, a profitable systems integrator that has been serving customers successfully for over thirty years. It was crucial for us to develop our own fast-paced culture that would allow us to focus on enabling OSS innovation using a cloud-native platform based on microservices and Open APIs. We also had to define how this new division would deal with the whole organisation so that it would adopt an entrepreneurial way of working and have the autonomy to act as a reference partner to the industry, including other system integrators. First, we studied the five most successful Spanish start-ups team roles and behaviour, helped by the leader of the alvatross initiative, who had worked for one of them. We also examined who we could hire internally and which talent we needed to find beyond Satec. For example, specific business development and product expertise had to be sourced externally, along with deep OSS/BSS knowledge; we were supported in this by an ex-CEO from an OSS vendor, acting as an external advisor. At the same time we were very fortunate to be able to attract people who had left Satec and were excited by the alvatross initiative. We also wanted to build on Satec’s culture, which is one of its most valuable assets, as reflected in staff turnover rates, which are below the industry average in Spain. At the same time alvatross set out to increase the diversity of age, race, gender, socioeconomic status, nationality and religion of our employees with the aim of creating a stimulating and inclusive working environment in which people want to invest their time and skills over the long term. An important part of creating a stimulating environment that also serves customers is the deployment of the latest paradigms, technologies, and methodologies. We were especially innovative regarding the use of TM Forum’s Open APIs, AIOps, RPA, and microservices. However, our biggest achievement was linked to adapting a complete end-to-end DevOps approach both coding and deploying our products. The impact is huge because we decreased our product deployment professional services in a project by more than 80%. This was not an easy decision to take, because it made us move away from our Agile-as-usual comfort zone and was accomplished after a lot of research among our technical team. At Satec, DevOps was only partially used in one specific project. Today, it is starting to become the standard way of working within the entire company and has been key for obtaining CMMI’s Agile certification for the group. TMForum has been critical for alvatross and we used its TMForum’s assets in a number of ways, including: Global certification program: At alvatross, 100% of our workforce has passed two or more certifications. This has also been extended to both technical and commercial departments within the Satec group (>45 people certified). This has been a very valuable asset for new customers, generating an extra level of confidence in our team. Open APIs: Alvatross has followed the TMF guidelines (TMF620, TMF622, TMF633, TMF638, TMF639 and TMF652) quite closely. This has not only made our product technically stronger but is also a tremendous selling tool both for new and existing customers. Now, we are proud to be silver-certified, ranking amongst the top vendors and integrators. Open Digital Architecture: We only learnt about ODA a few months ago. We participate both in the CA and IG1228, and we are preparing our products for the future. This has given us a competitive advantage that is only possible as part of the Forum. Not only do we develop ODA conformant OSS software components, we also actively shape the emerging standards. In collaboration with leading experts from CSPs and vendors, Satec is articulating ODA principles for the delivery of convergent fixed-mobile services. DOT and DMM: These frameworks have been very interesting to improve our value proposition and sort out the key success factors of our product unit, and the relationship with the rest of Satec.