Stitching together the siloes of the CSP organisation

Sponsored by: Huawei

When you look at a telecoms operator from the outside you see a single organization with a coherent operating model that flows across the entire business from the functions that create the products (the network) to those which sell the products (the consumer and enterprise lines of business). Then there are the functions that support the core businesses of producing and selling such as finance, IT and operations and HR.

But in practice few operators are like this. The network and broader technology organization on the one side, and the commercial functions on the other, each employ hundreds or thousands of people. They employ different cultures, different skillsets, different technology vendors and partners and different management and broader information systems.

There is nothing new in this. It is how telecoms operators have evolved over a period of time. And in any case, all large organizations have their own siloes. On the other hand, if operators are serious about transformation, then this is an issue that they will necessarily need to confront.

It is worth considering what CSPs could achieve with some joined-up thinking and functions that sit across the production (network) and commercial (sales, marketing and distribution) parts of the business.

Perhaps the biggest opportunity is in closer coordination between the network planning functions and the marketing and retail functions. The two functions operate largely in isolation today. But imagine if network planning had real-time insights into sales and marketing data and the effectiveness of its retail footprint. This could be factored into network roll-out and prioritization. If there was better information, and management systems, flowing in the opposite direction, an operator would be able to optimize its retail footprint and its sales and marketing activity to focus on those regions where the network offers the highest quality service,

And then there are the benefits to experience. The network determines the customer experience and yet the information flow to and from the network and the customer is slow and unpredictable. Network operations teams are under pressure to transition to service operations centers and to take remedial actions that are based on service impact and customer experience. And customer services teams want real-time access to network information to be more proactive in managing customer relationships.

The finance function could also benefit from access to better, more regular data from the network. Many CSPs now do their Capex budgeting on a quarterly basis. To make the most effective, efficient decision, access to real-time data about what is happening, and what is likely to happen, in the network is essential. Procurement more generally is under pressure to modernize and to digitize as both IT and network teams transition to agile ways of working.

So, how does an operator make this happen? Which department or function pays for improvements that can be felt across the whole business but does not sit squarely with anyone? In practice, this is probably an initiative that needs to start with the network function, not because it has the biggest budget but because it is already tasked with becoming more customer-centric in how it makes investment and operational decisions.

You can find out more from the new whitepaper produced in collaboration with Huawei.

Join the event to hear the author of the white paper, James Crawshaw, Senior Analyst, Omida, and TM Forum Chief Analyst Mark Newman talk about the paper’s findings with experts from Huawei, Maxis Communications and TM Forum.