In advance of a virtual event on Thursday, March 26, TM Forum Chief Analyst Mark Newman looks at why communications service providers (CSPs) face so many challenges in trying to leverage data across their organisations.On a scale of 1-100, how effective is your organisation today in leveraging the data that sits across the entire organisation?
This was the first question we asked in a survey of telecoms operators in November last year. The average ranking from respondents (106 responses from 46 unique operators) was 53.
There were no discernible trends in terms of the operators most – or least – advanced in their use of analytics. Indeed, four scores we received from four respondents working in different parts of a single large global telecoms operator group were 36, 40, 80 and 89.
This range of scores (and perceptions) is not a surprise. But, at the same time, it is worth acknowledging that the survey only went out to individuals that are either directly involved in collecting or leveraging the data. As such, they are the individuals and teams with the job of pushing the score closer to 100.
What is valuable?
There are two ways to think about the value of data generated by a CSP and its customers. On one hand, there is data that sits within a specific department – for example, data generated by the network itself (customer usage of the network and the functioning of the network). In this case the network team has a clear focus and a remit for leveraging that data to the best of its ability. The same is true for other teams like customer relationship management, finance, HR and lines of business.
But the other way of considering the value of data is by looking at how one team or department might be able to use the data from another, for example, how the finance team might be able to use data from the network.
It is the second of these approaches to using data that poses the biggest challenges for CSPs. Different departments collect data in different ways. The data is created by systems from different suppliers, and the “accessibility” of the data varies based on the approach taken to how it is stored and cleaned.
Empowered to change
If it were clear where the responsibility lies for leveraging data across the organisation, it would be possible to build use cases for cross-departmental data, put together a governance program and introduce KPIs for measuring how effectively data is being exposed and reused. Many CSPs do have chief digital officers, chief data officers or chief transformation officers, but they do not always have the resource, or the empowerment, to push through an agenda for change.
The mandate for a bigger vision on how to leverage data across the organisation – and how effectively to pave the way for the usage of AI and machine learning needs to come from the very top of the organisation. Given that CSPs are intent on playing catch-up with hyperscale cloud providers, perhaps they need to take some inspiration from an initiative from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos 18 years ago. In a move which is often seen as laying the ground for the future success of Amazon as a platform business, Bezos sent a memo (the so-called
API mandate) to all staff instructing them to expose their data and functionality through service interfaces.
The importance of leveraging data will be one of the topics discussed during Thursday’s web event, which you can register for by clicking the link below. Join me and the author of a new white paper on transformation, James Crawshaw, Senior Analyst, Omdia, along with these subject matter experts:
Aaron Boasman-Patel, VP AI & Customer Experience, TM Forum
Danny Yap Kok Ho, Principal Solution Architect, Huawei SP
Mark Newman, TM Forum
