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VANILLAPLUS DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT JULY 2017

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VanillaPlus Digital Transformation Insight I JULY 2017

3 ANALYST REPORT

16 CASE STUDY

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ANALYST REPORT Our specially-commissioned analyst report, authored by Karl Whitelock, director for Global Strategy, and Troy Morley, strategy analyst, for Operations, Orchestration, Data Analytics and Monetization (ODAM) at Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan

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COMPANY PROFILE: Amdocs Digital COMPANY PROFILE: Amdocs Catalog COMPANY PROFILE: Comptel COMPANY PROFILE: Nokia COMPANY PROFILE: Wipro

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CASE STUDY Inside Three Ireland’s digital transformation project which Amdocs Digital is supporting with retail, self-service and mobile applications, while also consolidating and modernising the mobile operator’s IT operations

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CASE STUDY How Amdocs Catalog’s Master Enterprise Catalog is accelerating new service launch and halving CSPs’ time to change

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TRANSFORMATION PRIORITIES Comptel’s Steve Hateley explains how CSPs are taking in the big picture when it comes to digital transformation so they can unite customers, services and networks

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TELCO CLOUD Nokia details how a logical and structured process can enable CSPs to deploy a telco cloud successfully

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CASE STUDY How a recent Wipro campaign management project demonstrated data monetisation for CSPs

20 TRANSFORMATION PRIORITIES

24 CASE STUDY

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VANILLAPLUS DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT I JULY 2017

ANALYST REPORT

Karl Whitelock, director for Global Strategy, and Troy Morley, strategy analyst, for Operations, Orchestration, Data Analytics & Monetization (ODAM) at Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan

Digital services transformation – are we there yet?

Before the phrase digital service provider (DSP) gained popularity and before digital transformation was touted as a crucial necessity to long-term business survival, a variety of market dynamics were causing communication service providers (CSPs) to make essential changes in the way they address evolving customer needs

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or example, shown in Figure 1, data usage volumes for mobile customers have steadily risen over the last ten years. Globally, the number of mobile customers consuming more than 2GB of data per month has risen from 13% at the end of 2012 to 65% by the end of 2016. As a result, CSPs designed tiered data service plans as a means to align customer usage and willingness to pay. Then, competitive forces in some regions caused CSPs to rethink their data strategies and revert back to unlimited usage offers.

Figure 1: Rising consumer usage data volumes

VANILLAPLUS DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT I JULY 2017

From another perspective, Internet of Things (IoT) consumer devices – high-end cameras, drones and connected cars – now consume 500MB per hour or higher of data capacity. While some of this is over fixedline Wi-Fi networks, the volume of mobile video data created by these devices continues to grow. Adding to the equation is accelerated customer use of over the top (OTT) provided digital services.

CSPs can no longer ignore the global change in customer attitudes and internet competitor focus on new digital services. These combined factors are especially challenging since digital services depend on ubiquitous broadband coverage and reliable network connectivity.

Striking a balance between network services and the evolving digital services world is inevitable. But, what

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Source: Cisco Visual Network Index 2012-2017, Stratecast

How long will it be before the current unlimited data plans, which all have capped usage limits, no longer bring customer satisfaction? If measured data usage offerings are eliminated – as some prognostications imply through use of network technology that can support faster speeds, lower latency, and even higher data volumes – what will the next wave of CSP business strategy involve? How will digital services play a role and what kinds of operations and monetisation support will digital services need for business success?

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ANALYST REPORT Figure 2: Global communications market is at the centre of new business strategy

Source: Stratecast

does this mean for CSPs today? More specifically: • Will the market for network access services continue as presently defined?

• To remain competitive and attractive to their core customers, must CSPs offer network access combined with digital services from an ecosystem of partners? If so, is there a proven set of industry best practices that can be followed?

• How will digital services fit into the long-term strategies that CSPs are now creating?

• Can existing processes work in parallel with new business solutions?

• Is an economic approach to DSP enablement possible given today's regulatory restrictions, network technology evolution, competitive forces, and changing business models?

IoT data and streaming video, combined with declining growth of voice services, places pressure on CSPs to operationalise network technology that better aligns usage demand with what the market is willing to pay for network access.

Network connectivity: the centre of new business strategy Looking beyond the CSP industry, as noted by Figure 2, advances in communications technology are playing a major role in the transformation of every industry in the world: taking them from a something-to-sell model to a digital services-to-buy model – also known as Anything-as-a-Service or XaaS.

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Emerging market dynamics: customer demand is evolving and expanding Combined with the push of the market realities described above, emerging customer dynamics are providing the pull for business transformation. Shown in Figure 3, the traditional market segments addressed by CSPs include consumers, small-medium businesses (SMB), large businesses, and enterprises. CSPs sell services to these customer groups through retail business-to-consumer (B2C) and wholesale business-to-business (B2B) models. The opportunities for growth within each segment are significant but also require different tool sets for business success.

While the details concerning each customer group cannot be addressed in an article such as this, there are some high points well worth considering, especially as virtual network functions (VNFs) go mainstream over the next 18 months. Large businesses and enterprises are using communication services, in particular mobile services, to enhance their previously delivered products and solution offerings. The addition of partner-provided capabilities is increasing the customer value proposition. The looming explosion of a connectedeverything world, with IoT services, is designed to address both business and consumer needs, and is applicable to an increasing number of opportunities in nearly every industry. The use of mobility services to help large businesses and enterprises offer traditional goods as XaaS offerings, are in full swing.

Figure 3 also shows the two newest customer segments: Virtual Network Enablers (VNEs) and Virtual Business Enablers (VBEs). VNEs facilitate the provisioning, activation, operations and monetisation of

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This change in business strategy is possible through near-ubiquitous connectivity supported by enhanced processes that enable new ways to track, ship, facilitate and monetise goods. These processes increase security, embrace adaptable configurability, and are embodied with an intense focus on wholesale/retail financial accountability. Examples of this level of transformational change can be found within industries such as healthcare, transportation logistics, agriculture, air travel, government services, hospitality, financial services, public transportation, product delivery, and even the retail labelling market using NFC (near field communications).

At the centre of business change is a critical assumption; nearubiquitous network access and a reliable network connection. For people with a smartphone, survival in this digital age is defined by total dependence on a fast data connection with internet access, usually via a mobile device or some combination of mobile and a fixed-line connection. They expect 24 X 7 service availability, high throughput capacity, personal security, total reliability, and dependability of the apps used to keep their digital lifestyle current.

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

Figure 3: The demand challenge, complexity is winning

Source: Stratecast

wholesale network capacity for enterprises. VBEs have been discussed

by Stratecast for more than five years now. The VBE marketplace enables partners to sell goods and services in a B2B2X manner, through the concept of digital partner ecosystem management.

VNEs are not new, as they supported the first generation of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) beginning more than ten years ago, with many successful MVNOs from this era remaining. However, a second generation of MVNO, including the occasional fixed-line virtual operator, is now rising. This new-generation of virtual network operator (VNO) focuses on connected business opportunities in multiple industries, rather than a branded package of voice and text services for end-user customers. In this light, the VNE can be the enabling mechanism for enterprise-based MVNO and IoT initiatives, rather than requiring enterprises to directly engage with the CSP via its traditional systems and processes. VNEs will continue to transform as virtual network functions gain prominence.

A VBE allows ecosystem partners to sell goods and services to a global economy. This enablement applies to what each partner brings to the market individually; but also provides the means for partners to assemble their service contributions with those from other partners, to yield new, never before established, virtual services. The ultimate business scenario for a VBE comes forward in this environment as each partner begins to use its natural assets and capabilities to adapt and adopt platform-based business models that involve other partners in the creation of new services. These new services could incorporate the original offering, combined with added capabilities of one or more partners. To address the business needs of the rapidly-evolving VBE marketplace, a CSP must be well on the path to becoming a DSP. Perhaps this is why there are so many different views of a DSP and the role it must play to meet the needs of market change.

CSP to DSP transformation – filling a tall order

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

Digital transformation is less about specific services, however, and more about how the DSP operates its business, and creates customer value. A DSP is a CSP that has transformed the way it does business, which can be characterized by a number of key traits as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Key traits of a digital service provider

Source: Stratecast

The key traits encompassed through digital transformation involve: • Becoming data driven. Data, and more particularly data analytics, have become increasingly important. However, the road to becoming a DSP takes analytics to a new level. CSPs often use purpose-built analytics to improve specific functions, such as billing or service assurance, which will continue to be important. However, DSPs require more, including a view across functional areas, customer insights, and intelligence that span silos heretofore

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Digital transformation is a tall order: asking companies, which in some cases have roots that go back decades, to now become more agile and change how they do business, especially when most remain profitable. Yet, the tides of change are here. For a CSP to transform to

a DSP, the CSP needs to continue providing communications services – the network connection – and then provide added customer value to that connection in the form of digital services.

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invisible to purpose-built applications. Perhaps most importantly, DSPs need to monetise this data to its fullest extent, which means providing insight to partners, at a price, as is now done for any other network asset. The DSP is a data-driven business, requiring high levels of automation, fuelled by the insights from both purpose-built and customer-level analytics.

• Addressing everything in human-level real-time. A real-time response to market demand is a reflection of the instant gratification culture that is today’s business reality. In the past, a CSP’s post-paid customers received an invoice at the end of each billing cycle.

Today, with tiered plans, even post-paid customers demand visibility as to how their usage compares with their subscribed data tier commitment. In addition, part of the appeal of digital services is their immediacy. When purchasing a digital good or service, the expectation is that once the purchase is complete, the product or service is immediately enjoyed, and the price for it acknowledged • Providing omni-channel customer interaction, with an eye on digital channels. Omni-channel has also become a popular concept. The term omni-channel refers to all customer contact and fulfilment channels looking, acting, and performing the same. This applies to a retail store visit, a web portal, an app on a mobile device, engagement with an authorised dealer, or a call to a customer service agent. Customers should be able to change between channels without losing information or needing to start a transaction again.

While many CSPs are currently moving in this direction, for a DSP, the primary channel is digital. For example, 80% or more of the time, OTT providers engage in digital channel interaction with their customers. In addition, self-service is a concept that is affecting many industries. For a DSP, the entire shopping, ordering, delivery, installation, turn-up, and billing process must be automated and must be customer-driven.

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• Integrated platform that combines key strengths with the strengths of others. A DSP must provide an integrated platform that combines its key strengths with others, to create more value for whatever customer it chooses to serve. This, is the key lesson that CSPs can take from their OTT competitors. For example, Google was a search engine company that transformed into an advertising platform provider. Facebook was a social network that dramatically increased its value by morphing into a platform for launching other applications. Apple is a consumer electronics device company; but without its application and digital store platforms, it would be far less successful. And, much of Microsoft’s success stems from the ecosystem surrounding the programs that now run on its Windows platform.

CSPs already have the main ingredients to become platform providers. They have established relationships with various customer segments. They provide highly-needed connectivity. They have established systems to operate and monetise their customer relationships. They just need to engage with the right partner enablement platform to orchestrate these multiple relationships in their move to becoming a DSP. • A business model and framework that is flexible, agile, and fast. The OTT suppliers are agile and willing to try fast, fail fast and change fast. CSPs, in general, are not known for any of these traits – which makes this the hardest piece of the puzzle, and one that will take the longest to transform. The move by CSPs toward virtual networks, utilising some combination of network function virtualisation (NFV) and software defined networks (SDN) has largely been driven with the goal of making CSP networks more flexible and agile. So, if a CSP moves to incorporate virtual network functionality, is it immediately a DSP?

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• Service focused. CSPs have long been focused on the network

connection, often to the detriment of what is delivered over that connection. However, DSPs focus on the content or services that ride across a network connection – while their customers assume that the connection just works.

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

Stratecast believes that virtual networks will be an important tool to assist CSPs on their journey towards becoming DSPs, but by themselves are not sufficient. In fact, some CSPs will continue to be the best CSPs they can be, and utilise virtual networks with no goal of becoming a DSP. In addition, some CSPs may make the transition to becoming a DSP prior to enabling any level of network virtualisation.

• Putting the customer first. With an eye on selling network connections and basic services in the past, it is not surprising that CSPs have focused more on the network than on the customer.

While the network remains essential, in general, network connectivity is assumed in the DSP value proposition. To provide advanced services that deliver high customer value, DSPs must move from a network-centric to a customer-centric business focus.

The customer will be different for different DSPs. The customer may be a consumer, an enterprise, another CSP, a different DSP, a supplier partner, or something else entirely. To be effective, the DSP must understand who its customers are and focus on providing value to those customers.

• An extensive partner ecosystem, which can provide a constantly changing array of digital services. Different vertical skill sets are required to offer a spectrum of quality digital services.

In most cases, digital services involve an ecosystem of partners, which take on many forms. The key aspect of a partner ecosystem is an understanding by each participating organisation that no single group can do it all. Also, there must be a commitment that usage and customer revenue allocation will be managed effectively. A platform approach is the only way in which retail and wholesale transactions can simultaneously receive the right level of attention and accountability.

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

Survey on the importance of monetisation to CSP digital transformation Stratecast annually assesses the global CSP monetisation supplier marketplace. Due to the ubiquity of digital transformation discussions in marketing, and industry coverage, we included questions in our recently conducted 2017 survey concerning digital transformation strategy. The survey partitioned the ten largest suppliers of monetisation solutions, by revenue, from the rest of the supplier field.

By inference, Stratecast believes that the CSP customers of these suppliers constitute the larger CSPs throughout the global marketplace, which are noted as the leaders category within the following discussion.

Is digital transformation necessary?

Questions were asked to the global monetisation supplier market. Each respondent was asked to reply representing a composite view of their service provider customers. The first two questions to this audience were: • How important is support for digital transformation?

• How important is the role of the monetisation functions in the digital transformation process?

Every respondent agreed – the largest CSPs to the smallest – that support for digital transformation is essential today, and that the monetisation functions play an essential role in this process. A unanimous response, as noted for each of the questions is rare. In fact, of the 105 requirements asked within the 2017 Stratecast monetisation market survey, only these two garnered the same answer from every respondent.

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The digital business enablement platform creates a dynamic marketplace that enables the role of producer, provider, owner, and customer to be interchangeable. For example, a producer could supply its own services, but also use the ecosystem to buy and

resell different services, and/or bundle them with its own. So, this model offers multi-sided opportunities to all parties. The platform model recognises the importance of B2B activities such as repackaging, re-pricing, and reselling as part of co-innovation and co-investment. Hence, the supporting digital business enablement platform must be able to account for each partner’s contributions to the service offering and keep track of the revenue split, based on contract-defined agreements, going to each partner.

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Figure 5: Importance of the monetisation functions in digital transformation

Source: Stratecast

Stratecast views these findings as a confirmation that digital transformation is real, and not just continued marketing hype.

We also believe this is a global movement – though there will be regions that will advance faster than others – and that digital transformation is not confined to a particular size of service provider.

What monetisation functions are the most important for CSP digital transformation?

Stratecast next asked the survey respondents about the importance of various monetisation functions pertaining to digital transformation. The survey specifically asked about the importance of such functions as: billing mediation, rating and charging, customer notifications, self-care, policy management, partner management and analytics as noted in Figure 5.

The leading suppliers, which represent the largest CSPs, reported rating & charging, customer self-care, customer notification, analytics, and partner management as Essential monetisation functions for enabling digital transformation. Suppliers in the Others category stated that their customers also place a high level of importance on these same functions.

Stratecast believes two additional functions are essential regarding digital transformation: policy management and billing mediation. Policy management is currently a key enabler of a range of services; and Stratecast believes this will continue in the DSP world. Also, in this era of ever-increasing data volumes – in all industries – mediation has become a key tool in managing and utilising the flood of data that all organisations face. In the CSP monetisation world, mediation plays a major role; and within a DSP, Stratecast believes mediation will continue to be critically important.

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Source: Stratecast

Stratecast next asked the four-option question: What monetisation solution approach(s) are your customers engaging in to address their needs for digital transformation?

• Cloud-enabled software, private cloud model • Traditional on-premises software licence model • Managed services model • Cloud-enabled software, public cloud model, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) While there was complete agreement on the importance of digital transformation for CSPs, and on the role of monetisation in that transformation, Figure 6 illustrates that there is much less agreement when assessing the solution approach to digital transformation.

All respondents agreed that solutions need to be cloud-enabled; but the leading suppliers/large CSPs are not convinced that engaging with the needed operations and monetisation solutions for digital transformation using a public cloud SaaS model is the right approach.

These industry leaders believe that managed services are as important as private cloud, but also believe that traditional on-premises software licensing models are equally important to at least a substantial number of service providers.

Stratecast believes cloud-enabled business management and monetisation solutions are critical for any digital transformation strategy. From our perspective, public versus private is a choice that is dictated by preference, by the size of the CSP/DSP, and even sometimes by regulation. If a business management or monetisation solution is truly cloud-enabled, then the application software could be delivered through a more economical public cloud option, while customer and process logic data is placed in a private cloud environment. Stratecast believes that this hybrid cloud approach to solution deployment is quickly becoming the preferred means for digital transformation solutions. We expect the results of our next industry survey to reflect this line of positioning.

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What is the best solution approach to achieve digital transformation?

Figure 6: Importance of solution approach to digital transformation strategy

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

Figure 7: Strategic focus of CSPs’ transformation strategies

Source: Stratecast

Strategically, where are CSPs focusing in their transformation?

Finally, Stratecast asked: Digital Transformation, or the transformation from CSP to DSP, has different meanings to different organisations.

What is most important in your digital transformation strategy?

• Support for partner ecosystems (horizontal orchestration) • Enterprise business enablement • Monetizing IoT service offerings • Enable and charge for virtualised network functions (VNFs) Figure 7 shows that partner ecosystems, enterprise business enablement, and monetising IoT offerings are all reasonably important to the transformation strategies of both large and small CSPs. Stratecast believes the CSP priority focus for each of these strategy components is as follows: • Partner ecosystems. To provide the most value to both consumer and business customers, a DSP will need to engage with a large ecosystem of partners. A DSP will need to be agile; with the ability to fail fast as business needs evolve. Digital services need to be offered quickly; and if they do not resonate with the customer base, they need to be removed quickly. DSPs will not have the luxury of months or years to roll out new services; hence, the need for partners. New digital services in the not-too-distant future will need to be introduced in hours – or days, at worst.

• Enterprise business enablement. Enterprise business enablement has multiple flavours. These may be new digital services, perhaps from a new partner ecosystem that serves the enterprise market in a business-to-business (B2B) model. These may be a combination of digital services from multiple sources in a B2B2X model. Or perhaps this may be a DSP helping an enterprise to offer its products in a service model (XaaS). All forms of enterprise business enablement will be essential in the future DSP landscape.

• Monetising IoT. Most agree that the IoT will have a significant impact in the coming years. However, there is currently not a lot of discussion about how to monetise the millions or billions of devices that will someday soon make up the IoT. If a future DSP wants to benefit from this quickly growing market, its digital transformation strategy must tackle IoT monetisation.

• Charging for VNFs. As virtual networks move from the planning stages into reality, network functions that are now a dedicated piece of hardware will become virtual, or VNFs. These VNFs are software that can come from multiple sources. Software that can be spun up and spun down. This creates new ways to compensate the creators of the VNF, new licensing challenges, and new usage to monitor and monetise. Monetising VNFs will become an interesting proposition in the next few years. Stratecast is impressed that the leading suppliers/large CSPs/DSPs (where this will first become an issue) are thinking about how to address this challenge now.

The last word CSPs have been at a crossroads of sorts many times over the last two decades, as they have decided how to face down one form of competition after another. They mostly learned a few technology tricks that helped them win the day, and then went back to business as usual.

Now, we are again at a crossroads; only, this time, the surrounding fields have sprouted enormous new competitors armed with lots of cash, better business models, more flexible and responsive technologies, and even more recognizable – and might we say hipper – company brands.

Some CSPs may indeed sell their souls this time in order to transform into the one thing that will help them compete in the new internetinspired communications marketplace: a digital services provider.

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Every industry experiences occasional flurries of marketing hype. Often these squalls are short-lived and do not amount to much. There is lots of wind, but little accumulation. Digital transformation in the

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

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communications industry has moved beyond the marketing department and is now a global storm, affecting every region of the world and every size of CSP. Every monetisation supplier reports that its customers view digital transformation, and the role of monetisation within that transformation, as essential.

The road to becoming a DSP is not necessarily long. However, it is paved with persistent operational obstacles tied to agility, which CSPs have been trying to overcome for decades. The problem all along has been the measured, or tempered, approach to clearing those obstacles taken by both CSPs, and their hardware and software suppliers.

Transformation efforts so far have been qualified, curtailed by somewhat understandable protectionist tendencies, and an unwillingness to tamper with a working, profitable business model.

So, it appears that to move ahead with the journey toward becoming a profitable DSP, CSPs simply have to do wholeheartedly what they have been doing half-heartedly all along. They must commit to going all in by opening their networks and systems, and enabling agile, real-time support systems. Only then can they form ecosystems with new market players that were born that way, and operate from the perspective of equal partners.

About ODAM The processes and tools that communications service providers (CSPs) have utilised to run their businesses have changed over time. More than a half-century ago, CSP network and business management processes were manual (OAM&P). As CSPs evolved over the years, so did the operations support systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS) that address CSP business and network management needs. In recent years, the lines between OSS and BSS have become less clear, with much overlap. In addition, the roles in which OSS and BSS operate have expanded beyond traditional boundaries. As such, Stratecast now uses the term Operations, Orchestration, Data Analytics & Monetization (ODAM) to encompass both the traditional OSS and BSS functions and the new areas in which business and operations management must now work together, including virtualised networks and telecom data analysis.

About Stratecast Stratecast collaborates with our clients to reach smart business decisions in the rapidly evolving and hyper-competitive Information and Communications Technology markets. Utilising a mix of action-oriented subscription research and customised consulting engagements, Stratecast delivers knowledge and perspective that is only attainable through years of real-world experience in an industry where customers are collaborators; today’s partners are tomorrow’s competitors; and agility and innovation are essential elements for success. Contact your Stratecast account executive to engage our experience to assist you in attaining your growth objectives.

For more information, visit www.stratecast.com or email inquiries@stratecast.com.

About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to use visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today’s market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the Global 1,000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organisation prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies? For more information about Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Partnership Services, visit http://www.frost.com.

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VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

COMPANY PROFILES

Shannon Bell is head of product management, strategy and go to market for Amdocs Digital. Noted below, are Shannon's views concerning her company's focus on CSP digital transformation. This interview was conducted by Karl Whitelock, Global Director Operations and Monetization Strategy at Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan

Karl Whitelock: Transformation can take on many forms.

What should CSPs consider when defining their digital transformation strategy and in what priority order?

Shannon Bell: When defining strategies for digital transformation, it is important that service providers consider the impact from a few angles – the digital customer, the digital economy, digital technology and the digital organisation. These are essential factors in transforming from a communication service provider to a digital service provider. From our vast experience we realise that our customer’s digital transformation is not an IT programme, it is a business programme that has broadreaching effects and to be successful it must take into account the organisational impact on culture, business processes and technology.

Typically, when most people talk about digital they think about digital engagements and more specifically how you serve customers in their channel of choice. But digital transformation is more than just engagement – it is about digital services, how you drive innovation into the market, utilise new business models, and achieve competitiveness in a dynamic market. And, we believe there are different strategies to achieve these transformation objectives, ranging from full business transformations to horizontal digital experience transformation and down to individual channel digitalisation programmes.

KW: CSPs must change because digital transformation is a journey – something you cannot stop at once you get there.

What is the right digital transformation pathway CSPs should consider?

SB: We believe that every digital transformation journey is unique to the CSP, because it is a business transformation and not just an IT system transformation. That being said, we do believe that CSPs must look at their overall objectives and decide how to approach the transformation.

We equally believe that it is critical to set milestones along the path to transformation in order to bring value to the business stakeholders and drive an overall change within the business.

CSPs follow more than one path towards digital maturity as each business has unique strengths and needs. We focus on supporting three different variations: Full business transformation, digital experience transformation, and digital channel augmentation. The digital experience transformation focuses on introducing omni-channel care and commerce capabilities to the CSP environment. Digital augmentation addresses the digitalisation of a single channel, such as digital or social, paving the way to future transformation and integration with additional channels.

KW: In the quest to help CSPs become more effective in a digitally transformed world, what makes your organisation's digital transformation approach different from others in the competitive solution supplier marketplace?

SB: Amdocs is the leading provider of solutions to enable a CSP's digital transformation, by delivering some of the largest transformations in the world. A few of our differentiators include: • A holistic digital approach combining solutions for digital channels and the engagement layer, as well as driving the new digital organisation with intelligent business processes and new revenue streams.

• Open, cloud-native solutions that enable business agility and faster time-to-market, with DevOps processes, and intelligence embedded across the offering.

• A comprehensive and modular portfolio, enabling digital experiences across all engagement channels, and covering the full scope of digital for service providers – from engagement to network to BSS. • System agnostic approach enabling a digital experience transformation across existing BSS systems.

• Core BSS expertise, bringing a deep understanding of complex, end-to-end telecoms processes and systems.

KW: Gaining intelligence about the customer experience is a dynamic process and a richly rewarding business opportunity. How does intelligence – insight gained from customer experience and network operations data – impact the strategy of a CSP's digital transformation journey?

SB: Intelligence is an integral part of every digital transformation, and it is often overlooked. As part of our digital enablement platform, we see intelligence in terms of: enabling the preferred mix of human to nonhuman based engagements, intelligent converting of care into commerce within every channel, utilising big data to drive personalisation, and taking advantage of artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. We believe that this needs to be considered from day one – as the CSP is defining the objectives of the programme, it needs to look at how they can make every part of their business and their engagement with the customer intelligent. A simple example is in utilising intelligence to drive non-human engagements.

Most CSPs have strategies to drive 80-90% of their engagements with customers through non-human interfaces by 2020. To achieve this, they need to use the data they have to drive non-human interactions through applications, and finally to use machine learning to ensure their business continually grows smarter.

About Amdocs Digital Amdocs is a leading software and services provider to the world’s most successful communications and media companies. As our customers reinvent themselves, we enable their digital and network transformation through innovative solutions, delivery expertise and intelligent operations. Amdocs and its 25,000 employees serve customers in over 85 countries. Listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, Amdocs had revenue of US$3.7 billion in fiscal 2016. www.amdocs.com

IN ASSOCIATION WITH AMDOCS DIGITAL VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

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COMPANY PROFILES

Ronit Seon is the manager of product marketing, cross portfolio and the catalogue domain for Amdocs. Noted below, are Ronit's views concerning the company's focus on CSP digital transformation. This interview was conducted by Karl Whitelock, global director, Operations and Monetization Strategy at Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan Karl Whitelock: Is digital transformation with a focus on consumers (B2C) that much different for business (B2B)? If so, can the same tools still be used to address both?

Ronit Seon: Transitioning from a CSP to a DSP requires four elements: first, immersive engagements, meaning personalised contextual offerings presented to the user on the right channel, at the right time; second, drive business decisions based on intelligence, insight aggregated from multiple sources, surfacing patterns and conclusions for optimisations; third, digital services reflected by the world beyond connectivity, including partner services and ecosystembased business models; fourth, service agility and rapid time-to market-and innovation.

KW: How does the service provider catalogue support that?

RS: The catalogue plays a crucial role in all these four elements. For service agility it should first be integrated with CSPs’ BSS catalogues, including partner catalogues and OSS systems to gain traceability, visibility and control and allow processes to be unified across teams and systems through this one common dominator, one system of record.

Federation allows streamlined partner onboarding, third party service registration and enables ecosystem-based business models supporting the world beyond connectivity.

In addition, product lifecycle management should be driven by the catalogue and be managed centrally to streamline time-to-market and accelerate the pace of change. Speed and operational agility are even greater when the catalogue is built on microservices technology, catalogue data is decoupled and role based functionality is presented via a domain-driven user interface (UI), offering automation and guided flows adapted per each domain.

Thanks to cross organisational integration, from sales channels to engagement channels, IT and networks, it will be smart to utilise catalogue traceability for data analytics and intelligence across business and operations. That’s an ideal implementation that enables the transition toward the DSP. For marketers, building customer offerings should be catalogue driven.

For residential, the evolution toward self-service and bots coupled with personalisation, contextual recommendations and real-time activation, dramatically leans on catalogue capabilities. The catalogue is the one place where all service-level building blocks are aggregated to allow easy bundling, applying promotions, or addition of discounts. The catalogue

can also increase the speed of the customer offering design and launch process. Here are some of the improvements we recommend: • All offering components should be managed via the catalogue together with service level agreements (SLAs), entitlement rules and serviceability guidelines.

• Transition from customisation to configuration via a graphical user interface (GUI) – a UI layer designed to streamline processes by offering more automation for ease of use.

• Business owner empowerment – all UI and process needs should be designed to allow the business owner to be independent and build customer offerings or new products via guided flows and collaboration tools.

• Connecting the catalogue to resource management of hybrid networks to offer fulfilment in accordance with customer profile and SLAs. In the enterprise domain, where deals are much more complex, the catalogue plays a crucial role within the quote, fulfilment and management functions. By breaking a complex project into smaller parts, to better understand costs and pricing, the catalogue can keep track of everything from a centralised location.

KW: To support a CSP's transformation strategy, how does the role of existing operations and monetisation systems change? How will any new capabilities be addressed?

RS: Monetisation systems must enable the business to create and launch innovative offerings that shape the digital landscape and that can quickly monetise next generation services. They must also adopt advanced technologies that make the most efficient use of IT resources to meet the demands of digital consumption.

For the digital customer experience, customers want increasingly more sophisticated services but also want to consume them through a simple process. It’s that level of sophistication and desire for innovation that is leading service providers to look to excite their customers in new ways. The ability to create flexible offerings, collaborative business models including revenue sharing and simplified operations of bundled services, telco and non-telco services, are the parameters that all together add up to deliver major improvements in processes, technologies and pace. We believe that the next generation of catalogue technology and architecture can offer a dramatic improvement in all these areas. These improvements bring in a new era in business innovation allowing the CSP to become the digital service provider (DSP).

About Amdocs Amdocs is a leading software and services provider to the world’s most successful communications and media companies. As our customers reinvent themselves, we enable their digital and network transformation through innovative solutions, delivery expertise and intelligent operations. Amdocs and its 25,000 employees serve customers in over 85 countries. Listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, Amdocs had revenue of US$3.7 billion in fiscal 2016. www.amdocs.com

IN ASSOCIATION WITH AMDOCS CATALOG 12

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

COMPANY PROFILES

Steve Hateley is senior director industry and partner marketing for Comptel. Noted below, are Steve's views concerning his company's focus on CSP digital transformation. This interactive interview was conducted by Karl Whitelock, Global Director Operations and Monetization Strategy at Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan

Karl Whitelock: Transformation can take on many forms.

What should CSPs consider when defining their digital transformation strategy and in what priority order?

Steve Hateley: The transformation from a communications service provider (CSP) to a provider of digital services is considered a profound but necessary change in light of today's customers and their digital expectations and experiences. Although, the perception of what it means tends to differ between a network virtualisation strategy; improvement in customer engagement; implementation of more efficient processes; cost-saving exercise; or an operational rationalisation. Addressing them individually or as an entire project is a perilous decision for any CSP. It is possible however to take a gradual and pragmatic approach that starts with the understanding of customer journeys. Digital transformations have to start with the customer and an appreciation of how they research, identify, select and consume services. Once that is understood it is then necessary to implement the commercial and business processes that will support the journeys. Finally, transformation will invoke a fresh look at how to employ responsive and highly-automated operational systems to deliver services in line with expectations.

KW: For those CSPs that have already begun their transformation, is something missing? If so, what is it?

SH: If a systems refresh or replacement is at the heart of the transformation, we would urge CSPs to consider more than the modernisation of traditional operational silos. To address the requirements and expectations of digital service delivery it is essential to look at the interdependencies, interactions and data-sharing application programme interfaces (APIs) between digital experience, digital operations and of course, the future-state network. These working interdependencies will hold the key to a responsive, highlyautomated and insightful digital service experience for customers.

KW: Is digital transformation with a focus on consumers (B2C) that much different for business (B2B)? If so, can the same tools still be used to address both?

SH: Now is the ideal time to consider that the difference between B2C and B2B experience and expectations should be aligned around the concept of Business-to-Human (B2H). It may sound far-fetched, but if we focus on the customer regardless of segmentation it shouldn’t matter if it is high or low scale, high or low volume, high or low consumption or indeed high or low quality of service.

Should we not instead be segmenting our targets for digital transformation as being B2H and IoT? In a redefined market it is then possible to consider automation as the fundamental consideration in transformation projects. Automation can be seen in two contexts for the revised segments. For B2H as an example, automated processes will utilise analytical insights to drive next best product recommendations, agile service and product reconfigurations, and transparent omni-channel customer order processing.

For IoT automation it’s necessary to cope with high volumes of end devices and rapid repeatability of more simplistic configurations – although not in all cases. So, similar tools perhaps, but augmented with specific and targeted areas of automation, in turn driving the need for common data sharing between peered systems.

KW: Gaining intelligence about the customer experience is a dynamic process and a richly rewarding business opportunity. How does intelligence – insight gained from customer experience and network operations data – impact the strategy of a CSP's digital transformation journey?

SH: For some time the industry has recognised that data is at the heart of a CSP strategy. Whether it is to understand customer use of services, data consumption, service quality, or to drive product portfolio change, the data gathered is the CSP’s most valuable asset.

Accurate and timely collection of data, from the network and from the customer, combined with automated and pervasive analytics can result in highly targeted and contextually relevant service rollout. Ultimately this can reduce time and cost in product development, so that more effort can be placed into delivering the right product, at the right time, to the most relevant people. Ultimately on the route to a segment of one and it’s obvious contribution to an enhanced customer experience.

About Comptel Life is digital moments. Comptel perfects these by transforming the way digital service providers serve and meet the needs of Generation Cloud customers. Comptel solutions connect digital demand – customer and market expectation – and digital supply – future-state networks. They allow service providers to innovate through rich service and communications offerings, orchestrate service and order flows, capture data-in-motion and refine it for decision-making and actions. Comptel products analyse and enhance big data, by transforming it into contextually-intelligent actions. They also operationalise and orchestrate the delivery of complex digital services. Every day, we refine more than 20% of all mobile usage data, and nearly 300 service providers across 90 countries have trusted us to perfect their business and customers’ digital moments. www.comptel.com

IN ASSOCIATION WITH COMPTEL VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

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COMPANY PROFILES

Matthew Dove is the head of Nokia's cloud transformation consulting practice. Noted below, are Matthew's views concerning his company's focus on CSP digital transformation. This interview was conducted by Karl Whitelock, Global Director Operations and Monetization Strategy at Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan

Karl Whitelock: Gaining intelligence about the customer experience is a dynamic process and a richly rewarding business opportunity. How does intelligence – insight gained from customer experience and network operations data – impact the strategy of a CSP's digital transformation journey?

Matthew Dove: If you look at the difference between a CSP and a webscale, cloud native company, the attitude towards analytics and data are on a totally different level. CSPs have often seen data as a byproduct, to be analysed and exploited where possible, often using people based processes. Whereas, the cloud native organisation is fundamentally data driven and has built their entire business around data – from customer insight, to operations.

As networks evolve and virtualise, there will be more decisions to make, and more of those decisions will be automated – driven by analytics.

Nokia’s Future X vision for a network is one in which it evolves towards a cognitive network, that learns and adapts in order to deliver the best possible experience to end users. CSPs need to ensure that at every step of their digital transformation journey, they are asking themselves what data they can collect, and what data they can use to drive themselves forward. This is something that Nokia has been working on since the introduction of the customer experience management concept around a decade ago. It’s the role of technology vendors to make that process easier for the CSP. KW: In the quest to help CSPs become more effective in a digitally transformed world, what makes your organisation's digital transformation approach different from others in the competitive solution supplier marketplace?

MD: Nokia’s primary business focus is on the network domain and we are a supplier that many CSPs rely on for the technology that underpins their business. Our transformation approach is to help the CSP understand how to exploit that technology for greatest benefit. It’s the classic triangle of people, process and tools wrapped around the technology. With something like NFV, there is a basic level of change that it forces – well-established processes and approaches have to work differently, or they will not function – but there is also the question of what the technology enables, and that is a more open conversation about how far the CSP wants to go.

Our transformation approach can start right at the beginning, helping the CSP understand what is possible and what they want to achieve, and leads all the way through the execution phase, helping them implement that vision. Because of Nokia’s reach, we can do that work for global players, across multiple regions. And if the scope goes beyond the network, we have partners that we can bring in to tackle the areas that are not our core focus.

KW: Transformation can take on many forms. What should CSPs consider when defining their digital transformation strategy and in what priority order?

MD: Priority definitely depends on the current situation the operator is in, and their existing capabilities. The key entry point should be for the CSP to have clarity on what digital transformation means for them, the business outcomes they want to drive, and the capabilities that will be needed to support their strategy. Then, use this combination as the yardstick against which each step can be aligned.

Nokia’s view is that a powerful, flexible network is a basic requirement for delivering a good customer experience. Data volumes that customers continue to consume relentlessly increase, and the benchmarks for what constitutes a good experience are also rising. In the end, network functions virtualisation (NFV) and software defined networks (SDN) are critical technologies that will help a CSP to meet these requirements.

KW: While virtual network transformation is often mentioned with digital business transformation, is it imperative for a CSP to do both?

MD: In the end, yes. If a service provider cannot deliver the experience and the content that consumers need, or the platforms and connectivity that partners or enterprises want to use, then the service provider will eventually be sidelined. Future demands on the network need the capability that NFV brings – whether that is the ability to trial and introduce new services quickly, adapt to changing traffic flows in a network to maintain an experience level, or meet partner needs for computing at the edge of the network, to be closer to the consumer – all of these require both NFV technology, and the matching mindset to use it.

About Nokia We create the technology to connect the world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we serve communications service providers, governments, large enterprises and consumers, with the industry's most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products, services and licensing. From the enabling infrastructure for 5G and the Internet of Things, to emerging applications in virtual reality and digital health, we are shaping the future of technology to transform the human experience. www.nokia.com

IN ASSOCIATION WITH NOKIA 14

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

COMPANY PROFILES

Vishy Ramaswamy is vice president and CTO for the Wipro Communications BU. Noted below are Rekha's views concerning his company's focus on CSP digital transformation. This interview was conducted by Karl Whitelock, Global Director Operations and Monetization Strategy at Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan

Karl Whitelock: Transformation can take on many forms.

What should CSPs consider when defining their digital transformation strategy and in what priority order?

Vishy Ramaswamy: Digital strategy generally involves disruptive transformation in the areas of customer experience, launching new digital products, internal process transformation, and technology readiness. In each of these areas, communications service providers (CSPs) must align their efforts so that the transformed business is collaborative, ubiquitous, real-time and adaptive. To achieve this, they need a significant change in their business processes, including adapting to design thinking, DevOps and agile methodologies. The choice of underlying technology should be natively cloud ready, easily scalable and programmable.

Digital business invariably requires loosely coupled partnerships at all levels and hence a digital partner management capability is a key need.

For CSPs, the starting point for transformation is either from the customer or from the technology. However, new ways of working also mean key people transformation may be an important early milestone in the journey.

KW: Is digital transformation with a focus on consumers (B2C) that much different for business (B2B)? If so, can the same tools still be used to address both?

VR: Between B2C and B2B customers, from an experience point of view, there are some significant differences that need to be addressed.

There are various personas in a business such as – the buyer, decision maker, influencer, user and a managed services provider leading to multiple levels of hierarchies. In a B2C situation, we may have just a user and the payer. This leads to different processes, modes of interaction, ways of working and interfaces. While the transformation in technology readiness and people capabilities may be the same in the two areas, the customer interfacing solutions such as portals and apps, partner management platforms and the applications programme interfaces (APIs) could have differences.

KW: For those CSPs that have already begun their transformation, is something missing? If so, what is it?

VR: Many CSPs have begun their digital transformation journey in one or more ways – in the customer interaction layer, order management, adoption of SDN/NFV, in launching new products and so on. There are a few key things that need to be kept in mind to ensure success in this transformation journey. Enabling people to change capabilities and to create new-ways-of-working is an important initiative. This should cover design-led thinking, adoption of agile methodologies and so on. There should also be a companywide common orchestration and governance to ensure that all the independent initiatives lead to the desired end state. Adoption of analytics, machine learning and cognitive automation are other technology adoptions that could significantly fuel the transformation initiatives.

KW: There are several capabilities that CSPs possess that so called over the top providers do not. How can these capabilities be worked into a CSP's digital transformation strategy?

VR: CSPs have some unique advantages in addressing digital customer experience needs as compared to the native internet companies. For example, the quality of service experience from start to finish is something that CSPs can commit to, thus providing a dependable service. In addition, CSPs have a well-established level of customer trust concerning data privacy and integrity. CSPs also enjoy a proven and credible customer interaction history, across multiple channels. B2B communication solutions and linked with digital services are again unique to CSPs. KW: In the quest to help CSPs become more effective in a digitally transformed world, what makes your organisation's digital transformation approach different from others in the competitive solution supplier marketplace?

VR: Our digital transformation framework for CSPs is a holistic view of all needed building blocks. Starting from customer journey engineering and design thinking, this covers all elements such as a platform architecture based on microservices, open APIs, RPA, AI, cognitive automation, agile operations, network and customer analytics, NFV and programmable networks. This framework establishes the inter-linkage between the various transformation ideas, at the same time encourages reuse of existing assets by repurposing them for digital business needs.

About Wipro Wipro Limited is a global information technology, consulting and business process services company. Wipro harnesses the power of cognitive computing, hyper-automation, robotics, cloud, analytics and emerging technologies to help clients adapt to the digital world and make them successful. A company recognised globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, Wipro has a dedicated workforce of approximately 170,000 people. They work with clients across six continents to discover ideas and connect the dots for building a better and a bold new future. www.wipro.com

IN ASSOCIATION WITH WIPRO VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

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CASE STUDY

Three Ireland launches digital transformation with Amdocs Three Ireland moved to buyout larger rival Telefonica O2 Ireland for €850 million in June 2013. Following the completion of the acquisition, Three became Ireland’s second largest mobile operator with two million subscribers. In March 2016, Three commissioned Amdocs to lead its digital transformation to support its shift from being a large telco to an internet company offering connectivity and services. Amdocs is providing Three with retail, self-service and mobile applications, while also consolidating and modernising its IT operations, enabling Three to deliver a market-leading digital customer experience

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igital experience transformations target new engagements in stores, contact centres and across web, mobile and social channels. This approach aims to simplify underlying processes, introduce new modes of communication and provide contextual, omni-channel experiences for the digital customer lifecycle. By creating a sales experience similar to Amazon, it enables Three to meet its stated promises to customers.

The challenge Following the acquisition, Three had a number of challenges to address, including: • Difficulties in creating a consistent customer experience • Two portfolios of retail products that required changes with every new offering • Duplication of IT systems, which meant two sets of customers and two cost bases • Replacement of old systems

Three’s customer promises:

Amdocs as a strategic partner

1. Make ourselves future-ready

Three chose Amdocs because of the company’s experience in digital transformations globally, its leadership in the telecoms industry, and its track record of delivering on time and on budget. Three viewed the experience and benefit from Amdocs serving CSPs around the world as an advantage that would enable it to take advantage of best practices and previous lessons learned.

2. Make it easier for customers 3. Make their life better

Business goals

“Three aims continue to evolve and innovate with Amdocs by our side, working together, we will be very successful as a partnership,” says Stephen Reidy, the chief information officer at Three Ireland.

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The primary goals of Three’s digital transformation journey were to: 1. Offer a world-class customer experience, providing meaningful products while removing friction away from customers via digital engagements and omni-channel capabilities, while enabling the delivery of personalised experiences, offerings and rate plans 2. Achieve faster time-to-market, by transforming its IT infrastructure and simplifying business processes, ensuring that Three continues to be a leading player that is also innovative and cost effective 3. Implement a cost-savings strategy, providing substantial cost and operational efficiencies to reduce annual IT costs, enabling Three to continue to deliver attractive pricing to customers

Stephen Reidy

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Elaine Carey

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

Elaine Carey, the chief commercial officer at Three Ireland, adds: “Amdocs is very much a partnership, it is not a vendor, it’s not us and them environment, it is sitting at the table and working with us to deliver what is needed,” she says. “It is very much a three-way relationship in delivering a digitally transformed business in order to give us a unique differentiator in the marketplace.”

comprehensive, digital experience solution, using customer data, digital interactions and new engagement channels to capture the world of digital immediacy and rise to a new level of customer experience,” explains Eric Updyke, the group president of systems integration and operations at Amdocs.

The process The solution The solution includes digital retail, self-service and mobile applications and a full omni-channel experience for Three’s customers. Under a fiveyear managed services model, Amdocs is acting as lead systems integrator to consolidate and modernise IT systems across all lines of business to overcome system complexity, simplify business processes, provide substantial cost and operational efficiencies and enable the delivery of innovative offerings and rate plans for subscribers.

“Amdocs software and services provide Three Ireland with a

The first step following the merger was to stabilise and upgrade the billing platform and move into new state-of-the-art data centres. The second phase launches the digital transformation process with the implementation of a single set of systems to allow faster time-to-market, consolidate business intelligence reporting and lower overall complexity.

The third phase implements the digital applications to be used for retail, self-service and mobile channels, as well as executing on an omni-channel customer experience.“Having very clear KPIs that can be measured, so not just digitalising for digitalising’s sake,” was important adds Carey.

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Amdocs Digital Experience enables you to deliver a contextual omni-channel experience over the entire customer lifecycle via our digital enablement platform. It supports engagement with your digital customers in their channel of choice, harnessing the optimal mix of both human and non-human interactions, to meet even the most complex service demands. As such digital transformations can be implemented on top of any BSS, we provide the increased agility you need to continually and consistently deliver on your customer promises.

Amdocs Digital Monetization helps service providers monetise the digital economy. Our solution enables digital service providers (DSPs) to quickly launch innovative new products and offers to market, and enrich them with partner offers and new business models. Realtime user controls put the power of charging at customers’ fingertips and deliver digital immediacy and personalisation.

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Amdocs Digital Intelligence aia is Amdocs' intelligence platform. It delivers a set of capabilities that are integrated across the portfolio to realize the vision of injecting intelligence into all parts of the service provider's business and the customer lifecycle. aia combines machine learning, artificial intelligence engines and cognitive capabilities from global partners and from recent acquisitions, along with Amdocs’ real-time data management platform and extensive telco-specific domain expertise.

Technologies & Service Agility provides flexible solutions for different stages of digital transformation, delivered on top of any environment. Our cloud-native microservices based platform enables an always-on experience, maximising your business agility and time-to-market.

For more information, visit: Amdocs Digital Experience Amdocs Digital Blog

IN ASSOCIATION WITH AMDOCS DIGITAL

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

17

CASE STUDY

Master Enterprise Catalog accelerates new service launch and halves CSP’s time-to-change

With the evolution towards digital and today’s constant demand for product personalisation and contextualisation, coupled with the need for communications service providers (CSPs) to focus on new revenue-generating centres and the world beyond connectivity, CSPs require an operational view of products, services and goods information, as well as corresponding channels, price points and networks.

The Amdocs Master Enterprise Catalog is a centralised catalogue, a critical product component of any BSS/OSS and network-commerce system. The catalogue helps service providers drive product innovation and improve the customer experience across increasingly complex environments and extended ecosystems

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he complexity of managing offerings across the end-to-end digital economy value chain and convergent technologies will increase, especially as services are composed or mixed together into product or service bundles, owned by different providers for enterprise, commerce, IoT, virtualisation, on top of the traditional BSS/OSS offerings across multiple channels.

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The Amdocs Master Enterprise Catalog enables service providers to place products at the heart of their businesses. Featuring an easy-to-use collaboration environment that helps bridge the gap between CIO, CTO and CMO organisations, the catalogue supports different product lifecycle activities and different users and roles, providing service providers total control over their product data and processes.

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Control over the product portfolio is essential for service providers seeking to secure and enhance their market position. Understanding and effectively managing the

underlying product set is key to enabling greater flexibility around managing customer preferences and experiences.

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

The operational complexity of today’s BSS-OSS systems

Creating an agile, robust and future-ready business One large CSP in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region has recently selected Amdocs to provide it with a centralised product catalogue system that prepares and positions it for success in the wider digital ecosystem. “The benefits we’re experiencing today are the fruits of a long-term partnership with Amdocs,” says the CSP’s vice president of IT. “Over the past five years we’ve created a succession of unique and innovative service improvements.” The details of the deployment are below:

CUSTOMER PROFILE

SOLUTIONS SELECTED

• • • •

• Master Enterprise Catalog (MEC), Dynamic Quota Allocation and the creation of a digital framework

Tier 1 telecommunications provider in APAC More than 2,000 employees; annual revenues of US$1.6 billion 25% market share in domestic market 42 million subscribers

RESULTS ACHIEVED BUSINESS NEEDS • • • •

Reduce time-to-market for innovative new products Consolidate suppliers and create expert partnerships Ensure the scale to support future growth Create flexibility capacity to accommodate spikes in service demand • Increase revenue and lower the cost base

For more information, visit: www.amdocs.com

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

• Reduced time-to-change. Alterations ranging from simple tariffs adaptations to major launches are now done in half the time • The MEC was developed, tested and launched in less than four months, with no downtime for the business • Dynamic Quota Allocation allows the business to cope with seasonal surges in demand with no additional investment in new hardware. It has a led to a 40% reduction in signaling load • The additional bandwidth created through Dynamic Quota Allocation improves video streaming, boosting the customer experience

IN ASSOCIATION WITH AMDOCS CATALOG

19

TRANSFORMATION PRIORITIES

The big picture on digital transformation unites customers, services and networks The need for digital transformation no longer needs much validation. At this point, it’s widely accepted that, to stay competitive, communication services providers (CSPs) need to transform multiple phases of their business in order to meet high customer expectations for flexibility and on-demand service offerings.

The only thing left to debate is priorities, writes Steve Hateley, the senior director of Industry and Partner Marketing at Comptel

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here do CSPs need to apply the most attention and effort to gain the best results from their digital transformation journey?

Should it be in the area of service experience, where the effects of digitalisation have a direct impact on the customers who generate revenue for the telco business?

Should CSPs invest more time – and money – in network transformation, embracing emerging technologies like network functions virtualisation (NFV) to create a more agile, responsive and flexible IT environment? Or should they focus more on opportunities to modernise and automate operational processes in order to increase the contextuality, accuracy and speed of service delivery?

The telecoms industry often views each of these areas – customer service and experience, network transformation and service modernisation – as siloes, each a unique and isolated opportunity to transform the business. In truth, they feed off each other. You can’t transform in one area without also considering the impact your changes will have on the other two.

CSPs can aim to provide the tools, apps and experiences that connect customers to their preferred digital lifestyle, but to do that, they must also consider how all of that will be operationally managed.

Similarly, CSPs can focus on creating cloud-native operations, but also must consider how process modernisations can be increasingly automated to effect change on a virtualised network.

Finally, CSPs can strive toward network transformation, but they should also think about how a fully virtualised network creates value that benefits customers, including improved access to the in-the-moment data that CSPs can use to create better customer experiences.

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Customer experience Customers today demand more individual control over how they find, select, configure and purchase the apps and services that comprise their personal digital ecosystem.

The key word there is personal, and it’s a quality many consumers feel is lacking in their interactions with carriers. Our recent survey of U.S. and U.K. mobile subscribers found 55% of respondents want more personalised offers from their carriers, but only 13% have ever actually received them. As a result, more than half of respondents said they felt like just another nameless customer to their provider.

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers an effective and efficient way for CSPs to change perceptions. The two core tenets of AI – its ability to modify behaviour through learning, and then automatically act based on analysis – allows marketers to create relevant real-time marketing campaigns that more closely match what customers want.

In a recent analysis of several recent CSP marketing campaigns, Comptel found that CSPs who send contextual, real-time marketing offers that are based on instant data analysis enjoyed significantly higher response rates compared to batch offers. CSPs experienced a 161% increase in the response to a 1.5GB weekly data pack when the offer was sent in real-time, and a campaign for a 50MB daily pack improved 377%.

Of course, the switch to personalised, real-time offers isn’t just an overnight decision. It involves transforming not only sales packaging and marketing strategies, but

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A successfully transformed CSP takes a big picture

approach, acknowledging that customers, services and networks are not mutually exclusive operational layers, but instead interdependent. Several CSPs worldwide keep that picture in mind as they move toward full digital transformation.

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

also service creation and network capabilities. The operator’s network must be nimble enough to design unique service package that match each customer’s unique interests, and its orchestration platform must be intelligent and agile enough to fulfil those orders instantly.

Operational modernisation In this part of the business, CSPs must consider how existing operations support new service delivery models to meet customer expectations. OSS transformation is important here, moving CSPs towards the end-to-end orchestration of hybrid services that marry traditional telco services with the new innovative cloud-based services of the digital economy.

Deutsche Telekom is modernising and simplifying operations as part of its industry renowned Pan-Net project, to improve service quality, scale and time-to-market in each of the European countries it serves.

The CSP created a centralised and agile NFV-driven service production factory, where new digital services could be centrally defined and distributed. Each in-country team could then easily start a dedicated instance of the desired service from the factory, and then integrate it into their local network, tailoring the service details to their customers’ needs.

The project involved coordination between European-wide distinct technology groups – in all, 600 people working mostly remotely. While this required clear corporate direction and skilful project management, the project also relied on a single, end-to-end service orchestration platform that could accept new virtual network functions (VNFs) from any vendor and support hybrid network implementations to allow Deutsche Telekom to integrate new virtual network technologies with its existing physical infrastructure.

In this case, service modernisation not only improves operational efficiency by getting new services to market faster, but it also empowers Deutsche Telekom to maximise its hybrid network. All the while, the end goal remained focused on creating an ideal customer experience across an entire continent.

Network transformation Innovation in the network fuels new concepts, models and digital For more information, visit: www.comptel.com

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

technologies that give Generation Cloud customers the varied and flexible services they want.

One European CSP identified convergent, data-led and product catalogue-driven billing and charging as an innovative chance to boost customer experience for its 8.5 million residential and corporate customers. To succeed, the CSP had to upgrade its legacy, outdated IT systems, which were too expensive and inflexible to maintain and only supported the most basic service plans. The net result was flexible and simplified billing through a convergent solution that also included a unified data layer.

That data layer converges, consolidates and integrates data from both mobile customers, whether residential, commercial or wholesale, and fixed customers on PSTN, IMS or xDSL networks. The combination of converged mobile and fixed data, with insights from the CSP’s CRM solution, feeds unique customer profiles to offer an individualised view of the customer.

As a result, the CSP is empowered not only to provide flexible, scalable billing, but also to leverage that individualised subscriber view to create a personalised customer experience. Today, the CSP has the IT infrastructure to support the complex new service offerings customers want, and deliver them faster than ever. In this case, network transformation yielded benefits that carried over to customer interactions and service delivery.

The future of digital transformation Ultimately, CSPs can’t divide the task of digital transformation into its component parts – all aspects of the customer experience, operations and the network must be viewed as interdependent aspects to a transformative journey. Each one is equal in priority.

Does that make transformation more daunting? It shouldn’t, because this approach spreads the benefits of transformation in any one area across all three. This more holistic approach ensures the CSP fully realises the benefits of its transformation, embracing the best models, technologies and strategies in all phases of its business to improve competitive standing and earn more revenue. If you have to take the jump, why not dive in with both feet?

IN ASSOCIATION WITH COMPTEL

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TELCO CLOUD

The step-by-step approach to planning a telco cloud A logical and structured process that enables a communications service provider (CSP) to help ensure it can deploy a telco cloud with the resources required and plan its data centre investments accurately is the best way forward. It’s a proven process that could help CSPs everywhere as they begin their telco cloud transformation journey

C

loud technologies have been deployed widely in the IT world for many years. But the high demands of the telecoms world in terms of extreme responsiveness and ultra-reliability have made the adoption of the cloud more challenging for many communications service providers (CSPs).

There is a pressing need. As the number of applications, services and devices explodes and multiple access networks emerge, CSPs face new challenges as well as fresh opportunities. Uncontrolled and unpredictable traffic growth calls for continuous investment in new network capacity. New devices and apps mean that CSPs are confronted by web players who can launch new services very rapidly. Efficient networks are required to improve profitability by driving down costs. Creating excellent customer experiences is critical to safeguard revenue.

Telco cloud transformation addresses all these issues.

Cloud technology is needed to drive efficiency and allow competition or integration with over-the-top (OTT) application providers.

While network functions virtualisation (NFV) and software defined networking (SDN) have been deployed in many telecoms networks, these are typically small scale and focused on virtualisation rather than large scale centralised cloud deployments. To gain the real benefits of cloud technology, CSPs need to look beyond virtualisation and implement full telco cloud transformation.

Answer the basic questions

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• When should current and future network applications be taken into the telco cloud?

• How many data centres need to be built?

• What cloud resources will be needed for the telco cloud?

• How can capex for cloud data centres be calculated for the next few years?

It was exactly these kinds of question that one Middle Eastern CSP faced when it approached Nokia to help it map out its own telco cloud transformation plans.

The CSP had already virtualised around 90% of its IT applications, but wanted to move its direct telco operations into the cloud. To do this, it planned to build multiple data centres to host its telco cloud but had little relevant expertise to help it devise a cost-effective transformation strategy. In simple terms, the CSP needed to understand its data centre requirements such as floorspace needed, how much compute and storage resources required, what power supply and cooling investments would be needed and more.

To help, the CSP approached Nokia’s consulting experts to help with its telco cloud evolution strategy and data centre environment planning.

Why Nokia? Well, while conventional management consulting firms can offer services that focus on strategy, processes and organisational aspects, they lack in-depth expertise in telco requirements and demands. Nokia has been at the forefront of telco cloud developments and is perfectly positioned to offer telco cloud related transformation consulting.

Telco cloud transformation aims to move the physical network functions, virtual network functions (VNFs) and associated connectivity domains to a layered service and network architecture which supports end-to-end service orchestration.

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Telco cloud is built for short-term gains, but to enable widespread operational efficiency and to create a platform that enables innovative new services to be created and deployed rapidly. Using large data centres allows CSPs to improve their total cost of ownership (TCO) through centralisation, automation and efficiency.

Furthermore, cloud technology allows significantly fastertime-to-revenue for new services. Cloud computing, NFV and SDN will all be key to implementing 5G networks.

Yet starting the telco cloud transformation journey can

be a challenge for CSPs as they strive to answer fundamental questions such as:

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

TELCO CLOUD Cloud evolution strategy and data centre dimensioning services

A tailored service In a recent project, Nokia aimed to help a CSP first map out its telco cloud transformation strategy and then to support the dimensioning of the active components for its cloud infrastructure and passive components for its data centre. One of the key pain points facing the CSP’s IT department was ad hoc, last-minute requests from other stakeholders for virtualisation capacity to host new applications. Nokia wanted to provide the IT team with a comprehensive two-year demand plan to allow proper planning for the required cloud resources.

To achieve these targets Nokia devised a ten-week project plan that first assessed the traffic model based on subscriber capacity, traffic per subscriber and other predictions, and concluded with a Bill of Quantity (BoQ) of all the hardware required. This workflow was built on a step-by-step, three-stage process: 1. Based on the installed base and the CSP’s services roadmap, the required application resources, such as virtual machines, were determined 2. Applying Nokia engineering tools, the applications’ resource requirements were then used to determine the required virtual resources such as virtual CPUs and RAM 3. The third step was to dimension the physical resources, such as servers and switches, needed to support the virtual resources

Adding value throughout the consultation Nokia designed a set of tailored service modules or work packages that implemented each of the three consultation stages and delivered immediate and tangible value to the CSP. • Determine as-is core applications landscape: Obtain a clear understanding of the current installed base of core applications within the CSP’s network • Develop cloud evolution strategy for as-is core applications: Identify which of the as-is core applications should be virtualised and develop a cloud evolution strategy for a two-year period

At each step, Nokia and the CSP implemented a re-assessment of the planning and provisioning of deployed resources with monitoring of their utilisation to determine any re-dimensioning needed to address increasing demand.

• Develop cloud evolution strategy for new core applications: Identify which new VNFs are required, over the two-year period, to address the CSP’s future services roadmap

Data centre mapped out in solid numbers

• Determine cloud resources requirements: Determine the total virtualised infrastructure needs by factoring the requirements of both the VNFs and the cloud infrastructure itself

At the end of the entire process, which was delivered on time and within budget, the CSP gained an effective plan to embark on its telco cloud transformation, with a realistic forecast of the capex required for the next two years. To put some numbers in place, the cloud infrastructure dimensioning called for nine racks supporting 200+ servers and 27 switches taking up around 20 square meters of floorspace and consuming just over 100 kW of power.

With precise numbers such as these to hand, the CSP is now wellpositioned to move onto the next phase of its transformation confident that there is a solid foundation for its strategy.

For more information, visit: www.nokia.com VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

• Translate virtualisation requirements to physical requirements: Determine the total active components (servers, storage, switches) required to address the NFVI requirements.

• Determine space, power and cooling requirements for all active components: Determine the space, power and cooling requirements for all the components forecasted.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH NOKIA

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CASE STUDY

Campaign management project demonstrates data monetisation for CSPs Data is one of the most used buzzwords across all industries and especially so in the communications service provider (CSP) industry. CSPs have access to petabytes of data coming from all kinds of sources including network, usage, users and devices all of which provide insights into the behaviour of network, users and systems as well as events on a real-time basis. The key challenge is having the ability to monetise the data

W

ipro has collaborated with CSPs across the world in digital programmes to make use of the power of data in multiple ways. These include utilising data to:

• Enhance the customer experience • Generate insights to drive real-time campaigns or to enhance up-sell and cross-sell • Drive network efficiency and effectiveness

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While one of the business goals for this strategic programme was to reduce customer churn and stem declines in ARPU, the larger objective was to provide actionable insights across various functions. In phase one of the project, Wipro’s solution enabled the CSP to: • Improve churn prediction rate with up to 80% accuracy across three product categories • Improve campaign take-up rate from the traditional 2%-3% to 9%-13%.

• Reduce data latency from D + 2 to 3 to 6 Hours for near real-time insight into business key performance indicators (KPIs) and data availability to the customer care team.

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One example of how data has been utilised across these three core areas is in a recent project in which Wipro is a strategic digital partner to a tier one CSP in the Asia Pacific region. The CSP has an ambition to help drive the digital economy of the country, partnering with the government and maximising the network infrastructure

already available for the CSP’s subscriber base, which exceeds 100 million users.

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

Business benefits The campaign take-up rate – the number of people subscribing to the offers rolled out during the campaign – went up by 8.9% for the voice segment and by 13.6% for the data segment. This attributed to a significant revenue gain in both voice and data segments.

The CSP can now have customer-centric and location-based campaigns through the configurable rule set the system provides.

In addition, the system provides significant insights into customer behaviour patterns for future market analysis.

How the results were achieved Wipro designed and built what it believes to be one of the largest CSP data analytics solution in deployment in the world in order to support the business goals. The system is comprised of:

The Wipro solution In order to meet these customer goals and build on them for future services and offerings, Wipro’s team proactively pitched a solution to build a real-time event correlation based campaign management framework that could profile users and prompt for the right action at the right time. This framework gave an approach to identify customer touch points with service provider – such as their recharge pattern and frequency, switching between different plans and other indicators. By doing so the CSP can anticipate customer behaviour and proactively launch relevant campaigns. This led to three different scenarios of realtime data correlated classification of customers being developed.

Service Experience: Classification of customers based on historic data of revenue spend, recharge accumulation and services bought by a subscriber. Based on the customer’s spending behaviour, real-time campaigns were launched and cross selling of products was also enabled.

Unintended Experience: Classification based on call drops due to network issues and low credit balance. This helped in increasing customer satisfaction and reducing churn.

Device Movement: Classification based on movement form one device to another. This helped in up-selling of services like data plans to a customer who is moving from non-data capable devices to data capable devices. The system could filter customers based on a particular scenario or classification and launch campaigns targeted at a particular customer segment based on configurable role set near realtime basis.

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INSIGHT REPORT JULY 2017

• Highly flexible near real-time mediation and data integration systems that are capable of processing daily volumes of more than seven terabytes of data per day • A robust, flexible, scalable enterprise data warehouse to provide a single source of truth. This data warehouse is capable of handling data volumes ranging from 600 terabytes to 1.5 petabytes • Real-time event-based marketing which utilises real-time network data and analytics to roll-out marketing offers and campaigns • Building a single source of truth by integrating data from tens of sources including the online charging system, recharge system, network call detail records (CDRs), provisioning system and others • The existing enterprise data warehouse layer comprises of feeds from CRM system, rated CDRs from online charging system, postpaid invoice details, payment details, recharge information, valueadded services (VAS) usage details, SCP data and many more Data analytics programmes are complex, multi-year projects however these should be delivered to provide return on investment (ROI) with every release. The challenge as well as the opportunity lies in the ability to generate disruptive insights for enabling competitive advantage and business growth.

Wipro is investing in creating a CSP-specific use-case library and developing solutions to address customer experience challenges as well as enable data monetisation such as its Data Discovery Platform (DDP), RAPIDs CX Insights and other offerings.

For more information, visit: www.wipro.com

IN ASSOCIATION WITH WIPRO

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