DTW (Digital Transformation World)
Why the digital marketplace platform is central to 5G ROI
The TM Forum 5G Profitable Lifecycle Catalyst project will showcase an integrated digital services platform which dynamically configures products and services using intelligent network slicing and allocation.
09 May 2019
Why the digital marketplace platform is central to 5G ROI
The TM Forum 5G Profitable Lifecycle Catalyst project will showcase an integrated digital services platform which dynamically configures products and services using intelligent network slicing and allocation.
Juniper Research estimates that by the end of 2018, communications service providers (CSPs), hardware suppliers and public bodies spent $60 billion on 5G research and development. In 2018 alone, they are estimated to have shelled out $30 billion on trialing networks ready for commercial roll-out.
CSPs will need to recoup these costs and offset rising data costs with effective 5G monetization models to make all this worthwhile.
The Catalyst project is focused on just that. The team is exploring the idea of moving telcos up the value chain from being a ‘bit pipe’ to being at the center of an integrated digital services platform which serves as a marketplace, bringing entire vertical ecosystems together.
This, they say, is the way to fully monetize the power of 5G for the collective good of all the players.
Telefónica’s O2 is the Champion of this Catalyst. Catalyst champions bring a business challenge that they need solving and they work alongside the participants – in this case, Cognizant, Celfinet, Mercato, Vlocity and SoftwareAG – to develop solutions to the specific challenge over three to six months.
The team believes the Internet of Things (IoT) will be a key driver in monetizing 5G – as everything from households to hospitals, cars, consumer goods and farming become connected.
They are looking at how a B2B2X marketplace approach would allow telcos to get a head-start by not only selling connectivity, but also products and services for finance, healthcare, manufacturing, energy and utilities, drones, video surveillance and more, as well as pulling in the related accessories and add-ons from partners that the buyer needs, with all transactions supported by the platform. IoT providers, small and medium businesses, large enterprises, software vendors and technology companies can all subscribe to the marketplace.
Manju Kygonahally, Business Unit Leader, Cognizant, added: “It also provides a good segue for others in the ecosystem to be part of the marketplace -- otherwise everyone would start reinventing the wheel.”
The marketplace creates a one-stop shop for the ecosystem of buyers and suppliers and therefore requires a seamless customer experience.
A previous iteration of this Catalyst focused on developing a new kind of omnichannel digital customer experience management by correlating customer experience with network data using a differentiated customer journey analytics and AI platform (CJAI). This is now central to the integrated digital services platform.
The team will use the example of a drone marketplace to demonstrate the platform but its principles could apply in any vertical. Users will be able to choose the drone model and will be prompted to also select accessories and add-ons such as insurance, a 4K or 8K camera, high-resolution video storage and aviation authority clearance. They’ll also choose a network resource plan (slice), with assured bandwidth, latency and speed for the context in which they plan to use the drone. Behind the scenes, the order will be created, the slice allocated and quality of service (QoS) monitoring set up.
The platform uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for guided selling workflows, self-serve and zero-touch operations to configure the products and services automatically.
It is underpinned by a real-time 5G network slice measurement engine, powered by AI and ML. The platform will intelligently associate the commercial order to a 5G network slice. More importantly, it also works in the opposite direction -- in real-time, an IoT-enabled device can request a slice to be re-associated if the current service is not fulfilling the bandwidth and/or latency requirements.
The platform also allows CSPs to provision the most profitable network slice and make decisions based on profitability, cell-site data and IoT device parameters. An intelligent network slice manager will consider several factors, including the commercial terms of the contract, available network resources, IoT sensor data and partner networks. An AI/ML-based decision-making process will request slice(s) be allocated from a network provider that could include partner networks from where cell-site configuration data is available.
The integrated services platform has been built using TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA), TM Forum's collaborative vision of a more agile replacement for traditional OSS/BSS architecture.
It also uses the TM Forum ecosystem modeling management tool CurateFx to define a stakeholder map, along with use case definitions.
The Catalyst will deliver new contributions to several TM Forum Open APIs, including Product Catalog, Product Order and Service Catalog.
For the benefit of the whole community, the Catalyst plans to create a live demo environment which will be available for the ongoing testing of new use cases.
Each of the Catalyst team provides a different piece of the solution.
Learn more by watching this video filmed at Digital Transformation World 2019:
Juniper Research estimates that by the end of 2018, communications service providers (CSPs), hardware suppliers and public bodies spent $60 billion on 5G research and development. In 2018 alone, they are estimated to have shelled out $30 billion on trialing networks ready for commercial roll-out.
CSPs will need to recoup these costs and offset rising data costs with effective 5G monetization models to make all this worthwhile.
The Catalyst project is focused on just that. The team is exploring the idea of moving telcos up the value chain from being a ‘bit pipe’ to being at the center of an integrated digital services platform which serves as a marketplace, bringing entire vertical ecosystems together.
This, they say, is the way to fully monetize the power of 5G for the collective good of all the players.
Telefónica’s O2 is the Champion of this Catalyst. Catalyst champions bring a business challenge that they need solving and they work alongside the participants – in this case, Cognizant, Celfinet, Mercato, Vlocity and SoftwareAG – to develop solutions to the specific challenge over three to six months.
Stacking up the business case
The team believes the Internet of Things (IoT) will be a key driver in monetizing 5G – as everything from households to hospitals, cars, consumer goods and farming become connected.
They are looking at how a B2B2X marketplace approach would allow telcos to get a head-start by not only selling connectivity, but also products and services for finance, healthcare, manufacturing, energy and utilities, drones, video surveillance and more, as well as pulling in the related accessories and add-ons from partners that the buyer needs, with all transactions supported by the platform. IoT providers, small and medium businesses, large enterprises, software vendors and technology companies can all subscribe to the marketplace.
“Multiple products, multiple services and multiple guided selling processes specific to industry verticals, can now be configured and sold through the marketplace, and that’s where we believe the business case for 5G really stacks up,” said Avtar Chaggar, Digital Partner, Cognizant.
Manju Kygonahally, Business Unit Leader, Cognizant, added: “It also provides a good segue for others in the ecosystem to be part of the marketplace -- otherwise everyone would start reinventing the wheel.”
Experience is everything
The marketplace creates a one-stop shop for the ecosystem of buyers and suppliers and therefore requires a seamless customer experience.
A previous iteration of this Catalyst focused on developing a new kind of omnichannel digital customer experience management by correlating customer experience with network data using a differentiated customer journey analytics and AI platform (CJAI). This is now central to the integrated digital services platform.
Kygonahally commented: “Today, there is no cross-industry digital marketplace which is able to configure assured network resources along with selling products available in the market. The technical integration to get such a solution built by the CSP internally would be complex and expensive. The Catalyst is tackling this.”
Slice management
The team will use the example of a drone marketplace to demonstrate the platform but its principles could apply in any vertical. Users will be able to choose the drone model and will be prompted to also select accessories and add-ons such as insurance, a 4K or 8K camera, high-resolution video storage and aviation authority clearance. They’ll also choose a network resource plan (slice), with assured bandwidth, latency and speed for the context in which they plan to use the drone. Behind the scenes, the order will be created, the slice allocated and quality of service (QoS) monitoring set up.
The platform uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for guided selling workflows, self-serve and zero-touch operations to configure the products and services automatically.
It is underpinned by a real-time 5G network slice measurement engine, powered by AI and ML. The platform will intelligently associate the commercial order to a 5G network slice. More importantly, it also works in the opposite direction -- in real-time, an IoT-enabled device can request a slice to be re-associated if the current service is not fulfilling the bandwidth and/or latency requirements.
Chaggar explained: “We’ll be able to show the dynamics of how the network itself is initially secondary to the commercial order and the opposite is also viable where IoT sensor requests can be addressed dynamically.”
The platform also allows CSPs to provision the most profitable network slice and make decisions based on profitability, cell-site data and IoT device parameters. An intelligent network slice manager will consider several factors, including the commercial terms of the contract, available network resources, IoT sensor data and partner networks. An AI/ML-based decision-making process will request slice(s) be allocated from a network provider that could include partner networks from where cell-site configuration data is available.
Under the hood
The integrated services platform has been built using TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA), TM Forum's collaborative vision of a more agile replacement for traditional OSS/BSS architecture.
It also uses the TM Forum ecosystem modeling management tool CurateFx to define a stakeholder map, along with use case definitions.
The Catalyst will deliver new contributions to several TM Forum Open APIs, including Product Catalog, Product Order and Service Catalog.
For the benefit of the whole community, the Catalyst plans to create a live demo environment which will be available for the ongoing testing of new use cases.
Each of the Catalyst team provides a different piece of the solution.
- Cognizant enables the integration between components and platforms to deliver the solution. It also provides network slice management and the network orchestration capability.
- Mercato provides the digital marketplace capability and Configure Price Quote (CPQ)
- Vlocity is responsible for the core customer order management layer, including its advanced product lifecycle management (PLM) catalog, technical order management.
- Celfinet contributes the network extraction layer including 5G cell site configuration and performance data
- SoftwareAG’s Cumolocity provides the IoT device management layer.
Learn more by watching this video filmed at Digital Transformation World 2019:
