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Article | B2B services, 5G

DTW-Ignite 24 Spotlight: Making it real: B2B operations and growth

DTW-Ignite 24 in Copenhagen (18-20 June) featured an additional Spotlight session, sponsored by Huawei, dedicated to enhancing B2B operations and service revenues for CSPs.

Richard WebbRichard Webb
07 Aug 2024
DTW-Ignite 24 Spotlight: Making it real: B2B operations and growth

Sponsored by:

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd

DTW-Ignite 24 Spotlight: Making it real: B2B operations and growth

Host Joann O’Brien, VP Digital Ecosystems, TM Forum, opened the session by referencing the significance of the B2B service opportunity for CSPs, supporting high-value business customers as they undergo their own digital transformation journeys. In doing, their needs for enhanced connectivity and digital services increases, giving CSPs opportunities to reuse their existing IT stacks and BSS architectures to drive revenue growth across offerings such IoT, private networks, managed security and other vertical-specific solutions. But many CSPs have only had modest success in these areas so far.

The first speaker, Joanne Taaffe, Editor in Chief, TM Forum, shared research into the B2B segment and the changing market characteristics, noting that fixed voice and MPLS still make up the bulk of CSP enterprise revenue but as these are now declining, new services such as service orchestration need to grow faster to drive revenue growth. She went on to describe how enterprises want to consume telco services in the same way as they consume IT services—such as using online service ‘store’ mechanism to purchase services—so for CSPs, their BSS needs to support ways of delivering these types of new business model. Legacy BSS is not necessarily fit for purpose in this context, so CSPs have a challenge in terms of re-architecting BSS to support new B2B opportunities.

To address these challenges TM Forum has driven a project amongst operators and vendors to create a reference solution architecture for this topic based on its Open Digital Architecture (ODA) assets, which was formally launched during this Spotlight session. Using ODA components and its principle of openness, the architecture show how ODA components can combine to support different domains within CSP B2B business operations, such as B2B sales management, revenue management, CPQ, and B2B sales channel partnerships. This architecture can help CSPs transform their B2B IT capabilities using ODA and marks a significant moment in the development of this market, as the standard addresses actual business requirements for CSPs entering new industries or reinforcing existing B2B activities to drive revenue growth.

Representatives from TM Forum, Antel, HKT, and Huawei celebrating the release of the industry standard report

‘Using ODA to establish B2B BSS reference solution architecture.’

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Source: TM Forum

The promise of B2B is a key strategic focus for many CSPs but unlocking this potential has challenges, in part due to CSP networks and infrastructure not always having the flexibility, intelligence and automation necessary to be customisable to the needs of individual enterprises. In his presentation, John Wan, Director of Solutions Marketing, Huawei, acknowledged these challenges and outlined how CSPs can deliver innovation driven by cloud, AI, big data analytics, to create B2B value.

Via a video contribution, Guo Chen, EVP, China Mobile, shared two successful cases of how it supports the efficient development of government and enterprise services with other markets through the construction of a new generation of digital and intelligent cloud-native BSS.

Next on stage was Michael Chou Chung Yue, VP Strategy Coordination Office, HKT, sharing his insights into what new services have strong potential for CSPs looking to grow enterprise services? He outlined how HKT was offering over 50 brands, including tailored solutions, so took the decision to use GenAI and LLM to understand enterprise customer behaviour and needs, and enhance their customer experience. GenAI enabled HKT to identify where integrated solutions could be offered, to spur growth in the enterprise segment, and which industry-focused solutions made sense for HKT, with the CSP developing 5G PMN solutions for healthcare, property development, smart city, and FinTech sectors within the highly competitive Hong Kong market. The guiding principles for this process of service assessment and rationalisation for its B2B business were:

To conclude the Spotlight session, a panel featuring spokespersons from HKT, Antel Uruguay, CasperaLab, and Huawei discussed pathways to B2B growth through BSS implementation. This was a lively and thought-provoking exchange of perspectives, and made for a fascinating end to the session, suggesting future opportunities for evolution of B2B service segments, and the solutions and business models needed to address them. Using the new reference solution architecture based on ODA, CSPs and their solution provider partners can take advantage of this standard to transform their B2B operations, support new services and business models, and accelerate revenue growth.

For the full content of this Spotlight session, please click on the link Making It Real: B2B Growth & Operations – DTW Ignite 2024 Spotlight Session to access it.