TM Forum survey: essential requirements for new business support systems

Communications service providers (CSPs) overwhelmingly see flexibility and scalability as key to future business support systems (BSS). In the face of new technologies and networks that are still unproven, they need to experiment with new approaches that will deliver commercial success. And delivering a compelling digital experience and giving customers real-time access to a range of different services will be central to that success.

Our survey for our new report Evolving business support systems for future services demonstrated that CSPs have a range of new investment requirements for their BSS systems. But they said that flexibility and scalability are essential in the face of so much uncertainty. Nine out of 10 of our respondents considered it an “extremely important” future requirement, which put it significantly ahead of other requirements (see chart below).

There is good reason for this. Despite the enthusiasm for new technologies and concepts such as network slicing, edge computing, connectivity-as-a-service and marketplaces, these are all unproven from a market perspective.

CSPs have had mixed success with new product and service launches and the cost of failure is high. They also have limited capabilities to test a new product or service; the deployment of new IT systems often requires costly IT customization projects; and it can take up to a year from when the market opportunity is first detected to a commercial launch.

For the next two-to-three years, CSPs will need to experiment with new product concepts, new partner ecosystems and new approaches to monetization before they can commit to full commercial launches. And they will need a flexible, scalable BSS to support such an approach.

Two other future requirements considered to be essential by a large proportion of our respondents are “integrated digital experience and commerce management” and “automated service configuration and purchasing”. Regardless of the new services and business models that CSPs bring to market and adopt, delivering a more compelling digital experience and giving customers real-time access to a range of different services will be central to their success.

Our new report Evolving business support systems for future services details the steps CSPs need to take to transform their business support systems (BSS) in a digital landscape. It looks at CSPs’ current status, strategies and aspirations, where the end game is cloud-native and automated systems and processes coupled with an excellent digital experience for end users.

The report is based on a global survey of 133 executives working for 79 telecoms operators worldwide. And it draws on interviews with large and medium-sized operators and operator groups in the past 12 months.

Read the full report to find out more.