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BSS/OSS Managed Services
Featuring research from
A key differentiator for telcos in today’s market
Managed Services in the Telecom Industry
Choosing the Right Sourcing Model: Outsourcing, Staff Augmentation or Managed Services?
About Subex Managed Services
Case Studies
BSS/OSS Managed Services - The Future A Note from Vinod Kumar, COO, Subex
From the Gartner Files : Discover New Opportunities for Differentiated Business Value from Three Emerging IT Service Offerings
About Subex
Issue 12
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Managed Services in the Telecom Industry
Communication service providers are faced with a conundrum of managing costs and margins while trying to grow their revenues. Can Managed Services engagements provide them with the means to manage their “As is” business effectively and free up critical
bandwidth to focus on the “To Be” business?
Telecom operators are at the cross roads today – on one side they are pushing boundaries in a saturated and commoditized market to garner revenues and improve margins, whilst on the other they are pressurized to innovate and cater to the demands of the ubiquitous connectivity and data enabled services. Operators do not have a choice, but to act in order to remain relevant in the market place with the changing landscape, new challenges and competition. While pressures on cost and margins with traditional services remain, fast emerging services are bringing in new risks and demands for new skills to manage them. Communication Services Providers (CSP) are now looking for Managed Services engagements as a key differentiator in the emerging world.
Key Business Optimisation Opportunities for Operators & the Impact of Managed Services
Opportunities to remain relevant and successful in the new world order are plenty. Some of the initiatives are fairly quick to implement, while others require long term dedication and focus. It is important to understand the key areas of opportunities in the BSS and how engaging with the right Managed Services partner provides an excellent opportunity for operators to leverage on these opportunities
OpEx control – Improving margins: The immediate and short-term opportunity for operators is to control OpEx and improve margins. This can be achieved through automating repeatable tasks, improving productivity & efficiency, managing risks and adapting to industry best practices.
Operators are facing issues at two different levels – (a) skills upgrade has not happened at the pace in which technology has evolved (b) shortage of talented resources internally to run “as-is” business; therefore it has impacted providing growth opportunities to internal resources as a retention strategy and exposed them to newer initiatives (“to-be”) realizing the resources available in-house are limited and their career
aspirations are also higher. Managed Services partners (MSP), with key focus and investment in domains and resources, have the unique advantage of bringing in global expertise and skills into a CSP environment.
Thus, increasingly operators are looking to MS options for redirecting their critical resources towards core business focus areas like margin management, revenue enhancement and customer experience management. Well structured SLAs/KPIs coupled with clear roles & responsibilities have helped CSPs achieve 15-20% productivity improvements and >20% higher ROI.
CapEx control – Improving RoI: In the medium term, operators are going to invest heavily in new and emerging technologies. The common conundrum corporate heads face are related to (a) successfully managing risks that comes with anything new (b) utilizing the available critical capacity of technology & resources (c) responding timely & appropriately to competition and consumer expectations.
New services & technology areas require specific knowledge of compliance, operations, statutory and regulations. Operators are favoring Managed Services based engagement models with BSS vendors over the traditional license based model. Managed Services based models not only help address cash flows with CapEx management, but also help in acquiring & managing knowledge, accelerating and sustaining RoI.
In the years that had passed by, when there was less competition and complexity, CSPs had the choice of building the capacity ground up and experimenting with it . However, in current context, business leaders are turning to MSP who have global experience to come and co-create solutions. The increase in demand for innovative and participative contracts with vendors, like revenue/gain share, outcome based engagements, pay per use, is a testimony to a new model of partnership that is emerging.
Economy of scale – Fuel growth: In the medium-longer term, CSPs are going to look beyond their operating boundaries ; Industry consolidation, overseas M&A, new sources of revenue like PaaS/IaaS/SaaS for MVNOs or group op-co’s will be a key ingredient to the revenue growth.
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Business optimisation and risk management are 2 key elements to focus as CSPs extend into unknown territories. CSPs are drawing boundaries around their core competency and partnering with vendors to build the necessary capabilities co-create capabilities in areas such as strategizing, enterprise risk
management, managing platforms, developing technologies and operating them. Partnering, not only promotes innovation to drive business optimisation, but also helps in sharing risks.
When operators go beyond their boundaries, they need to be strongly supported on the aspects of strategic & compliance risks and operating paradigms. Engaging with an able Managed Servicecs partner will take such operators in the right direction. However, bringing a partner into the ecosystem requires, in certain cases, a complete change in mindset within a telco. The interesting thing with Managed services is that there are plenty of models to choose from – ranging from simple resource augmentation, consultancy to full business transformation services - based on the budget, capacity to experiment and willingness to take risks.
Source: Vijay Raghunathan, Director Managed Services, Subex
Economy of Scale – Fuel Growth
OpEX Control – ImproveMargins
CapEx Control – Improve RoIC
Reduce operational costsReduce leakages/lossesManage risks effectivelyReuse to drive effeciency
Reduce time to marketUtilise available capacity effectivelyStructure innovative contracts
Consolidation & shared servicesPaaS/SaaS/Cloud offerings for operators, consumers & group companies
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Source: Gartner (August 2013)2
FIGURE 1 Value-Focused Deals Require Higher Relationship Management
Choosing the Right Sourcing Model: Outsourcing, Staff Augmentation or Managed Services?
The terms ‘managed services’ and ‘outsourcing’ are often used interchangeably in the telecom industry. The most commonly understood distinction of these two terms is that outsourcing encompasses any and all types of services provided by third parties. In a managed services engagement, the risk and responsibility of delivering the initiative on time, on budget and on scope rests with the vendor and this is one of the biggest differentiators that often drives operators to choose Managed Services over traditional outsourcing.
With the industrialization of IT services, the newer terminology that has emerged is ‘outcome-based managed services’. Gartner states that “outcome-based managed services involves the delegation of one or more IT services or IT-intensive business processes to an external provider.”1 The IT services or IT-intensive business processes must have clearly defined scope, where the commercial terms are directly tethered to distinctive outcomes and where payment is triggered upon delivery of the service (rather
than ongoing effort often referred to as inputs — such as work hours or full-time equivalents). It is imperative that the external provider has industrialized the offering through the R&D investment to achieve an aggregated solution that ensures a predictable, reliable outcome. This industrialization often results in a relatively larger portion of value being derived from intellectual property, accelerators and verticalization versus pure labor. This relative portion is the key shift away from labor-driven offerings and results in different commercial terms. Additionally, the extensive zeal of operators to pay for results (outcomes) versus effort, and tying these results to specific business metrics (key performance indicators) rather than technical measures are the primary drivers for outcome-based managed services.
“Figure 1 shows that engagements focused on higher business value are influenced by relationship management rather than contract management; therefore requiring strong behavior competencies in delivery teams.
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“The first and most critical step to analyzing any type of service offering effectively is to dissect the components of what is being purchased. Essentially, it’s important to understand the composition of any service offering in terms of what drives the value and how the vendor is “earning” its margin. To build the muscle needed to analyze services effectively, we provide an overview to the components of any “service offering. Figure 1 shows the components.
A service offering typically includes five components:
1. Labor
2. Methods, tools or accelerators
3. Intellectual property (IP)
4. Verticalization
5. Role-based option or relationship model (such as prime contractor, aggregator or broker)
These five components are layered on top of the purchases of software, middleware and infrastructure.
It is important to note that not all service offerings available in the market have the five items listed above. For example, staff augmentation is literally just the labor (people) component depicted in the base of the pyramid. In addition, not all service offerings contain each of the five items in equal parts. For example, an outsourcing contract to provide testing services or to perform data-cleansing services often do not require verticalization components that appear closer to the top of the pyramid.
To help guide your analysis, the right-hand side of Figure 2 depicts examples or qualitative characteristics to further build the muscles to analyze the service offerings effectively. For example, the labor component may include highly skilled labor in a knowledge-process-outsourcing deal or relatively lower-skilled labor in the form of software developers. One common mistake organizations make is that they operate on assumptions that various types of services (that is, consulting, system integration or outsourcing) are synonymous with labor only. Most service offerings are far more than labor, and this is critical to understand because the depth, breadth, scale, scarcity, geography and R&D investment
Source: Gartner (August 2013)
FIGURE 2 Composition of Service Offering
Source: Gartner (August 2013)
FIGURE 3 Composition of Outcome-
Based Managed Services Offerings
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1,3Gartner Inc., Diligently Evaluate Outcome-Based Managed Services Versus Capacity-Driven Staff Augmentation, G00246978, 11 April 2013 2Gartner Inc., Unlock Value From Outsourcing With Relationship KPIs to Improve Service Provider Performance, G00250343, 21 August 2013
As software, services and infrastructure continue to converge, adoption of outcome-based managed services grows and evolves. Sourcing executives must understand this evolution, along with the risks and benefits, to evaluate adoption diligently.
Challenges
• Managed services are on the rise: 65% of commercial enterprises indicated that they have at least one managed service deal, and more than 55% indicated that they plan to increase their use of managed services.
• A service offering typically includes five components: labor, methods (or tools or accelerators), intellectual property, verticalization and a role-based option or relationship model. Clarity and value derived from each component is critical for evaluating sourcing options.
• Managed services are represented by the shift of delivery models from “capacity on demand” to “capability on demand.” Capability on demand is the tight bundling of software, services and infrastructure to fit together and function seamlessly as a cohesive solution that is outcome based.
Recommendations
• Build the muscle to analyze outcome-based managed services effectively and the discipline to add them into the sourcing portfolio appropriately with a manageable amount of risk.
• Embrace the strategic imperative that some portion of the sourcing portfolio needs to leverage managed services. The alternative will surely lead to the organization falling behind its peers.
Shifting from staff augmentation to managed services is not the goal — the focus is on ensuring that specific business outcomes are achieved.
of the components are the key variables that determine price. Also, the evolutionary shift for the composition of these services offerings — how they are being bundled together with applications and infrastructure (depicted as the underlying bedrock of the pyramid) — demands sourcing executives to build new muscles for analysis and discipline for adoption.
To help sourcing executives better understand this shift, Figure 3 illustrates the changes described above by redrawing the composition of a service offering that was originally depicted in Figure 1 as a pyramid showcasing how services will morph. The pyramid will become a diamond shape.
The primary reason for redrawing the pyramid to a diamond is to represent the core element of managed services — namely, that the value is no longer defined and primarily priced on labor but rather by IP. This IP is what drives the outcome-
based pricing structure. In fact, what is critical to understand about managed services (depicted in Figure 3) is that the proportional amount (within the overall offering) of IP is the single largest growth area relative to the old outsourcing model (see Figure 2). The IP component is at the heart of outcome-based managed services offerings and constitutes the most significant part of the differentiating value proposition. Intellectual property will include one or more of the following: automation, knowledge capital, metadata, analytics, software (either exclusive or commercial off-the-shelf [COTs]) and availability to infrastructure (that is, servers, storage, telecom and connectivity).
The diamond shape also showcases a lower labor ratio (percentage of labor resources as a function of the overall offering).”3
Source: Subex
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Source: Subex
About Subex Managed Services
OverviewRecognizing the strategic imperative of outsourcing in today’s environment, Subex offers a flexible and scalable Managed Services program that enables communication service providers to successfully meet the ever-changing business, technology and customer requirements. Subex Managed Services program is designed to add both strategic and tactical value to CSP’s operations and enable better customer experience while also enhancing their operational efficiency, service agility and profitability. With Subex at the helm of its operations, CSPs can redirect critical resources at core business functions generating more revenue and saving costs.
Engagement ModelsSubex understands that no two operators’ requirements are similar and hence offers the flexibility to pick and choose services based on scope of operations, BSS domains and on-site support type.
• Traditional License Model Typically, this is the model with highest level of CSP involvement. Here, the CSP hosts the
application, owns the hardware and operates the software while Subex takes onus of the development, deployment, support and maintenance of the product.
• Service Bureau/Hosted Model In this model, Subex takes responsibility of hosting the application, and hardware along with the development, deployment support and maintenance.
• End-to-End Managed Services This model is a perfect fit for most operators in today’s market as it results in the highest performance with the lowest Opex and Capex.
Managed Services Offering for Revenue Assurance and Fraud ManagementSubex’s Managed Services offering in the Revenue Assurance & Fraud Management domains are centered around their deep experience and expertise across - Products, People and Processes.
Driven by highly experienced and knowledgeable Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management
FIGURE 4 Comparison between various engagement models
Traditional License ModelService Bureau‘Hosted’ Model Managed Services
Subex ROC Product
Implementation / Professional Services
(Product Vendor)
Infrastructure(Telco)
Operations(Telco)
Support(Product Vendor)
Ovperations(Telco)
Subex ROC Product
Infrastructure(Subex)
Support(Subex)
Infrastructure(Subex)
Implementation /Professional Services
(Subex)
Implementation /Professional Services
(Subex)
Subex ROC Product
Operations(Subex)
Support(Subex)
Time
Cost
/ Pe
rform
ance
Time
Cost
/ Pe
rform
ance
Cost
/ Pe
rform
ance
Time
Low License RTU costsModerated ongoing Operational costs for operatorInitial moderate performance slowly decreasing over time
Operational ChangesLack of product expertise
High Initial License Purchase costsHigh ongoing Operational costs for operator
IT infrastructure costsIT support costsOperational costs
Initial moderate Performance which dwindles over time
Operational changesLack of product expertise
Low License RTU costsLow ongoing Operational costs for operator
Operational CostsInitial High performance stabilising over time
Limited operational ChangesEnhanced product knowledge
Vendor Scope Telco ScopeLegend :
License / MS Cost
Telco Costs
Typical Performance
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experts, Subex Managed Services enables operators to realize the full potential of Subex’s ROC enabled products which are used by over 200 operators globally.
With Operators making headway into newer areas like asset assurance, big data and analytics, functions like Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management often fall outside their core competency areas. In order to remain competitive in the market, it is essential for them to maintain undiluted focus on their core business areas and leave the other operations to be managed by experts. Subex’s Managed Services program delivers
a clear advantage to such operators in terms of a pro-active, agile and result oriented offering. It helps them free up valuable bandwidth, get more productive and efficient and most importantly enables them to focus on their strategic business needs to stay ahead of their competition.
The approach and practices followed by Subex for Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management are strongly focused on elevating the maturity level of the operator. The below diagram shows various stages of engagement and the relativity of their outcomes to TM Forum’s operational maturity model.
Source: Subex
FIGURE 5 Alignment with TM Forum Maturity Model
Source: Subex
FIGURE 4 Managed Services Engagement from Subex
Typical Roadmap
Uncover ‘actionable intelligence’ & act on it in near-real-time
Enterprise Risk & ‘objective driven’ management
Focus on “Prediction & prevention”
Expand coverage and usage to make stack future-proof
Focus on preventing increase in Capex & Opex
Introduce predictability through past learning and risk analysis
Focus on “Reduction“
Initial org structure, roles & responsibilities and basic operations
Setup basic supporting tools to target existing services
Focus on “Detection”
Subex approach
Optimization3
Enhancement2
Consolidation1
Standard TM Forum Maturity Levels
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3
4
5
Co
ntr
ol
Co
sts
Op
erat
ion
alEffi
cien
cies
Rep
eata
ble
an
d
Op
tim
ized
Pro
cess
es
Bu
sin
ess
Ag
ility
Op
erat
ion
al a
nd
Bu
sin
ess
Tran
sfo
rmat
ion
OptimizedManagedDefinedRepeatableInitial
Strategic Roadmap Operational SupportAnalysis, Consulting
& Training
SLA Monitoring
InfrastructureManagement
Business Continuityand Security
Managed Hosting
PerformanceMonitoring & Tuning
Standard 1st-3rdLine Support
Asset/ResourceTransfer
3rd party VendorManagement
ApplicationEngineering
Revenue Assurance
Environments
Mobile voice, Fixed voice, circuit switched data
GPRS, UMTS, EDGE and value added services (SMS, MMS)
Analogue data networks, Digital data services: ADSL, IP, ATM
Triple play: cable telephony, IPTV and data services
Fraud Management
Environments
Wireline (PSTN, ISP, IP)
Wireless (2G, 2.5G, 3G)
Postpaid, Prepaid, VAS, MMS and m-Commerce
Fraud Types Addressed
Internal Fraud
Roaming Fraud
Prepaid Fraud
Bypass Fraud
Subscription Fraud
Dealer Fraud
IP Fraud
Card Fraud
Premium Rate Services
SMS/MMS Fraud
Identity Theft
PBX Hacking
Areas Addressed
Postpaid Usage
Postpaid Subscription
Prepaid Usage
Prepaid Subscription
Roaming Usage
Interconnect Assurance
Wholesale Assurance
Rating Assurance
Correction
Test Call Generator
Content Assurance
Cost Control
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Business Drivers and Influencing Metrics for Revenue Assurance & Fraud Management
Source: Subex
FIGURE 5 Lifecycle Approach to Data Integrity Management & Asset Assurance
Business Drivers Key operational and business metrics for Fraud Management
Key operational and business metrics for Revenue Assurance
Time to market New product or service fraud risk assurance
New product or service revenue risk assurance
New product or service fraud controls & process availability
New product or service RA controls & process availability
Cost Optmization Team work rate vs. Case generation rate
Team work rate vs. Case generation rate
Case generation accuracy Case generation accuracy
Fraud Loss Averted Revenue Leakage Averted
Fraud Loss Recovered Revenue Leakage Recovered
Customer experience Customer churn due to fraud or service quality impact
Customer churn rate due to billing or service quality inconsistencies
Fraud suspect notification time Leakage notification time
Risk Mitigation Application & Service availability Application & Service availability
Fraud Coverage Revenue assurance activities coverage
Fraud loss & Fraud run time Revenue leakage/Opportunity loss & run time
Issue response (MTTR) & service restoration
Issue response (MTTR) & service restoration
Fraud incident missed against coverage
Leakage incident missed against coverage
Fraud loss against Never Pay vs. Bad Debt
Revenue Leakage against Bad Debt
Future Proofing Reactive against proactive fraud coverage
Reactive against proactive RA coverage
Industry intelligence adoption
Processes & procedures coverage Processes & procedures coverage
Prevention
Investigation and ResolutionDiscrepancy Identification
Engage Business, Change Behaviors
Create CasesInvestigate &
DetermineActions
Take Actions (Automation)
Review Ops Data, Identify Root Causes
OE/OMWorkforce
ManagementBilling
Enrichment
Analytics EnabledProcesses
Prevent New
Errors
OSS Data
Network Discovery
Network
Data Errors
Data to Align
Filtering
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Phase Function Business Value
Discrepancy Identification Identification of mismatch between two data sources
Discrepancies have limited inherent value. The real value is realized when discrepancies are investigated and resolved.
Investigation and Resolution Use of rigorous methodology & repeatable process to resolve discrepancies
Optimizes value creation from discrepancies and accelerates ROI from a DIM program.
Prevention Data Governance process to harness what is learned and prevent creation of future data errors
Provides highest return over long term by avoiding data integrity issues that would otherwise drive up costs.
network and service discovery; data reconciliation; and discrepancy analytics. Leveraging inherent cross-domain intelligence and extensive off-the-shelf network equipment support, ROC Data Integrity Management discovers devices and logical services in diverse network environments and reconciles this data with the OSS/BSS on a continuous, controlled basis.
Value Based Prioritization
Application of best-in-class tools to the DIM Lifecycle is not sufficient. Experience and thought-leadership are essential ingredients for a successful DIM program. Subex with decades of experience supporting DIM programs globally brings “accumulated wisdom” from previous engagements to the table.
When it comes to generating discrepancies for further analysis and resolution, the primary objectives are eliminating false positives and prioritizing by value to the business. With methods like Data Profiling, Language/Phonetic Analysis and Data Normalization, Subex helps in eliminating a vast majority of false positives and hence keeping your focus only on relevant issues. Subex’s process also helps you make specific associations between measurable data quality improvement and their direct influence on KPIs. This in-turn helps in achieving operational objectives of a DIM program.
Case Management Approach
In a mature DIM program, the focus is much less upon discrepancy creation, and more upon enabling fix actions. While advanced Discrepancy Identification techniques are essential parts of the DIM program, Case Management and Workflow are equally critical. A discrepancy is simply the raw result of a comparison between two data sources and having discrepancy identification as the main objective of a DIM
Lifecycle Approach to Data Integrity Management & Asset Assurance
Operators increasingly understand that poor data quality in Operational Support Systems, can drive-up operational costs (Opex) and lead to unnecessary capital expenditures (Capex). . The question then becomes, how can an operator structure a program to:
• Quickly resolve embedded data quality issues that negatively impact Opex and Capex?
• Influence people, processes and systems to prevent the ongoing introduction of new data quality issues?
• Maximize Return-on-Investment (ROI) from data quality initiatives?
A critical insight is that the most successful programs do not approach DIM as the mere application of technology to solve a business problem. While powerful tools are important enablers, a full lifecycle approach that blends technology, process and people is critical for success. The DIM Lifecycle approach stands in stark contrast to the traditional focus on discrepancy creation alone. The traditional approach, often leads to a “discrepancy tsunami”—that is, more discrepancies (many of them invalid!) than an operator can process and from which value can be obtained. What is required is a holistic approach to solving Data Integrity challenges.
The DIM Lifecycle
Subex’s Approach to DIM
Industry leading tool
ROC Data Integrity Management is the industry’s first Data Integrity Management solution for improving the quality of data that drives key service provider processes, resulting in lower costs and higher service profitability. It combines three powerful data integrity functions: multi-layer
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program often leaves an operator struggling. Instead, Subex follows a Case Management approach. A case is a unit of work; it tightly defines, guides and adds structure to the work.
The practices and processes followed by Subex are continually refined and enhanced to reduce
Tier 1: IT Operations Tier 2: Application Management Tier 3: Business Operations
• L1 Support
• SA Support
• DBA Support
• Monitor and correct:
• Delays in data feeds
• File processing failures
• Discovery issues
• Etc
• Provide performance and volume reports
• Ops Reviews
• Modifications to existing Network Discovery NEMs to keep pace with updates to NE software
• Updates to discrepancy rules
• Addition of new data sources, or modifications to existing ones
• New cases types and workflows
• New reports and KPIs, or updates to existing ones
• Solution Architect
• Business Analyst
• Data Cleanse Agent
Subex Managed Services for Data Integrity Management
Business Drivers and Influencing Metrics for DIM
Source: Subex
FIGURE 6 Areas covered under Wholesale
costs of running a DIM program and to accelerate the value returned.
Subex has the knowledge and experience to establish and operate a full DIM program. Whether as a full outsourced provider or as a collaborative partner, Subex can help operators achieve and exceed their goals from a DIM program.
BPO Services for Wholesale OperatorsWholesale is an area that needs both flexibility and maximum efficiency. Choosing and negotiating with partners is the first step and in itself one of the riskiest fraud areas. Audits and checks are crucial to the on-boarding process. From this first step, once the business decision has been made to partner, Subex’s experience in automating the checking process has been proven time and again.
Wholesale
Interconnect
Content
Leased LineMVNO
Roaming
Source: Andrew Jacobs, Director Managed Services, Subex
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Business Drivers Key Operational & Business Metrics
Asset Optimization Capex Avoided
Unused Assets
Under-utilized Assets
Lost or Stranded Assets
Re-deployable Assets
Time from Purchase-to-Deployment
Time from Deployment-to-First Service
Time from Decommission-to-Redeployment/Disposal
Operational Efficiency Cycle Time per Design
Cycle Time for Service Fulfillment
Designs per Designer per Day
Designs Requiring Rework
Services Activation Failures
Field Service Truck Rolls per Month
Network Optimization Network Utilization (by region, layer, technology)
Network Resource Utilization (by resource type)
Network Capacity vs. Policy
Active Leased Lines vs. Invoices
Capacity Augments within Target Timeframe
Customer Experience Customer Commit Dates Met
MTTR
Service Availability
Outages per Month
New Service Failure Rate
Service Degradation due to Capacity Constraint
Service Outages due to Capacity Constraint
OSS/BSS Inventory Accuracy vs. Network
ERP Accuracy vs. Network
Alignment of Inventory vs. ERP
Active Services in Inventory vs. Billing
Source: Subex
FIGURE 7 Tasks across the Wholesale business sector
Order to CashPartner
Management
ContractManagement
Invoice &Statement
Payment &Collections
Tariffs &Rating
Disputes &Settlement
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Choosing a solutions partner to manage the wholesale business is, of course, as great a decision as choosing an interconnect or other wholesale partner. We understand that this decision must, ultimately, be based on trust and must be a true partnership, not simply an ‘outsourcing’ contract. Our existing customers have gone through this process, and as Harry Moen, Manager Operations Interconnect, Billing at Telenor says, “the final decision was based on Subex’s experience in the interconnect area and Telenor’s belief in Subex’s ability to deliver on time and within budget.” That, and on “the fullness of ROC Partner Settlement’s functionality.”
Common Goals, Common Challenges
Although many business operations within operators are still managed within silos, there are many common goals as well as common challenges that can be identified and therefore be managed more effectively.
Apart from the contract and pricing processes there are significant similarities. The selection and configuration of a partner through the contract lifecycle, pricing, invoicing, disputes to collection process are the stages followed by every wholesale process. These common stages are the ideal environment for implementing a converged solution to automate and therefore
bring efficiencies to the common processes. The aim, then, must be to find a solution and a partner that can deliver automation and at the same time the flexibility to support the individual and tailored nature of the wholesale business. For example, such a solution must have the capability to support the negotiation of contract terms within agreed limits - and to adjust pricing (or to re-price). At the same time it must ensure profitable operation and process improvement. And this goal must be measurable – and visible – to the business.
The Subex Service
Subex has been working with Tier 1 operators for many years. As such we are a trusted partner of many operators. We have also invested heavily in developing a world-class set of solutions – the well known ROC solutions.
With an operator pedigree, it is not surprising that our customers trust us to run their wholesale operations. As Paul Fedarb, Head of Global services Wholesale Billing at BT says, “Subex’s Partner Settlement solution is robust and provides flexibility that allows BT to grow with new products and add them to the billing stack naturally. The solution has not only reduces our maintenance and support costs but also improves our customer relationships as disputes can be cleared easily.”
Source: Subex
FIGURE 8 ROC Partner Settlement Coverage
Standard voice telephonyISDNPSTNMobile inbound/outbound roaming
Voice Services
IP eXchangeBroadband Services
Content Services
Multi-Party BillingContent Provider Revenue ShareService Provider Revenue ShareAdvertisersResellers
Revenue Share
IP Video conferencing,VoIPMobile SMS/MMS
Data Services
Virtual Private NetworkLeased lines/CircuitADSLDSLIPL
Non Usage
ROC partner settlement
Order to Cash
Data Collection Rating, Billing & Invoicing
Financials
AutomaticContentVoiceData
AccrualsPre-PaymentCredit Management
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Business Drivers Key operational and business metrics
Time to market New partner contractual & revenue risk assurance
New partner configuration & process availability
Cost Optmization Partner invoice & payment processing & reconciliation time
Invoice receipt to clearance rate & accuracy
Dispute resolution time & avoided cost
Partner release time
Customer experience Partner satisfaction level
Discrepancy notification time
Risk Mitigation Application & Service availability
Claims & disputes exposure level
Working capital against total average AR balance
Average Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)
Dispute identification time & partner notification
RCA time over suspense traffic
Future Proofing Partner terms and contract & audit compliance
Processes & procedures coverage
Our customers also include smaller, dynamic operators. “As a fast growing company, we were in search of a flexible, end-to-end interconnect and partner settlement solution to fulfill our business requirements,” according to Deniz Calendar,
Wholesale Business Solutions Manager at Avea Technology TIB, “The remarkable features such as automated invoicing mechanism and accurate and informative reports have not only rationalized our business but also led to satisfied customers.”
Source: Alan Forbes, Senior Director - Business & Solutions Consulting, Subex
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Case Studies
Source: Subex
FIGURE 9 Ooredoo Fraud Management Success Story
Source: Abhijeet Singh, Senior Consultant, Subex
FIGURE 10 Tier 1 Norrth American operator Success Story
Given below is the success story of a middle east operator faced with the challenges like increasing complexity and limited coverage. The diagram describes their engagement with Subex and the benefits thereof.
The next success story is that of a North American operator using Subex's Revenue Assurance solution in a Managed Services model.
Challenges Engagement with Subex
Benefits to the customer
Increasing complexity due to technological advancements
Limited fraud coverage- high risk
High fraud run time High expenditure on non-core activities
Increased organization-wide influence of Fraud Management team Better Fraud prediction and prevention Timely recommendations and proactive assessments Enhanced reporting and documentation procedures Support for strategic decision making
Ooredoo Fraud Management Success Story
Areas covered Pre-MS
Newer areas covered Post-MS
Areas with Augmented coverage Post-MS
80%reduction
Post-MS
20%
Pre-MS
100%
increase in the Fraud coverage Reduction in Fraud run-time
246
24x7 coverage
Performance guided & SLA driven
Business process services and SME Support
Successful mixed shore engagement
Proactive industry insights
Technology assessments and fine tuning
Challenges Engagement with Subex
Benefits to the customer
Limitations to perform regular Revenue Assurance analysis
Talent management issues resulting in resource & skills constraints
Lower efficiency resulting in higher OPEX
Fewer automated processes
Revenue Assurance function maturing & turning into a pro-active one
Enhanced RA coverage across revenue all streams – Additional Audits configured
15% reduction in OpexROI in the first 6 months
100%
Automated operations
5
1
13
8
4
7
1
5
Manual DataCollection
Manual Audits Data LoadDays/Week
AutomatedReports
Before Now
Industry leading Revenue Assurance tool
Product & domain expertise
Detailed daily Revenue Assurance audits
Results validated by MS experts
Robust case management
Stringent SLAs
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Outlook for the future
“As the adoption of Nexus-driven offerings continues where a combination of value propositions is justifying purchases, so too will new business models and terminology emerge that could displace outsourcing. In fact, in many ways, they are already here where the underlying engine of a Nexus-driven service will be contracted in a managed service approach. In that regard, here we provide an outlook for 2013 along with recommendations. These impacts and recommendations represent the early days of all of these significant shifts that require CIOs and sourcing managers to plan accordingly.”1
1Gartner Inc., Outsourcing Trends 2013: The Nexus of Forces Will Accelerate Managed Services Sourcing Adoption, G00239098, 31 January 2013
Figure 1. Interlocked Gears of IT Services Sourcing Cycle and the Nexus of Forces
Figure 4. Impacts and Top Recommendations for Sourcing Managers
Source: Subex
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BSS/OSS Managed Services - The Future A Note from Vinod Kumar, COO, Subex
In most markets, there is a constant downward pressure on price along with intense competition to launch new services to win market share. The price ceiling has always been
coming down on operators and the challenge has been to dig out the cost floor to make a margin. But what happens after you have made all the tactical cost savings? Where do you go then?
When it comes to the networks, operators have started outsourcing or network sharing and have realized the ensuring benefits. The next frontier to rationalize costs is BSS/OSS, where there is a growing trend for operators to turn to managed services. However, it is not just cost rationalization alone that is driving this trend. Rather, a managed service engagement for BSS/OSS serves a larger objective of optimizing the business and improves customer experience, while freeing significant management bandwidth to focus on core priorities. A managed service provider (MSP) can be engaged in most areas of a telco’s BSS/OSS. The most popular area so far has been retail billing, but there is an increasing inclination to expand its spread to Business Optimisation and Service Fulfillment.
The MSPs expertise in sweating the BSS/OSS asset to its maximum, having developed the software itself:
• An understanding of the specific BSS/OSS domain having spent significant time operating in the same;
• A one-stop shop (single contract with a single interface)
• A stringent service level agreement for performance;
• A clear roadmap for the BSS/OSS software to account for new services and scalability for subscriber growth.
There are 3 types of operators who want expert MSPs to come in and generate more value for their business.
The first type of operators are those who realize they have squeezed enough from their BSS/OSS products already and there is limited incremental benefit by doing any more through in-house teams. In such cases, they turn to managed services to take their functional maturity to the next level.
The second type of operators moving to managed services are those who experience a shortage of skills – these could be related to operating the BSS/OSS product, the domain or even operations. Growing markets in Europe, Middle East and Africa are all experiencing a shortage of such experienced and skilled staff which can result in poorly architected, implemented or operated BSS/OSS that decreases efficiency and increases error. These operators are taking the managed services route for certain parts of their BSS/OSS and concentrating their skilled in-house staff on others.
The third type of operators moving to managed services are Greenfield operators starting new operations in new countries or regions. This group does not have any legacy systems, and are keen to launch operations as soon as possible.
These Greenfield operators have the advantage of seeing what has gone before, benchmarking other operators and then simply picking the best and most cost effective solution. This group invariably takes a right-first-time managed service route which helps them ramp up their operations faster and concentrate on launching their services than having to bother about BSS/OSS.
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While engaging an MSP, operators need to decide early on the engagement model and its scope. Operators can choose from a range of services from having on-site MSP support staff to completely outsourcing their BSS/OSS (including IT infrastructure, application management and business operations.)
Within that range, MSPs can offer a fixed price model or a shared rewards model. Despite having seen the revenue from managed services in the industry, some operators are still skeptical about making the move.
Understandably there are cultural issues, especially those related to staff re-deployment. What is to be emphasized here is that face that not all managed services are transformational; in fact they can complement existing operations. It is extremely important that the
MSP adapts its team’s behavior and processes to suit the operator’s business culture. There could be concerns over the lack of industry standards too, and this can be addressed through SLAs specific to the operator and benchmarks from the industry.
With more and more operators looking at managed service engagements, the best BSS/OSS product vendors are investing in their managed service capabilities. The resultant financial benefits, expertise and skills, service levels and efficient contract management are all critical decision factors. Operators want to hear about case studies, talk to other customers about their experiences and be comfortable with the MSP’s process. Managed services in the network have been around for a long time, but managed services for BSS/OSS is the rising star.
Source: Subex
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Research from Gartner
Discover New Opportunities for Differentiated Business Value from Three Emerging IT Service Offerings
to-consumer (B2C) mentality and execution by identifying, piloting and executing BPaaS offerings that directly allow the differentiation of customer care processes.
Strategic Planning Assumption(s)
By 2015, 40% of the most successful CIOs will use cloud sourcing to cut costs and generate new revenue in order to outperform competitors.
Analysis
Sourcing executives are challenged to implement a sourcing strategy that is driven by two main business priorities:1
• The first component is aimed at cost reduction or optimization in the “run-the-business” part of the IT budget.2 These are business functions that provide competitive parity and are required by all players in an industry. Within the IT service portfolio, this is primarily focused on infrastructure cost, application maintenance and application operation cost (see “Outsourcing Trends 2013: Service Industrialization Enables a New Balance Between Value, Cost and Risk”). Gartner refers to service provider offerings in this area as industrialized low-cost services (ILCS) — see Note 1 for more information.
• The second component of the sourcing strategy is aimed at “growing or transforming” the business to make it more competitive via differentiation. This is often done through the adoption of new or improved service offerings that allow for increased speed, quality and scalability with new types of commercial terms, such as gain sharing or outcome based (see “Outsourcing Trends 2013: The Nexus of Forces Will Accelerate Managed Services Sourcing Adoption”). Gartner refers to service provider offerings in this area as differentiated business value services (DBVS) — see Note 2 for more information.
Both types of IT service offerings may increase the risk profile of the IT services delivery:
• Drastic cost optimization in business-critical IT spending raises the operational risk.
Significant investments continue to drive the industrialization and consumerization of IT services offerings for both efficiency and differentiation. We provide three examples to showcase the imperative that sourcing executives must stay abreast of emerging offerings by seizing opportunities.
Impacts
• Outcome-based industrialized offerings have moved from R&D to be commercially available for sourcing executives to drive both savings and differentiation.
• Industrialized offerings combining business process services with software allow sourcing executives to accelerate time to market and burst up scalability in a standardized, predictable sourcing delivery model.
• Business process as a service (BPaaS) offerings are now available that address areas such as direct customer care, enabling sourcing executives to increase customer loyalty through efficiency.
Recommendations
Sourcing executives should:
• Update sourcing strategies to recommend the timing for adoption of consumerized and industrialized offerings. This involves a thorough understanding of benefits, risks and cash flow analysis.
• Make a clear distinction as to whether the new industrialized service options are focused on “run the business” functions (delivering efficiency in the back office) or “grow or transform” functions (addressing business process through a differentiating value proposition).
• Educate business unit leaders about the compromises in flexibility (for the benefits of speed, scale and standardization) that the convergence of software and services provided in a tightly coupled solution demands.
• Position themselves as key enablers for the enterprise to shift from a B2B to a business-
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• Investment on new and differentiating programs is naturally associated with increased risk of failures on both IT projects and change management programs (45% of development projects are not completed on time, and 34% are not completed on budget).3
• Successful projects, in many cases, add applications and infrastructure assets instead of replacing old ones, thereby increasing the cost of IT.
To help sourcing executives determine the most opportune time for enterprises to adopt industrialized and consumerized offerings into their sourcing strategy while appropriately managing risks, we researched examples of DBVS service offerings. More specifically, we interviewed both service providers and buyers of these offerings to understand the benefits, risks and commercial terms of these deals. In this research, we provide three different examples in different industries in order to showcase the opportunities available, as well as offering clear evidence that the market has moved from R&D labs to the commercially available solution for sourcing executives to drive both savings and differentiation.
Impacts and Recommendations
Outcome-based industrialized offerings have moved from R&D to be commercially available for sourcing executives to drive both savings and differentiationIn this first case study example, we showcase a consumerized outcome-based offering that allowed the sourcing team to enable business unit leaders to drive both savings and differentiation of the brand. “Going green” and better energy management is on the radar of almost every enterprise across the globe. Every enterprise must focus on environmental issues, driving global low carbon economy, rising energy costs and increased regulatory issues.
The question is how to harness technology and inject changes in business processes in order to better manage energy consumption in a more proactive, rather than a reactive, approach. Driving this type of change in energy consumption is a complex problem requiring changes in business processes, people, as well as dealing with a diverse set of technologies and a large array of energy consuming equipment (servers, lights, air conditioners, refrigerators and so on).
Source: Gartner (July 2013)
FIGURE 1 Impacts and Top Recommendations for Sourcing Executives
Impacts Top Recommendations
Industrialized offerings combining business process services with software allow sourcing executives to accelerate time to market.
• Educate business unit leaders about the compromises in flexibility that the convergence of software and services demands.
Outcome-based offerings have moved from R&D to be commercially available for sourcing executives.
• Update sourcing strategies to recommend the timing for adoption of consumerizedand industrialized offerings.
• Make a clear distinction as to whether the new service options are “run the business” or “grow or transform” functions.
Business process as a service (BPaaS) offerings are now available that address areas such as direct customer care.
• Position themselves as key enablers for the enterprise to shift from a B2B to a business-to-consumer mentality.
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Wipro, which is well known for its technology capabilities (see Note 3), brought together a number of cross-functional skill sets and technology, and created an outcome managed service offering called Managed Energy Services. One example of a client that has purchased this offering is a large U.S. retailer with more than 1,100 stores. Savings in the first 12 months were reported to be $15 million. Wipro EcoEnergy division, which is responsible for this offering, targets savings of up to 20% of normalized energy costs by reducing consumption, optimizing procurement and leveraging regulatory incentives.
The managed service is outcome-based because the client does not pay for any of the startup costs, implementation or deployment of the solution. In fact, the client does not pay even $1 until the outcome is achieved — namely, the service is delivered, the actual savings are calculated and then Wipro receives payment premised on the level of savings achieved. Hence, the outcome determines the payment structure.
In the example of this retailer, the Wipro EcoEnergy team started in the first few months by deploying teams to every retail store in the U.S. (1,100 in total) and placing technology (sensors on the devices) and then all the analytics dashboards for measurement and analytics processing.
The analytics dashboards were then dynamically utilized to drive changes in business process, technology corrections and personnel tasks in order to drive changes in the overall energy management process. During this time, the client’s payment of fee was directly linked to the achievement of the outcomes. The offering continuously measures, and then allows for energy optimization based on energy performance reporting. The analytics dashboard drives data-driven decision making into the business processes focused on energy performance.4 Wipro’s offering utilizes its analytics engine to derive insights from real-time energy data from all the technology in the field. The offering uses its Energy Operations Centre to act on the insights and fix the issues.
This also helps in designing long-term energy and operational strategies, as well as producing key reporting for regulatory compliance in order to avoid penalties. Most of the organizations that are using these solutions leverage them for brand differentiation by showcasing analytical data on their progress in reducing carbon footprint.
Recommendations:
IT sourcing executives should:
• Increase awareness with business users and IT organizations about industrialized, outcome-based services available in the energy management space. One of the best ways to increase awareness is through regularly scheduled strategy reviews with existing and emerging vendors regarding their investments in various offerings. Regular inquiries with industry analysts are another great resource.
• Sponsor a test-and-pilot approach to these services.
• Help the business by evaluating these services’ potential for both efficiency increase and brand differentiation.
Industrialized offerings combining business process services with software allow sourcing executives to accelerate time to market and burst up scalability in a standardized, predictable sourcing delivery modelIn this second case study example, we showcase an offering where the provider combined both software and services in a software as a service (SaaS)-based structure to significantly increase the speed of capturing while also allowing clients to burst up scalability during peak requirements. The sourcing team’s ability to identify these types of opportunities and navigate the risk is the critical role that is required.
The insurance industry — specifically property and casualty (P&C) — is under constant pressure to improve its core business processes at every level of customer interaction. Due to the evolution of the industry, there has been a great deal of consolidation that has led to a significant number of disconnected and legacy applications to process claims, as well as a number of disparate siloed systems. This has resulted in a redundancy in systems, difficulty in managing and integrating various customer engagement channels (agents, Web and call centers) where customers expect to interact with their insurance company and lots of manual processes.
One key process in the insurance industry — specifically, claims processing — acts as the first place for an insurance company to reinforce its brand promise. The customer has purchased insurance and is now contacting the insurance company to execute on its value proposition. As
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such, claims processing is often the business process that defines the primary experience of a customer with an insurer. The initial contact of the customer notifying the insurance company of a claim is called the “first notice of loss” (FNOL).
Accenture, which is among the largest consultancies and outsourcers in the world (see Note 4), has developed both a software offering (delivered either on-premises or as SaaS) as well as business process offerings that address a number of the customer service issues that typically arise from claims processing.5 The view that is relevant for this research is that these offerings allow insurance companies to bring differentiated business value to what is arguably the most important customer service business process in the industry.
Accenture’s FNOL service can significantly increase the speed of capturing the initial claim and solution scalability. One of the capabilities is a module to capture initial loss information, which arranges supplier services and initiates straight-through processing. A dynamic dialogue — a series of questions that prompt handlers for required information — is used to capture the initial loss data typically initiated in a client’s call center. The questions are easily configurable and can appear based on product, line of business or any characteristic chosen by the insurer.
Given the structure of the solution, the time-reduction benefits are tremendous, especially in a scenario where a hurricane, tornado or some major event demands that thousands of claims be captured in a very compressed period of time. Most claims processing processes were designed to handle average volume levels, not peaks in the aftermath of a catastrophic event. The ability to burst up in a crisis was not possible without excessive costs or short-term makeshift processes. Accenture’s cloud-based SaaS solution enables rapid automated scalability that was previously extremely difficult for a single client organization to achieve.6
The overall impact to customer service eliminates the current issues faced by most insurance companies namely, manual processes, disaggregated views of data, no single view of customers and an inability to address multiple channels (agency, Web, call centers and so on). The final result is a differentiated business process at a lower cost with faster speed and higher value for the customer.
Recommendations:
We recommend that insurance IT sourcing executives comprehensively analyze industrialized, outcome-based services for benefits, risks and most importantly the trade-off between flexibility of customization versus the faster speed, additional scale and standardization. In this particular case, the focus on both business process (via a BPaaS offering) with an underlying SaaS engine driving both efficiency, efficacy and brand differentiation.
BPaaS offerings are now available that address areas such as direct customer care, enabling sourcing executives to increase customer loyalty through efficiencyIn this third case study example, we showcase an offering where the provider has a targeted BPaaS offering aimed at the customer care business process. This enabled a shift from a pure B2B focus to a more direct line of sight to the customer (B2C mentality). Here the sourcing executives helped the business unit leader drive both savings and differentiation, by replacing local or regional solutions with a central solution, creating controlled and managed global value networks.
Many consumer electronics (mobile phones and portable devices) manufacturers or other kinds of consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers have a process for post-sales, repair and returns. This service — often part of the product’s warranty — can be cumbersome and expensive as well as a primary source of customer dissatisfaction, as the product is not working properly. Consumers have high expectations for getting a functioning product that they paid for quickly and efficiently.
Even a small percent of returned items a year can produce a significant cost, negatively affecting both the vendor bottom line and the customer satisfaction. The overall process often involves:
• Thousands of points of sale (shops, retailers) that must be able to handle the faulty product return and delivery back to the consumer correctly.
• Dozens of logistics carriers, receiving faulty products and shipping to the appropriate service center.
• Multiple service centers (logistic hubs, assessment centers and warehouses).
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• Hundreds of vendors or third-party repair centers.
• Multiple manufacturers and Insurances, for claim validation and payment.
Due to the complexity of setting up such a process, even larger manufacturers can find cost and efficiency relief (fundamentally not to pay the full cost of such a network that ought to be duplicated by each manufacturer servicing even the same points of sales) through a business process network (BPN) solution.7 See Note 4 for a definition of BPN and some of the embedded technologies.8 While definitions are complex, simplicity is returned when looking at the business problem (what the solution is expected to address) and the type of value provided (efficiency vs. value added), as the orchestration of a value-driven network delivers better business results than isolated mastery of individual supply chain functions.9
eBuilder (see Note 5) has put in place one of these networked solutions, and it has realized demonstrable cost reductions and standardized efficiency through a whole business network that currently spans 55 countries and 3,300 organizations.10 From a functional perspective, the service provides the automated transportation booking and hub activities, a centralized routing service, central visibility and analysis, traceability on item level and an automated swap management for improved customer service.
The service is based on eBuilder’s BPN solutions that include both the software platform (running in a SaaS model) as well as the overall business process (running in BPaaS mode). eBuilder utilizes BPN technologies to structure the end-to-end process and its steps, master data management tools for the information side and a business rules management engine at the back end. The combined tools minimize the necessity of customizing code in the standard offering. Most of the service components are shared by all customers and businesses involved.11
By adopting such a service and adapting to it, businesses can clearly reduce their cost for the after sales process IT (eBuilder report double-digit percentage savings, which are realized as most steps are totally automated and shared across multiple organizations’ economies of scale). Moreover, this offering also allowed for cost reduction through the reduction of potential errors associated with human labor (in some cases, eBuilder reports estimated savings of more
than 50% of the labor associated to the process, thanks to the straight-through, industrialized process network). A standard implementation of eBuilder BPN solution takes a few weeks. The provider claims that customers can start perceiving benefits after approximately 12 weeks, including improved service to customers, lower costs and better control.
While the service reduces the cost for an end-to-end post-sales service (now available for “a few dollars per item returned”), additional business potential is available as well. For example, a manufacturer can get a custom function implemented to enable the point of sale not only to receive the faulty items and verify the customer claim, but also to propose an upgrade of the product (for example, to substitute the faulty product with a new and better one) or additional services that could end up transforming an unhappy customer into a sale and customer satisfaction opportunity. The size and depth of such potential has been very recently tested (see Note 7) by eBuilder through a specific survey and shows a visible potential for differentiated business value to be added to its standard solution. An eBuilder evaluation suggests that major mobile phone manufacturers could get extra sales in the order of tens of millions by a differentiated implementation of this process.
Recommendations:
Electronic consumers product manufacturers and other CPG IT sourcing executives should help the business evaluate the current “after-sales repair and return” performances against external managed service offerings, and sponsor a “test and pilot” approach to evaluate potential for both efficiency and differentiation in the market. This phase would be previous to also evaluate potential of lock-in, disaster recovery and business continuity SLA, exit and transition costs, compliance support and the real end-to-end cost of management and integration toward internal IT functions.12
Evidence1Gartner analysts receive many inquiries about the sourcing of services and related decisions, often focused on both efficiency and business competitiveness at the same time. Inquiries on IT strategies issues across sourcing, procurement, enterprise architecture and business process management in the past 24 months numbered more than 4,000. Of these, the most represented
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core topic has been “sourcing strategy,” with more than 3,000 inquiries — an increase of 20%. More than 2,500 inquiries were identified specifically as “IT services sourcing strategy,” with an increase of 19% in 2001, and a strong peak in early 2013.
2See “Outsourcing Buying Trends and Drivers for Sourcing Strategies for 2012 and Onward.”
3On average, 55% of application development projects are completed on time, and 66% are completed within budget. See “IT Key Metrics Data 2013: Key Applications Measures: Project Measures: Multiyear.”
4This Wipro offering spans sensors on devices (mobile), connected (cloud) to leverage continuous measures and analytics (big data, information) to drive energy savings. Since the service offering spans multiple dimension of the nexus, it can be classified as “nexus driven.”
5Details of this solutions can be found on Accenture’s website. Additionally, Gartner has published more extensive analysis on Accenture’s insurance offerings in the following research notes: “Insurance Megavendors, 2012: Accenture, CSC, Oracle and SAP” and “Competitive Landscape: IT Services Providers to the Global Insurance Industry, 2012.”
6Accenture FNOL solutions span mobile access and cloud connections, and treat big amounts of data in a shorter period of time to enable faster answers from insurers. Since the service offering spans multiple dimension of the nexus, it can be classified as “nexus driven” as well.
7See “2012 Strategic Road Map for Multienterprise Business Processes Enablement.”
8See “Hype Cycle for Software as a Service, 2012,” “Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Management, 2012” and “Hype Cycle for Business Process Management, 2012.”
9“What the BP Director Needs to Know About Using Cloud to Improve and Manage Business Processes” and “Demand-Driven Value Network Orchestration Key Initiative Overview.”
10At the end of 2012, the eBuilder after-sales fact and figures included: availability in 70 countries, 3,300 organizations integrated in the community, 17,000 users, 70,000 automatically created reports per year, 4,000,000 repair loops per year, 22,000,000 messages per year and 50,000,000 events per year. In March 2013, eBuilder started to roll out support for more than 500 service collection points in China, as requested by its global after sales customers. The solutions span remote access in point of sales (to serve mobile users), leverage a networked solution and cloud delivery model (SaaS/BPaaS) and treats big amounts of data to enable operations optimization in real time. As it spans multiple dimension of the nexus, can be classified as a “nexus driven” service as well.
11eBuilder assumes all three CSB roles: aggregation, integration and customization. See “Cool Vendors in Cloud Services Brokerages, 2012.”
12See “Avoid Critical Mistakes In the Move From Traditional to Hybrid Cloud Outsourcing.”
Note 1
Definition of Differentiated Business Value Services
These are managed, multitenant, ready-to-use IT services (infrastructure, applications or business processes). They are designed and offered as no-frills services with service options and add-ons. Implemented as standardized, automated, configurable and scalable services, their entry-level price — expressed as price per user per month or price per unit per month (PUPM) — is very low and attracts a high number of prospects. Gartner would qualify an industrialized service as low cost if it had both of the following:
• A recurrent, publicly advertised entry price that is between 10% and 30% of the average corporate internal cost for that function in 2010.
• A price that is still at least 50% less than the (above) average client corporate cost in 2010 — after the service has been configured into a real offer then delivered.
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Note 2
Definition of Differentiated Business Value Services
These are industrialized, managed service offerings that comprise two key elements that are seamlessly and synergistically coupled to form a highly optimized offering:
• Competitive advantage components are focused on delivering differentiated business value or innovation with explicit performance metrics targets that are aligned to business value. The construct is a one-to-one (dedicated) delivery structure (that is, not multitenancy).
• Competitive parity components of the overall solution are industrialized and optimized for specific, common IT business process or industry elements delivered via best-in-class efficiency and efficacy levels. The construct is a one-to-many delivery structure (that is, multitenancy).
For more details, see “Understand Differentiated Business Value Services When Developing Services Sourcing Strategy.”
Note 3
Background of Wipro
Wipro (NYSE:WIT) is a global information technology, consulting and outsourcing company with more than 145,800 employees serving over 978 clients in 57 countries. The company is headquartered in India and posted IT services revenue of $6.22 billion for the financial year ending 31 March 2013.
As part of Wipro’s continued investment in new offerings and outcome-based managed service offerings, it developed a series of new offerings in the energy management during the past three years. Given its success and focus, Wipro created a specific division called Wipro EcoEnergy. Wipro EcoEnergy is the energy services business division of Wipro that provides intelligent, sustainable alternatives for energy generation, distribution, consumption and management. Utilizing leading-edge analytical tools, Wipro delivers energy efficient solutions to its clients that reduces its carbon footprint, energy usage, recovers avoidable energy losses and replaces conventional energy sources with renewable energy sources.
Note 4
Background of Accenture
Accenture is a global provider of consulting, system integration, outsourcing and software, with approximately 250,000 employees. Its strong finances and its scale, breadth and depth of offerings earn it good ratings in all categories. Its industry-focused structure allows it not only to enhance its client intimacy, but also to serve as an advisor and partner. It works with organizations globally that it feels can benefit from its high-end market position.
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Note 5
Definition of Business Process Network
A business process network (BPN) is a process-specific instance of multienterprise integration between two or more companies. BPN is a type of B2B service spanning multiple categories of technologies such as multienterprise business process platform, cloud brokerage, SaaS, integration as a service and is substantially a form of business process outsourcing/services, most often based on an business process management layer at the top.
Note 6
Background of eBuilder
eBuilder, headquartered in Kista, Sweden, is a Nordic provider of BPaaS, integration as a service and cloud brokerage solutions for multiple process areas (such as travel, expense management, order and fulfillment, procurement, after-sales service and customized business processes) and its serving more than 120 customers (such as Canon, Sony and DHL) for its Cloud Processes solutions in several regions, including Asia/Pacific, the Americas and Europe. These services are used by organizations that want to reduce its capital expenses and improve time to solution with a cloud-based multienterprise business process platform without sacrificing process agility.
Note 7
Results from an eBuilder After-Sales Survey — May 2013
To learn more about customer preferences when returning mobile phones, eBuilder contracted an independent market analyst to survey 500 consumers of different ages and genders. The survey showed:
• 48% of customers would be willing to return a faulty phone via the Internet rather than to the store where it was purchased. This highlights a potential for additional services in the repair process, based on more efficient and convenient services.
• 51% of these consumer declared they would be interested in buying an “express service,” including a new phone, if it reduced the lead-time from 10 to two days. The majority of these consumers (60%) would then evaluate paying between €10 and €20 for such a service, 13% would be ready to pay €30 to €50, and 4% even more.
• 58% would be willing to pay for backup services (so that all stored content on the phone remains after service, even if the phone is swapped). Six percent of these consumers would be willing to pay up to €10 for such a service, 33% between €10 and €30, and 4% over €40.
• 39% of consumers would pay for having their phone refurbished (for example, a new cover) so it looks factory new. In addition, 53% would also be willing to buy accessories (extra charger, battery and so on) in conjunction with the return, in exchange for a discount and no shipping cost.
Acronym Key and Glossary Terms
DBVS differentiated business value services ILCS industrialized low cost services
Source: Gartner Research, G00239805, Claudio Da Rold Frances Karamouzis, 22 July 2013
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BSS/OSS Managed Services is published by Subex. Editorial content supplied by Subex is independent of Gartner analysis. All Gartner research is used with Gartner’s permission, and was originally published as part of Gartner’s syndicated research service available to all entitled Gartner clients. © 2014 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. The use of Gartner research in this publication does not indicate Gartner’s endorsement of Subex’s products and/or strategies. Reproduction or distribution of this publication in any form without Gartner’s prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner’s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see “Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity” on its website, http://www.gartner.com/technology/about/ombudsman/omb_guide2.jsp.
Subex Limited is a leading global provider of Business Support Systems (BSS) that empowers communications service providers (CSPs) to achieve competitive advantage through Business Optimisation - thereby enabling them to improve their operational efficiency to deliver enhanced service experiences to subscribers.
The company pioneered the concept of a Revenue Operations Cente (ROC®) – a centralized approach that sustains profitable growth and financial health through coordinated operational control. Subex’s product portfolio powers the ROC and its best-in-class solutions such as revenue assurance, fraud management, asset assurance, capacity management, data integrity management, credit risk management, cost management, route optimization and partner settlement. Subex also offers a scalable Managed Services program with 30 + customers.
About Subex
Subex has been awarded the Global Market Share Leader in Financial Assurance 2012 by Frost & Sullivan and has been the winner of Pipeline Innovation Award 2013 in Business Intelligence & Analytics; Capacity Magazine Best Product/ Service 2013. Subex has continued to innovate with customers and have been jointly awarded the Global Telecoms Business Innovation Award for 2012 with Idea Cellular for Managed Services and in 2011 with Swisscom for Fraud Management.
Subex’s customers include 29 of top 50 operators* and 33 of the world’s 50 biggest# telecommunications service providers worldwide. The company has more than 300 installations across 70 countries.
*Total Telecom Top 500 Telecom Brands, 2013 #Forbes’ Global 2000 list, 2013
Subex Limited RMZ Ecoworld, Devarabisanahalli, Outer Ring Road, Bangalore - 560037 India Phone: +91 80 6659 8700
Subex Inc. 12101 Airport Way, Suite 390 Broomfield, Colorado 80021 USA Phone: +1 303 301 6200 Fax: +1 303 301 6201
Subex (UK) Limited 3rd Floor, Finsbury Tower, 103-105 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8LZ UK Phone: +44 20 7826 5420 Fax: +44 20 7826 5437
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Regional offices: Dubai | Ipswich | Sydney
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