vanillaplus magazine april-may 2013 edition

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Does big data mean big money? How CSPs can generate profits from their data ISSN 1745-1736 POLICY How to stimulate and safeguard profits VanillaPlus Insight out June 2013 BILL & CHARGE CSPs at the heart of the digital economy VanillaPlus Insight out August 2013 BUSINESS ASSURANCE New models raise the stakes for CSPs VanillaPlus Insight out October 2013 CEM CUSTOMER CARE Differentiate for competitive advantage VanillaPlus Insight out December 2013 4G How to spread the investment burden VanillaPlus Insight out February 2014 PLUS: Inside Oracle’s $3bn acquisition spree JDSU optimises offering with $85m Arieso deal Wholesale fraud cost carriers $6bn in 2012, says Subex Türk Telecom deploys Nakina network integrity Amdocs launches order-to-activate managed service Syniverse identifies the lost billions among transient roamers CSG International takes wholesale billing into the cloud Read the latest BSS and OSS news at www.vanillaplus.com April / May 2013 Issue 15 Volume 2

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DRIVING PROFITS FOR COMMUNICATION SERVICE PROVIDERS http://www.vanillaplus.com

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Page 1: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

Does big data mean big money?How CSPs can generate profits from their data

ISSN 1745-1736

POLICYHow to stimulate andsafeguard profitsVanillaPlus Insightout June 2013

BILL & CHARGECSPs at the heart ofthe digital economyVanillaPlus Insightout August 2013

BUSINESS ASSURANCENew models raise thestakes for CSPsVanillaPlus Insightout October 2013

CEM CUSTOMER CAREDifferentiate forcompetitive advantageVanillaPlus Insight outDecember 2013

4GHow to spread theinvestment burdenVanillaPlus Insightout February 2014

PLUS: Inside Oracle’s $3bn acquisition spree • JDSU optimises offering with $85m Arieso deal • Wholesale fraud cost carriers $6bn in 2012, saysSubex • Türk Telecom deploys Nakina network integrity • Amdocs launches order-to-activate managed service • Syniverse identifies the lost billionsamong transient roamers • CSG International takes wholesale billing into the cloud • Read the latest BSS and OSS news at www.vanillaplus.com

April / May 2013Issue 15 Volume 2

Page 2: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

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Page 3: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

6 EDITOR’S COMMENTA complete system is a complete nonsense, says George Malim

7 INDUSTRY NEWSOracle to buy Tekelec, Arieso sold to JDSU

8 MARKET NEWSSyniverse and Subex show where CSPs are losing out

10 CONTRACT NEWST-Mobile Czech Republic deploys Ontology, Türk Telekom opts for Nakinanetwork integrity system

12 PRODUCT NEWSCSG international launches cloud-based wholesale billing

13 THE CONTRACT HOT LISTThe latest vendor deals listed

14 PEOPLE NEWSWho’s on the move

15 VANILLAPLUS BIG DATA ANALYTICS INSIGHTThe first of our VanillaPlus Insights begins with 42-pages exploring thebenefits, challenges, business models and technologies associated withmaximising the big data analytics opportunity for CSPs.

We start with a VanillaPlus-commissioned analyst report by analyst firmAnalysys Mason and include interviews, features and case studies to helpyou plot a path through the hype and gain real understanding of what bigdata analytics can do for you.

59 CASE STUDYHow eircom enhanced its self-care by deploying voice recognitiontechnology from Speechstorm

63 DIARYWhere to go and what to see

64 CLOCKING OFF!Nick Booth blames big data for obstructing his eavesdropping

C O N T E N T S

TALKING HEADSLyn Cantor, the president ofTektronix Communications

BIG DATA VALUE

30

34

CLOCKING OFF

64

3

IN THISISSUE

How CSPs cangenerate profitsfrom their data

CASE STUDY

40

Page 4: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

ericsson.com/realize

Manage more complexity with fewer systems that need fewer resources, yet deliver improved results. It’s the new economics. Ericsson helps you REALIZE greater efficiency through consolidated and automated OSS/BSS. And if you want even less, we’ll run it all for you. With Ericsson, you can do so much more, with so much less.

Page 5: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition
Page 6: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

C O M M E N T

EDITORGeorge MalimTel: +44 (0) 0208 292 [email protected]

DIGITAL EDITORNathalie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENTDIRECTORCherisse JamesonTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Mark BridgesTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

OPERATIONS DIRECTORCharlie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

PUBLISHERJeremy CowanTel: +44 (0) 1420 [email protected]

DISTRIBUTIONUK Postings LtdTel: +44 (0) 8456 444137

CIRCULATIONCircdataTel: +44 (0) 1635 869868

PUBLISHED BYPrestige Media Ltd.Suite 138,70 Churchill SquareKings Hill, West MallingKent ME19 4YU, UKTel: +44 (0) 1732 807412

DESIGNJason ApplebyArk Design Consultancy LtdTel: +44 (0) 1787 881623

VanillaPlus is distributed free to selected named individuals worldwide

who meet the Publisher's terms of Circulation Control. If you would like to

apply for a regular free copy supplied at the Publisher's discretion visit

www.vanillaplus.com If you do not qualify for a free subscription, paid

subscriptions can be obtained. Subscriptions for 6 issues cost £99.00

worldwide (or US$150 / EUR125) including post and packing. VanillaPlus

magazine is published 6 times per year.

All rights reserved. No part

of this publication may be

copied, stored, published

or in any way reproduced

without the prior written

consent of the Publisher

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

John Aalbers,chief executive,Volubill

Dan Baker,ResearchDirector,TechnologyResearchInstitute

Martin Creaner, president,TM Forum

AndreasFreund, VPMarketing, OrgaSystems GmbH

Louis Hall, chief executive,CerillionTechnologies

GabrielMatsliach,generalmanager, BSSProduct Line,Comverse

Pat McCarthy, VPof GlobalMarketing,Service DeliverySolutions,Ericsson

SimonMuderack,CEO, Tribold

John Rainger,vice president,EMEA, CSGInternational

Mac Taylor,CEO, TheMoriana Group

Chris Yeadon,director of ProductMarketing,Ericsson

Dr ReinhardZuba, CMO,Vipnet (TelekomAustria)

© Prestige Media Ltd 2013

A complete system is a complete nonsenseThere has been a lot of talk about offering complete systems to handle the back office IT ofCSPs. A single supplier with a one-stop shop is touted as the ideal solution in terms of cost anddeployment efficiency but, to me, that seems yet another layer of marketing spiel that does littleto help communicate the complex messages of OSS/BSS vendors. It is, as usual, a question ofemphasis and degree.

don’t think anyone is really suggesting that ifthey buy enough companies and assembleenough developers, they will come up adictionary-accurate complete system for theentire back office in-a-box. Nobody does thatand nobody expects that.

Telecoms, in particular, is a fragmented and fast-moving industry and that means completeness isan unreachable goal. Even if the back office in-a-box complete system could be created, it would bealmost impossible to sell it – apart from to agreenfield CSP that had absolutely no reservationsabout trusting a solitary supplier with all its systems.Even then, that brand new market entrant wouldrapidly find that it needed something new anddifferent to address a subset of its market andwould find its system incomplete. Here comes anadjunct to completeness.

When Bhaskar Gorti, the general manager of OracleCommunications, speaks about his recent US$3bnacquisition spree, he talks about assembling ‘the mostcomplete’ portfolio. You’ll notice he doesn’t mentiona complete portfolio – simply a system composed

of a series of software programmes that addressesparts of the CSP back office comprehensively.

Oracle would prefer it if you bought several of yourcomprehensive systems from it, but is perfectly happyto package up comprehensive, process-specificsystems that you can fit into your existing architecture.You can take one or you can take them all.

The idea of completeness here is that CSPs canstreamline their architecture and purchasing bybuying these modular sets of solutions that addressprocesses within the back office. It’s up to you howfar you want to go with a single vendor but theunderstanding is that you’re unlikely to go all theway. Even if you did, something would changenecessitating bringing in another system or servicefrom another provider.

To suggest completeness means anything morethan this is a complete nonsense.

Enjoy the magazine!

George Malim

I

6

Page 7: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

Shirin Dehghan: This makes perfect sense

I N D U S T R Y N E W S

Oracle has entered into anagreement to acquireTekelec, a provider ofnetwork signalling, policycontrol and subscriberdata managementsolutions forcommunicationsnetworks.

By combining Tekelec withcapabilities from OracleCommunications andAcme Packet, the session

border control specialist – which Oracle isalso in the process of acquiring for US$2.1billion, Oracle expects to provide acomplete communications offering that willenable service providers to engage withcustomers, improve operations, controlnetwork resources and deploy innovativecommunications services.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosedbut Tekelec was taken private by SirisCapital for US$780 million in Nov 2011.Since then, the Nasdaq market has risenby about 20% so a price of around $1billion seems a fair estimate.

“As connected devices and applications

become ubiquitous, intelligent network andservice control technologies are required toenable service providers to efficientlydeploy all-IP networks, and deliver andmonetise innovative communicationservices,” said Bhaskar Gorti, senior vicepresident and general manager, OracleCommunications. “The combination ofOracle and Tekelec will provide serviceproviders with the most complete solutionto manage their businesses acrosscustomer engagement, business andnetwork operations, service delivery andend user applications.”

Ron de Lange, president and CEO,Tekelec, added: “In an increasingly mobileand social world, customer experience isabout optimising network performance andpersonalising services based on whatengages, moves and inspires people.Together with Oracle, we expect toaccelerate the pace of service innovationby helping service providers transform theway they manage and monetise theexplosive growth in signaling and datatraffic on their networks.”

The policy control and managementmarket has seen a lot of acqusition activityrecently. OSS/BSS vendor Amdocs

acquired Bridgewater Systems in 2011 andnetwork equipment vendor Cisco Systemsacquired policy specialist Broadhop thisJanuary, indicating that vendors across thetelecoms sector see policy as central totheir propositions.

Analysts see the acquisitions of Tekelecand Acme Packet extending Oracle’stelecoms offerings. “This acquisition furtherextends Oracle’s move into the heart oftelecoms networks,” said DanaCooperson, principal analyst at Ovum.“Tekelec will extend OracleCommunications’ network controlcapabilities, which it also bolstered with itsFebruary announcement to acquire AcmePacket. Tekelec also focuses on extendingits service control solutions, adding policycontrol and subscriber data managementto its list of capabilities.”

Cooperson expects other vendors to makeacquisition moves of their own in thesetechnologies. “Expect Oracle’s telecom-focused competitors – Alcatel-Lucent,Huawei, Ericsson – and it’s IT-focusedcompetitors – HP, SAP, SAS Institute – todo more strategic soul-searching and, astheir financial situation allows, to pursueacquisitions of their own,” she added.

JDSU pays US$85m cash for Arieso

Test and measurement specialist JDSU haspaid US$85m in cash to acquire Arieso,the network optimisation software provider.

JDSU will integrate Arieso’s products withcomplementary solutions such asPacketPortal, JDSU’s open softwareplatform, providing end-to-end visibilityacross mobile networks. JDSU claims theArieso products will enhance the value ofPacketPortal by enabling it to capturenetwork intelligence beyond the edge,creating a competitive advantage formobile network operators and equipmentmanufacturers seeking a more cost-effective way to improve mobile service andreduce churn.

JDSU is already making the AriesoGEOand Arieso ACP products available to itscustomers.

David Heard, president of communicationstest and measurement at JDSU, explainedthe rationale for the purchase: “With smallcells growing at great pace and the fact it’sa het net now, our customers were

demanding end-to-end network visibility.Our Packet Portal product gives us visbilityto the edges of the network [from the core]and Arieso has been working from thesubscriber end to the edge. This gives usthe visibility of what’s going on end-to-end.”

Shirin Dehghan, the CEO of Arieso, whowill continue to lead the Arieso businessline within JDSU, added: “This is excitingfor us and makes perfect sense,” she said.“We’re an independent vendor, we’reneutral and this makes us uniquelypositioned in the market. The motivation forthe acquisition is that we now have muchgreater support around the world.”

Heard added that the fit between the twocompanies was obvious: “We’re done – theacquisition was that quick. Shirin willcontinue to drive the company in RANoptimisation and the SON space and shewill have a global channel and resources tohelp her do that. For us, the attraction isthe passion of the Arieso team and theend-to-end solution we can now offer. It’s anatural fit.”

Bhaskar Gorti:Oracle toprovide mostcompletesolution

Oracle to buy Tekelec for policy control, signalling and data management

Sponsored by www.csgi.com 7

Page 8: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

Sponsored by www.csgi.com

Syniverse has uncovered the value of asignificant segment of mobile end userswho are willing to go to great lengths forconnectivity when they leave home beyondthose options enabled by their homemobile service providers.

According to analyses of Syniverse andthird-party data, transient roamers – thosewho seek alternatives to traditional mobileroaming – spent more than US$17 billiondollars in 2012 on alternative connectivityoptions while travelling – including

purchase of local SIM cards at theirdestinations and paying for Wi-Fi at hotels,in flight or on other public hotspots.

“Transient roamers represent a significantportion of the mobile ecosystem, and theirrequirements for consistent, high-qualityconnectivity are growing exponentially,”Syniverse president and CEO Jeff Gordonsaid. “This segment provides anopportunity for myriad mobile serviceproviders to enable seamless connectivityacross the ecosystem, managing end-user

experiences inreal-time andsolidifyingeachprovider’splace in thevalue chain.”

Syniverse calculated the transient roamerpotential based on expert insights intoaverage roaming volumes, end-userroaming habits, and third-party travel androaming reports.

Jeff Gordon: CSPs missing out

MATRIXX Software strikes globalreseller agreement with Sicap MATRIXX Software has entered a globalreseller agreement with Sicap, a providerof software solutions to mobile operators.

Under the deal, Sicap will offer theMATRIXX Charging Engine, a real-timeOnline Charging System (OCS), to itsglobal customer base with a specificfocus on updating systems to meet thechallenges of massive smartphonepenetration and the surge in prepaidmobile data usage. The MATRIXX

Charging Engine provides new, patentedtechnology specifically designed to helpoperators handle emerging challengessuch as session growth, chattyapplications, concurrent sessions andpricing complexity.

“We are impressed by the performanceadvantage that the MATRIXX ChargingEngine offers our customers,” said ThomasVontz, chief operating officer at Sicap. “Themobile operators we work with expect usto keep them ahead of the market andtheir competition, and our partnershipwith MATRIXX Software does that.”

The Now Factory andVoipfuture partner The Now Factory, a provider of customerexperience solutions for the telecomsindustry, and Voipfuture, a pioneer in thedelivery of voice quality monitoring for IPnetworks, have formed a new strategicpartnership, creating a best-of-breedsolution that enables CSPs to manage thecustomer experience across their existingand next-generation networks. Under thepartnership, The Now Factory will integrateVoipfuture’s VoIP service assurancetechnology as part of its Vantage product.

NEWS IN BRIEF

M A R K E T N E W S

The results of an in-depth global survey tounderstand the impact of fraud on thewholesale carrier industry has beenpublished by Subex, a provider of businesssupport systems (BSS) for communicationsservice providers (CSPs).

The wholesale carrier market is estimatedto be worth around $170 billion and thesurvey results indicate that carriers areestimated to have lost US$6.12 billion tofraud last year alone.

The survey was based on detailedresponses from 195 participants fromsome of the world’s largest carriers fromacross North America, Europe, SouthAmerica, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East andAfrica. It highlights some of the keyproblems facing carriers today as a resultof fraud and identifies the various types offraud that are presently plaguing theindustry. The report also reflects on some

of the key reasons behind the increase infraud in the global carrier market over thelast two to three years.

The report identifies the most prevalenttypes of fraud in the wholesale carriermarket, with False Answer Fraud being thehighest at 55.71%. A large volume of fraudis related to immediate partners, whichincludes New Operators – Credit Risk(51.4%), False Disputes (30.7%), BlendingHQ Routes (31.4%) and Long Firm (7.1%).This indicates carriers will perhaps benefitfrom more stringent due diligence bothduring partner on-boarding as well as onan ongoing basis. The survey also showsthat internal fraud is on the rise, withapproximately 13% of carriers reportinglosses due to internal fraud.

The survey reveals that the industry isopening its eyes to the growing issue offraud, with 77% of respondents reporting

that pressure on margins has resulted in anincrease in awareness or focus on fraud.

There is still much work to be done,however, and only 35% of wholesalecarriers have dedicated fraud managementteams, with an even lower 25% ofwholesale carriers collaborating viadedicated fraud forums. While nearly 80%of wholesale carriers use in-housedeveloped tools for fraud detection, morethan two thirds of them report a lack ofautomation and timely availability of data ashindering their fight against fraud.

Vinod Kumar, chief operating officer ofSubex, said:, “Sitting on the fence is nomore an option because carriers will seefraud continue unabated and eat intomargins which are already under pressure.The aim of this report is to increaseawareness within carriers and help themprepare in their fight against fraud.”

Subex survey says wholesale carriers lost US$6.12 billion to fraud in 2012

Syniverse identifies US$17 billion transient roamer market

8

Page 9: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

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Page 10: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

C O N T R A C T N E W S

Nakina Systems, a provider of carrier grademanagement and network integritysolutions, has announced that, along withpartner, Alcatel-Lucent, it’s NI-Collectorproduct has been customised anddeployed for Türk Telekom’s IP-MPLSnetwork. NI-Collector is in service in TürkTelekom’s live network.

Nakina’s NI-Collector provides discovery ofall physical, logical and services within theIP/MPLS network. The reconciliationengine distributes and corrects thisinformation against key OSS systemswithin Türk Telekom’s managementdomain, helping streamline service delivery

and identifying process errors.

Sabri Alyakut of Türk Telekom said:“Achieving this milestone is critical to TürkTelekom’s commitment to its’ customersfor accuracy and prompt service delivery.Nakina’s NI-Collector is an important partof our overall OSS architecture ensuring theactual network configuration is properlyreflected in other key OSS systems. Thereconciliation process is still going on incooperation [between] Türk Telekom,Alcatel Lucent and Nakina. This stage isextremely important to gain the real outputof the project to satisfy the businessrequirements and achieve the business

goals. We are now moving on to furtherdeployments and expanding the footprintof this solution across other deployedtechnologies.”

Mary O’Neill, CEO of Nakina, added: “Wehave enjoyed working with anotherprestigious tier one service provider likeTürk Telekom along with our partner,Alcatel-Lucent to deliver customer valueand acceptance. The success of theproject has shown us the value inpartnerships and how working closely withcustomers is key.”

T-Mobile Czech Republic deploys Ontology network inventory migration

T-Mobile Czech Republic, the largest mobileoperator in the Czech Republic has deployeda system from semantic search specialistOntology to collect, align and consolidatetransmission network data from multipleexisting information sources ready tomigrate into an interim database andultimately into the operator’s Amdocs OSSnetwork inventory management (NIM) system.

Using its semantic search capability,Ontology has collected the often conflictingand inaccurate disparate network datafrom a vast number of complexspreadsheets and other informationsources by inferring, matching, merging

and aligning the data to provide a highlyaccurate consolidated interim database.This staging database enables themigration of the unified data into theAmdocs OSS NIM system.

“One of the main benefits of usingOntology’s solution is the flexibility to dealwith the on-going changes in the sourcedata,” said Pavel Stamenov, head of theAccess Network Configuration Departmentat T-Mobile CZ. “The solution allows ourusers to work with the transmissionplanning spread sheets uninterrupted, withzero or minimum downtime prior its finalmigration to the network inventory system.”

Ontology Systems’ CEOand founder, BenedictEnweani, added: “We aredelighted that T-Mobilechose Ontology for thisstrategic project. Migrationof transmission networkdata represents asignificant challenge formobile operators.Ontology’s semanticsearch capability isperfectly suited tolowering the risks, costand time normally associated with complexdata migrations”

E-Plus selects Comarch forperformance management E-Plus Group, the third largest mobileoperator in Germany, has decided todeploy Comarch’s Next GenerationPerformance Management system.

Replacing the previous, silo-based ITlandscape with the new system will alsoenable E-Plus to better correlate networkevents, which is a key element of providinga comprehensive view of networkperformance. Together with the previouslydeployed Comarch Next GenerationNetwork Planning, E-Plus will be able toidentify the necessity for network upgrades,plan them, set them up and as a result,ensure better customer experience.

The Performance Management platformwill be implemented using a managedservices model and thus will be hosted inthe Comarch Data Centre. Comarch takesend-to-end responsibility for the project,with KPIs defined in the ITIL and time-to-market areas, and will also provideintegrations and upgrades, as well asdefine KPIs and deliver reports. The systemis delivered in partnership with Mycom.

Paltel live with full i-conX routing Specialist inter-carrier billing and routingoptimisation solutions vendor i-conXsolutions has announced that Palestiniannational and international incumbent Paltelis the latest customer to enter live use withits full Routing Optimisation solution.

Paltel, an i-conX customer since 2009,originally implemented the i-conXinterconnect billing solution beforeupgrading the solution to cover commercialLCR management.With this latest project,Paltel has now fully upgraded to theRouting Optimisation solution, whichdelivers total routing plan optimisationbased on a balance of cost, quality andcapacity factors.

“With the successful deployment of the i-conX system, Paltel now gains full controlof its international routing to achieveenhanced cost base and margin control,”said Abdul Majeed Melhem, generalmanager of Paltel.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Türk Telecom deploys Nakina network integrity system

BenedictEnweani: limitdata migrationcomplexity

Sponsored by www.csgi.com1 0

Page 11: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

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Page 12: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

P R O D U C T N E W S

CSG International hasannounced availability ofits Wholesale BillingManagement Solution(WBMS) as a cloud-basedoffering.

WBMS is a pivotalcomponent of CSGInternational’s BSS suite,supporting wholesalepartner trading, routing,billing, settlement,

roaming, and other contract and qualitymanagement capabilities. CSG

International’s wholesale solutions are usedby over 300 Communications ServiceProviders (CSPs) across the globe, makingit the most widely deployed wholesalebilling suite.

As a key component of CSG’s newlyannounced managed services programme,WBMS in the cloud frees CSPs to focus ontheir highest-leverage activities, includingsecuring and serving a growing set ofdiverse partners, while leveraging CSG’sheritage and expertise in operatingrevenue-generating billing applications tomanage the wholesale billing process.

“CSG’s cloud-based offering allows us toapply our deep expertise in maximising thewholesale revenue stream while reducingthe technical complexity and expense forour clients,” said Alam Gill, senior vicepresident of managed services at CSGInternational. “The fast-growing dominanceof IP-based content and services createsopportunities for new revenue streamsthrough extended relationships to otheroperators and content partners. A CSP’sBSS, including billing fundamentals, isgrowing in importance as it must cost-effectively and efficiently support thewholesale management process.”

Amdocs launches order-to-activation managed services offering

Amdocs has launched an order-to-activation managed service offering toreduce service providers’ order-to-activationcosts, while improving the ordering processand fallout management for customers.

This value process operation (VPO) offering– a combination of technology, services andoperations with a structured methodology –aligns disparate systems and automatesmanual processes, streamlining the processfrom order capture to service activation.Utilising a holistic, automated, end-to-endapproach that includes business processes,operations, automation tools and a

success-based key performance indicator(KPI) business model, Amdocs’ order-to-activation service provides an enhancedcustomer experience by minimising ordererrors and enabling successful fulfillmentand activation for service provider offeringssuch as connectivity services, broadband,TV, voice and bundles for residential andbusiness customers.

“With the growing complexity and volumeof today’s orders, service providers faceincreased cost pressures and the need tooptimise the mission-critical order handlingprocess,” said Rebecca Prudhomme, vice

president of product andsolutions marketing atAmdocs. “Amdocs hasaccumulated vastexperience in providingsolutions for serviceproviders’ orderingprocesses, activatingsome 500,000 devices aday. Service providers areincreasingly turning toAmdocs for a VPO combination ofproducts, services and operationscapabilities in the ordering domain, as well asour three decades of industry experience.”

Astellia integrates Digital Routemediation into Nova 4G monitoring Astellia and DigitalRoute have jointlyannounced that Astellia is integratingDigitalRoute’s MediationZone platform intoits real-time Nova monitoring solution.MediationZone will allow processing andflexible management of petabytes of data.

DigitalRoute’s MediationZone providesstrong processing and aggregationcapabilities that support Nova’s multi-dimensional data manipulation – networkelements, cells, groups of subscribers,handsets, mobile applications and services.MediationZone is a telecoms certified productgiving instant data availability for real-timemonitoring. Nova is a reliable and linearlyscalable solution designed for networks of allsizes. Finally, based on the easy configurable

MediationZone platform, Nova can quicklyfeed third party Northbound Interfaces.

Julien Lecoeuvre, chief technology officerat Astellia, said: "Astellia was looking for thebest mediation technology provider to offermobile operators the most efficienttroubleshooting and analytics capabilities.With DigitalRoute, our Nova solution is builton solid and highly reliable foundations tohelp operators manage their increasinglycomplex networks."

Jan Karlsson, chief executive officer ofDigitalRoute, added: "MediationZone hasrepeatedly demonstrated its ability to bothreduce the overall data load and toincrease the processing efficiency. We aredelighted to support Astellia in providing avaluable new monitoring solution to thetelecoms industry.”

Netadmin Systems releases version 8.6Netadmin Systems, a provider of OSSsystems, has launched a new version of itsNETadmin system. With a major facelift,version 8.6 includes a new graphical userinterface to enable increased usability andefficiency.

“With this release our customers will get anew graphical user interface that willincrease usability and efficiency whenworking in the system” said StefanAsplund, vice president of products andstrategy at Netadmin Systems. “The newrelease also allows the system owners toslimline the GUI to suit their specific needsand hide unused menus and pages. Thiswill increase the simplicity for the end-userswho no longer have to worry about thefunctionality of unused parts of the system.”

NEWS IN BRIEF

RebeccaPrudhomme:Optimise orderhandling

Alam Gill: BSSgrowing inimportance

CSG International launches cloud-based wholesale billing management

Sponsored by www.csgi.com1 2

Page 13: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

H O T L I S T

Vendor(s) Client Country Product/Service Awarded

Acision Turkcell, Turkey Deployment of Acision Message Plus personalised messaging platform 2.13

Aito Technologies Tele2, Sweden Aito Customer Experience Analytics deployed for monitoring, management and reporting of customer experience and SLAs 2.13

Amdocs P&T LUX GSM, Luxembourg Amdocs CES selected to support quad play operations as part of BSS modernisation programme 2.13

Amdocs Mobiltel, Bulgaria Five-year managed services engagement to support data centre, disaster recovery and BSS operations across mobile, broadband and IPTV services 2.13

Anite Deutsche Telekom, Germany Three-year extension of SAS wireless device interoperability test solutions deal 2.13

Astellia Unitel, Angola Probe-based monitoring solutions to optimise 2G,3G and 4G quality of service and quality of experience 3.13

Cerillion Gibtelecom, Gibraltar Convergent CRM and billing systems deployed for fixed, mobile and broadband networks including integrated network inventory system 2.13

Cisco Systems Vodafone, Netherlands Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) Service Manager selected to deliver improved enterprise customer experience via policy control 2.13

Comarch E-Plus Group, Germany Deployment of Comarch Next Generation Performance Management system to replace siloed IT landscape 3.13

Comarch Kabel Deutschland, Germany Optimisation of network and service management processes at Germany's largest cable provider 2.13

Evolving Systems Globe Telecom, Philippines Deployment of Evolving Dynamic SIM Allocation to manage SIM inventory more efficiently 2.13

i-conX Solutions Paltel, Palestine Deployment of inter-carrier billing and routing optimisation at Palestinian national carrier 3.13

MACH Skype, Russia Direct operator billing to enable purcahse of Skype Credit in Russia via mobile payment 2.13

Mycom Vodafone, India NIMS PrOptima performance management deployed to manage 2G and 3G mobile RAN, circuit and packet core and value-added services for 150 million subscribers 2.13

NetCracker Technology Andorra Telecom, Andorra Selection of NetCracker as the single supplier of its business and operations support systems 2.13

NetCracker Technology KDDI, Japan Deployment of NEC-NetCracker asset and resource optimisation systems at Japanese CSP 3.13with NEC

NetCracker Technology Swisscom, Switzerland Long-term software maintenance agreement to support Swisscom's IP Service Fulfillment system 2.13

Ontology T-Mobile, Czech Republic Ontology semantic search deployed to collect, align and consolidate transmission network data 3.13

Oracle LG U+, South Korea Upgrades to Oracle Communications Network Resource Management, Unified Inventory Management and Network Integrity systems 2.13

Sandvine TDS Telecommunications, USA Network Policy Control expansion order from US Incumbent Local Exchange Operator 3.13

Subex Almadar, Libya Provision of ROC Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management solutions 3.13

Tecnotree MTN Group, pan-Africa Provision of BSS and value-added services across 16 networks in Africa and the Middle East 2.13

Tecnotree Telenor, Norway Delivery of Tecnotree Agility Call Completion and voicemail solutions to streamline subscribers' voice experience 3.13

MACH has announcednew fast-track versions ofits Fraud Management(FAME) and RevenueAssurance (Cashback)that can be rolled out inweeks, not months. Thisnew deploymenttimescale, only availablewith Rapid-FAME andRapid-Cashback, enablestelecoms networkoperators to significantlyreduce revenue leakage in

just eight to ten weeks, while they alsobenefit from lower upfront capital expenditureand a faster return on investment.

Network operators worldwide havebecome increasingly vigilant for revenueleakage in recent years. According to

Juniper Research, losses from fraud andbilling inaccuracies could reach as high asUS$296 billion by 2016, or 23% of totaloperator revenues. However, large scalefraud management and revenue assuranceimplementations often come at a high cost,with project risk and uncertain return oninvestment (ROI). With increasing constraintson resources, operators are seeking a lesscomplex approach to revenue protection.

In contrast, MACH’s Rapid-FAME andRapid-CASHBACK solutions specificallytarget the top 25 to 30% of revenueleakage in any network. By monitoring onlytwo or three operator data feeds, ratherthan all of them, the primary sources ofrevenue leakage can be identified andstopped quickly. For example, anoperator’s roaming data specifically couldbe monitored to combat roaming fraud, or

a particular switch data analysed to preventdomestic fraud.

Joseph George, director of revenue protectionand interconnect at MACH, commented:“Our customers were crying out forrevenue protection solutions that weresimple to configure and fast to implement.Using our Rapid-FAME and Rapid-Cashback solutions at a comparativelysmall capital expense, operator staff cannow quickly demonstrate to seniormanagement the business value that fraudprotection and revenue assurancesolutions can bring. With a proven ROI, arobust business case can then be made forthe deployment of full revenue protection.We also aim to give our customers flexibilityin how they deploy these platforms:whether via a licensed software model oras a cloud-based, managed service.”

JosephGeorge: CSPscrying our forrevenueprotection

MACH launches fast-track versions of fraud and revenue systems

VanillaPlus Hot List: April/May 2013

The Hot List below shows the companies informing us of recent contract wins or product deployments. If your contract is not listed here email the details to us now marked "Hot List" <[email protected]>

Sponsored by www.csgi.com 1 3

Page 14: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

Sponsored by www.csgi.com1 4

P E O P L E N E W S

Telco Exec launches new careers service with ahuman face backed by leading telecoms titles A new recruitment andcareers advice service fortelecommunicationindustry executives isbeing unveiled today, andwill be formally launched inMay at ManagementWorld in Nice, France.

The new Telco Exec service(www.telcoexec.com) is designed for thebusy telecoms executive who expects apersonal service.

Telco Exec operates as a Recruitment Club.Once approved, candidates can search theTelco Exec jobs database and apply forpositions worldwide. Candidates can alsoreceive personalised job alerts. Membershipof Telco Exec offers significant additionalbenefits, among them the opportunity totalk with Telco Exec's independent supportteam and a panel of third party recruitmentexperts and coaches. By joining the selectcommunity users will be kept up to datewith telecoms jobs, and Telco Exec’ssupport team will provide insight, adviceand key introductions to allow members toaccelerate their careers.

The new Telco Exec service is the brainchildof Jason Bandy, who brings 20 years’experience of executive search and

selection in the Business & OperationsSupport Service (BSS & OSS) andMachine-to-Machine (M2M) communicationsectors. He has previously held leadershipposts with Glotel Plc, Kineticom and IdentifyGroup.

“Telco Exec’s simple concept to combinethe best job board technology with impartialrecruitment advisors is unique, powerfuland extremely valuable to both candidateand employer,” said Bandy, the managingdirector of Telco Exec. “Our ability to matchcandidates to the ideal job and to introducethe best talent to employers by listening,understanding and supporting both partiesis helped enormously by our independence.Our employees are not rewarded bycommissions or bonuses; they are there tohelp and provide impartial advice.”

Telco Exec members will receive a one-yearfree subscription to VanillaPlus and M2MNow digital editions and free access toVanillaPlus and M2M Now webinars,reports and white papers in addition to allthe features of the Telco Exec service.

“Employers are looking for quick andeconomical access to the best talent. Ourunderstanding of the candidate pool, ourunique service offering and personal touch

will reduce costs, save time and improvethe likelihood of successful long-termmatches being made. The VanillaPlus andM2M Now audience is the ideal forum forus to operate within,” Bandy added.

Cathryn Barnard, Telco Exec’s head ofCandidate Services, said: “An individual’sknowledge, uniqueness and personalmotivations can’t be understood fully bymachine. While existing job boards andsocial media giants target the masses,Telco Exec serves a select group ofdedicated, high-achieving telecomsprofessionals who require something extrawhen it comes to finding and securingexciting career opportunities.”

Speaking at the launch, Jeremy Cowan,editorial director and publisher of VanillaPlusand M2M Now, said: “We quickly saw thatin Telco Exec we have partners whounderstand the needs of our tens ofthousands of readers worldwide. We lookforward to adding the support of our twoleading global telecoms publications to aradically different range of recruitmentservices. Telco Exec’s in-depth experienceof BSS, OSS and M2M are now allied to adetermination to bring personal service totelecoms recruitment.”

Jason Bandy:Combine the bestjob boardtechnology withimpartialrecruitmentadvice

BSS expert Dr RalfGuckert is new CTO ofOrga Systems

Dr Ralf Guckert has beenappointed as a managingdirector and CTO of OrgaSystems GmbH. Guckert, aBSS expert, will take overresponsibility for the

technology area and the further expansion ofOrga’s portfolio of real-time based productsfor the telecoms and energy industries as wellas M2M applications in industries such asautomotive.

“More and more industries demand complexintegrated solutions for intuitive customermanagement and, at the same time, billing ofthe convergent services in real-time,” saidWolfgang Kroh, the CEO of Orga Systems.“For almost 20 years, Orga Systems has beendeveloping high performance and scalableproducts offering solutions for this need. Inthe context of digitally networked life, we willcontinue the targeted expansion of ourleadership position. This is why Ralf [with his]scientific background, his experience and hiscustomer orientation is the ideal person to

raise the attractiveness of our offers fortraditional and new industries and toimplement them more quickly.”

Guckert started his career at the former LHSGroup – which was also led by Kroh. This wasfollowed by worldwide responsibility for thedevelopment and implementation of productstrategies for charging, billing and customercare at international corporations such NokiaSiemens Networks and Ericsson. Mostrecently, Guckert was responsible at EricssonGroup for the area of Business SupportSystem Solutions.

Wall joins MDS to headinternational sales

Managed BSS solutionsprovider MDS hasappointed former NokiaSiemens Networksexecutive Kevin Wall asexecutive vice presidentof sales.

Wall brings 26 years of experience ininternational sales management acrossbroadband cable, IT and telecoms markets.

Building on his most recent successes insenior roles within global sales teams atConvergys and Nokia Siemens Networks todevelop their respective charging and billingoperations. Wall will be working on aninternational scale to develop MDS’ globalcustomers and partners.

Wall also holds responsibility for increasingMDS’ focus on adjacent market opportunities,such as the fast growing segment ofconsumptive service-based charging andbilling being driven by the IT sector.

Wall comments: “A laser-like focus ondeveloping new customers and regionalpartner networks will be critical to the way wedevelop MDS over the next two to threeyears. We will be agile and responsive to themarket in bringing our vast managed serviceBSS experience to rapidly developingsegments such as the B2B and Mobile VirtualNetwork Operator (MVNO) markets. MDS isan exciting, successful company withforward-thinking propositions to maximise onthe convergence and cloud opportunity, and Ilook forward to ensuring that the companygains the commercial successes it istargeting”.

Dr Ralf Guckert:Rejoins Kroh atOrga Systems

Kevin Wall:Looking forregional partners

Page 15: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

rosnops revliSsrosnops dloGrosnops munitalP

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5 9

Speech recognition technologies have been off the radar a bit as the market focus has changedtowards smartphone and web-based self-care applications. While the marketing might havealtered, the reality has been that IVR (interactive voice response) is widely used at CSPs of alltypes. Here, George Malim explores how eircom, the Irish former incumbent operator, and itsmobile operations Meteor and e-mobile, has upgraded its system

n spite of the hype surrounding web-basedself-care, a vast proportion of users still preferto communicate with their CSP using voicechannels. The issue, and the root ofdissatisfaction, has been the process of callhandling and the perceived poor performance

of IVR systems. Nevertheless, IVR hasn’t gone awayand CSPs are looking to systems to enable thecost effective customer care they need to provide.

“IVR in telecoms is still really strong,” says DamianKelly, vice president of sales and marketing atSpeechstorm, a provider of IVR-based customercare applications. “We’ve recently deployed ahybrid system at eircom, meteor and e-mobileacross three brands. That’s a complete self-serviceIVR deployment in 12 weeks.”

Deployment flexibility is certainly one of thenegatives associated with IVR. “You could take sixweeks to specify, change and re-test an element ofan IVR menu,” acknowledges Kelly. “It’s theinvestigation that will kill you.”

eircom was attracted to that flexibility – especiallygiven the dynamic nature of telecoms serviceprovision. Being able to change menus andmessages on the fly delivers critical advantages interms of deflecting call centre interactions andkeeping customers informed.

eircom provides a comprehensive range ofadvanced voice, data and internet services withinIreland across the group, including at e-mobile andMeteor, its mobile operations.

IVR upgradestimulatesself-serviceuptake forIrish CSP

I

C A S E S T U D Y

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6 0

“eircom has had speech recognition in place forabout ten years but, as with most speechrecognition, it had received quite mixed feedbackfrom its users,” explains John Lush, self servicechannel manager at eircom and Meteor. “Initiallythere were some quite high profile issues but overtime they were managed and we got good resultsdriving self-service and call deflection from agents.”

When Lush joined the CSP 18 months ago, a planwas in place to bring the separate IVR platforms ofMeteor and eircom together. “Meteor was on aDTMF (dual tone multi frequency signalling) IVRsolution and the plans was to move speech acrossto one platform by just lifting and shifting using acombination of Genesys and some custom builtIVR solutions,” he adds. “Having delved further intoIVR performance, there was a huge problem withour NPS (net promoter score) feedback which wasdominated by really negative responses about IVR.A lot of that related to the recognition engine butwe decided to get rid of speech recognition andmove everything to DTMF. As part of that weidentified the need for a more flexible system.”

Lush had already been in discussions withSpeechstorm, about the custom built elements ofthe original plan. “We decided to use theSpeechstorm 3 framework,” he says. “We had topersuade the rest of the business – particularly thetechnology department to adopt this approach.”

However, Lush was able to make the case and theCSP has enjoyed two key benefits. “We’ve seen a20% uplift in the use of self-service since thedeployment,” he says, “and we’ve seen a small butsteady increase in the average NPS score for theIVR of about 0.5% – we’re happy with that.”

The numbers don’t tell the whole story, though.Lush’s team has found the system simple to useand make changes to. “The way we’ve been ableto steadily make changes to the system sincedeployment has made a huge difference to ouroperations,” he adds. “I can simply log on to makea new menu option – I’ve done it already thismorning and that has added huge flexibility.”

Lush also highlights the enhanced level of reportingthe system provides. “Speechstorm allows us tosee very clearly how we’re performing, especiallyaround self-service and [call] deflection,” he says.“Another example is the customer journey reportingmodule that we’ve just introduced. It allows us tomanage the customer experience from a processpoint of view and see where the largest proportionof our customers are going.”

The reservations of the technology departmenthave also been allayed. “We just run a series ofworkshops with the business stakeholders thatdon’t really need technical insight,” he adds. “Welisten to them, make the changes, test them, signoff and deploy with no real involvement fromtechnology and no need to document the changesbecause they’re all held in the Speechstormgraphical user interface.”

IVR in this type of deployment is becoming ameans by which CSPs can rapidly alter their self-service menus as their propositions and businessmodels change and respond almost immediatelyto service affecting issues. The fact this can bedone with extremely light input from technicaldepartments and therefore engages businesspersonnel in the process only makes thingssimpler.

C A S E S T U D Y

“Speechstorm

allows us to see

very clearly how

we’re performing,

especially around

self-service and

[call] deflection,”

Page 18: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

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Page 20: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

DIARY

Upcoming eventsManagement World 2013May 13-16, 2013Nice, FranceOrganiser: TM Forumwww.tmforum.org

M-Commerce at The Mobile ShowMay 14-15, 2013Dubai, UAEOrganiser: Terrapinn.comwww.terrapinn.com

CTIA21-23 May, 2013Las Vegas, USAOrganiser: CTIAwww.ctia2013.com

Network Security 22-23 May, 2013London, UKOrganiser: Informa Telecoms & Mediahttp://telconetworksecurity.com

Plus Forum– Cards and Payments 20133-4 June, 2013Moscow, RussiaOrganiser: Plus Forumwww.plus-forum.com

M2M Now Money Talks e-Health9-10 December, 2013Washington DC, USAOrganiser: We Know Mediawww.m2mnowevents.com

DRIVING PROFITS FOR COMMUNICATION SERVICE PROVIDERS

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Page 21: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

6 4

his youngish looking man gets on a Londonbound express train and starts shoutinginto his Blackberry. He had to be a barristeras nobody else wears thick pin stripe suitsat his age. I was upset at first but I cameround because, unusually for a train

carriage exhibitionist, he had an interesting story totell. He seemed to be making a series of phone callsto different agencies to tell them the result of a courtroom conflict he’d just taken part in.

he gist of the story was that a young gentleman hadbeen in Kingston Crown Court after causing grievousbodily harm to a man in Wimbledon. The boisterousbrief seemed to be reporting good news to someonein his office. The story was that, in spite of thedefendant’s previous convictions, the young man hadmanaged to avoid a jail sentence. In fact, later callswould suggest the news was a brilliant coup.

In his next call, which seemed to be to some sort ofcourt room results service, the lawyer gave details ofthe sentence passed by the judge, and it did soundlike a lovely surprise for the offender and his brief. Theperson on the other must have said as much, as thebarrister responded with the words “I know! Goodresult!” So delighted was the barrister that he couldn’tresist sharing the news with what sounded like a loved

one, judging by the domestic nature of some of thenext high volume phone conversation.

By now I was desperate for more detailsand moved to a seat nearer. The full factshad not emerged yet, but it was surely onlya matter of time before the narrative wouldconfirm all my prejudices.

But sadly, I never did get to hear thedetails. There were no more bulletins onthe state of British justice. Before I could

get my Galaxy out and start recording, the phone callswere over.

For this brutal curtailment of my listening pleasure, wehave to thank the members of the big data industry.

In the old days, that barrister would have had to makerepeated calls to each of his destinations, because asthe train moved across mobile phone cells, the callwould drop out. Forced to regurgitate the details, thebarrister – many of whom are frustrated actors andnatural performers – would undoubtedly embellish thestory and add extra little details with each retelling. Bythe end of the train journey, he would have probablynarrated at least twenty different accounts of the courtcase, and described the terrible events of that night ina variety of colourful ways. Although not as often as Iwould have retold the story, in every pub, party, park,canteen queue or changing room I found myselfchatting in for the rest of my life.

Not in tomorrow’s boringly efficient big data world.These days, mobile phones rarely drop out, even as atrain speeds them across multiple small cells. Sadly foreavesdroppers like myself, that information is much moreefficiently exchanged between the handset user and thenetwork. The diaspora of different information silos, inclashing file formats and the lack of infrastructurewould normally guarantee multiple losses of service.

But no more. Thanks to the efforts of pioneering database experts, those drop outs are becoming lessfrequent. Worse still, there are loads of these so-calledsolution providers, all attacking the big data problemon different levels.

Companies like Vertica, SybaseIQ and InfoBright areworking on the traditional columnar database. Thelikes of VoltDB, BigMemory and Redis are taking thein-memory approach to number crunching bythrowing masses more processing power at theproblem. Distributed key-value stores are working toimprove the user experience on another level, whileLucene, Solr and ElasticSearch are using search tomake sure information continuity is maintained on themobile. Not to mention those spoilsports in the opensource Hadoop camp.

Rotters, the lot of them. By cutting off the supply ofsecond hand court case reports, they are potentiallyruining my enjoyment.

Are you sure you’re not being a bit hasty, you bigdata people?

How big data is ruiningmy listening pleasure Big data could make life better and then worse again, fears Nick Booth

C L O C K I N G O F F

The author,Nick Booth,

is a contributor toVanillaPlus and a

technology journalist

T

Page 22: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

www.telcoexec.com

You are unique. Your career requires a human touch.

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Telco Exec combines recruitment technology with a human touch. Call us, tell your story and let our experienced advisers and software tools help.

You could say that we too have converged voice and data!

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Page 23: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

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Page 24: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

Your guide toManagementWorld 2013Nice, France 13-16 May 2013

TALKING HEADSCSPs are learning toplay to their strengthssays Redknee chief

APRIL/MAY 2013

Page 25: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

Are you ready?

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Page 26: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

C O M M E N T

C3 INTRODUCTION

C4 EVENT PREVIEWVanillaPlus examines the highlights of the event and lists the keynote speakers

C5 TALKING HEADSRedknee’s Lucas Skoczkowski, expands on his belief that, by focusing on the customer experience and their ability to charge, CSPs will find success

C8 EXHIBITION FLOORPLANWhere to find new and old friends

C10 EXPERT OPINIONEricsson’s Robert Emery explains why time is money when it comes to next generationorder management

Welcome to Nice and this year’s Management World 2013. It’s great to be back to the city after a break of two years and theNorthern Europeans among us will certainly hoping to relish the sunshine that the event has seen in previous years. Regularvisitors will also be delighted that the city has finally completed its tram network.

he business climate looks to be stronger too. The event’sorganisers, TM Forum, have decided to focus this year’sevent on big data analytics and customer experiencemanagement. From my perspective, those are the twokey issues that go straight to the heart of the challenges

the CSP sector is facing.

Getting both right will enable CSPs to protect themselves ascompetition intensifies still further. They’ll use big data to identifywho to attract as subscribers and who to allow to churn away.Critically, they’ll do this in automated way and use all the insightsthat lie within unmaximised big data to become more and moreoperationally efficient. Fundamental given the investment burdensthey face with 4G roll-out.

Customer experience management is the other foundation CSPsneed to get right in order to attract and retain customers. Theindustry is talking about interesting new metrics such as Net

Promoter Scores – and that retail-style maturity is just what theindustry needs as it seeks to make a name for itself as the providerof customer service in the digital economy.

Of course, an efficient operation and happy customers take care ofthe largest issue CSPs face – increasing profits. If your costs arecontrolled, you’ll spend less and, if your customers are happy,they’ll spend more. There’s a neat symmetry to that and, as wereturn to the Acropolis, a venue that itself has gone through aforklift upgrade in recent years, Management World should providestimulating insights and fascinating examples for the industry tofollow.

I hope you enjoy the show and this guide.

George Malim

T

C E O G U I D E - C 3

IT’S TIME TO SPENDLESS AND MAKE MORE

Page 27: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

C 4 - C E O G U I D E

E V E N T P R E V I E W

France TelecomOrange CEO

delegate GervaisPellisier to givekeynote speech

The TM Forum’s Management World exhibition returns to the Acropolis Convention Centre inNice, France on 13-16 May, 2013 after two years in Dublin, Ireland. Aside from welcoming thesunshine and missing the Guinness, visitors to this year’s event are set to notice a renewedfocus by the Forum on CEM and big data. Here, VanillaPlus previews the event

vent organiser, TM Forum says its goalfor this year’s conference and exhibitionis to help companies navigate the stormof customer information, and managethe data in a cost-effective, efficient andsecure way. To achieve that,

Management World 2013 will offer a variety ofcustomer experience management-focusedsessions, demonstrations, exhibitions, workshops

and other training courses to help service providerslearn how to capitalise on big data analytics tobetter serve and retain customers, and find newsources of revenue.

The event will feature two Forums focused on usingbig data analytics to improve customer experiencemanagement (CEM). Highlights of each will includepresentations by industry experts from: China

Big data analytics andcustomer experience tobe key themes forManagement World 2013

E

Continued on page C12

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LucasSkoczkowski:chief executiveofficer of Redknee

Lucas Skoczkowski is chief executive officer of Redknee, the provider of real-timeconverged billing and customer care systems that has recently acquired the BSS businessunit of network equipment vendor Nokia Siemens Networks. Here, he tells VanillaPlus thatafter several years of concern over the threat posed by over-the-top service providers andthird parties in the digital value chain, CSPs are identifying profitable new roles forthemselves. By focusing on their capabilities in customer experience and care and on theirability to charge for and support services, they can achieve success.

anillaPlus: How is the continued rise inuptake of data services forcing CSPs toassess their operations and businessesdifferently?

Lucas Skoczkowski: The rise in data services isaffecting CSPs in several ways. Most prominently isthe challenge to provide a better customer careexperience for data subscribers - whereby customersare requiring more visibility of their usage and spend.We’re beginning to see CSPs take advantage of thatneed among subscribers by making more carechannels available through applications for the iPhoneor Android and greatly improving their online self-careoffering, by making it mobile friendly. We’re also seeingsome CSPs starting to integrate their care system onthe back end and leveraging real-time systems, andtherefore enabling their subscribers to utilise the self-care channels to have access to the latest information.For example, if a post-paid subscriber receives a textfrom the CSP warning that they are about to exceedtheir monthly plan and offering them an upgrade to abetter package, the subscriber will be able to checktheir usage and see any changes reflected in real-time.This emphasises the need for CSPs to greatly improvethe care channels they offer to subscribers and tointegrate these care channels with the back end billingand charging systems in real-time to ensure the latestinformation is available.

From a tariff and offering perspective, CSPs arecontinuing to determine how to generate the maximumrevenue out of the data they are delivering over theirnetworks. The ability to intelligently package a new

service or offering in a way that encourages frequentuse of data is becoming more important. An exampleof this is roaming. Historically subscribers did not wantto use data services when roaming because they wereworried about the cost, but if CSPs focus on upsellingand packaging roaming, subscribers will be morereceptive and it unlocks additional revenue for the CSP.

Finally, the drive to have additional data services iscomplicating the wholesale revenue chain. CSPs haveto think of new systems, models and capabilities toenable them to partner with over-the-top (OTT)providers. The value chain becomes more complicatedwhen it comes to dividing up the revenue and makingagreements because there are many different partiesinvolved. CSPs need to simplify the process to be ableto sign up more partners, deliver more data and differenttypes of services, all of which require an intelligentbilling system that enable services to be set up fastand revenue to be settled quickly with the partners.

The more innovative CSPs are looking ahead and makingit easier for new partners to integrate with them. Theyare putting new billing systems in place to enable newrevenue settlement, invoices and multi-party revenueagreements quickly. Overall the focus on data servicesis driving CSPs to make investment in their BSS/OSSand care infrastructure to support this capability.

VP: What do CSPs need in order to capture theirslice of the growing cloud services opportunity?

LS: CSPs have some great technical capabilities inplace that enable them to compete in the cloud

Innovation opportunitiesabound as CSPs learn toplay to their strengths

V

TA L K I N G H E A D S

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market. Fundamentally to offer cloud services, CSPshave to wholesale cloud services provided by others orrun these solutions themselves. CSPs are looking atboth models and are setting up partnerships withsoftware vendors and application providers to providenew services and in some cases to host and operatecloud services on their behalf.

CSPs need to have partnerships to keep up with thepace of the innovative cloud applications and servicesthat are launching to the market and at the scale thatis required. Gartner has predicted that there will beannual growth rate of over 16% in new cloudapplications and services launching to the market inthe next four years, and CSP’s will need to partner todeliver this market demand. We believe that the role ofthe CSP is to make it as easy as possible for softwareand application developers and providers to partnerwith them. CSPs can focus on billing on behalf ofthose application providers and can deliver innovativepolicy management in the network to providedifferentiated quality of service for the differentapplications. CSPs have the necessary capabilities topackage and manage real-time billing and customercare and in many cases are actually better positionedthan non-telco cloud providers. For example, a CSP inEurope will be able to provide a better quality ofservice to a European customer than a cloud serviceprovider in the US.

CSPs have the ability with some of these partnershipsto leverage their investments and capabilities in billingand customer care and combine it with theapplications available to offer great services, especiallyto the consumer market. For the enterprise market,CSPs have the experience of delivering a combinationof network and IT services such as Microsoft Office365 and configuration and management services.They can readily put together a good packaged offerof IT and communications services and targeting theseat the SMB and corporate markets.

VP: How are CSPs refining their approaches tocustomer experience so they can meet theexpectations of consumers? What systems andtechnology do they need to achieve this efficiently?

LS: A lot of CSP requirements centre on the systemsthat enable partnerships and new business models. Agreat set of self-care tools is a clear requirement. Whatwe have seen in a number of markets is the power usersor early adopters that start out using online self-care toaccess customer care, but as smartphone penetrationhas increased the expectation has passed on to rest ofthe consumer market very quickly. Now it is mainstreamand some CSPs have some catching up to do.

eBay and Amazon have released applications thathave been good at providing the purchasing and care

experience on the devices. CSPs are investing moreand more in these kinds of systems but it’s not justabout having a good looking front end on thesmartphone, it’s about connecting it in real-time to theback office and enabling the customer to have accessto a full range of customer care from the device in thesame way they would if they phoned a customer careagent. This is a really prevalent trend that we are seeingand it will continue to develop over the next few years.

Another trend that is developing quickly is theinvestment around social media that CSPs are making.People expect to be able to use social media tools asa way to engage with the service provider. Some CSPsare starting to use Twitter as a channel where ticketsor issues can be raised from the mobile phone and aresponse will be provided by a customer care agentthrough the same social media channel. Redknee isworking with Microsoft on leveraging the social mediaplug-in capabilities of the latest release of the MicrosoftDynamics CRM framework to be able to proactivelysearch in social media for customer comments. Wecan segment more and more of the online customerexperience within social media and actively engagethrough back office systems and tools in a veryeffective way. Though our recent acquisition of theNokia Siemens Networks (NSN) Business SupportSystems (BSS) unit we have rolled out our share@onceproduct, which provides a full self-care portal withinFacebook and is able to link a user’s Facebook profile,their key friends on Facebook, and the social mediainteraction with the CSP. We have been able to movethe self-care experience from the mobile to socialmedia where consumers are spending more of theironline time. As well as customer care, CSPs are able toeffectively utilise this transition for marketing new packages,promotions and new services to subscribers.

VP: The challenge isn’t all about new businessmodels and new revenue opportunities. How areCSPs addressing the need to continue toimprove their operational effectiveness?

LS: It differs from operator to operator but we see acouple of important approaches. We are seeing moreand more operators trending towards integratedsystems with well-defined interfaces and open APIs tomake integration with partners straightforward.

Companies like Redknee are offering pre-integrated,end-to-end solutions across the back office to addressmost of the systems in a single solution and with acommon product roadmap. The trend we are seeing isequally applicable in the smaller and larger CSPs. Itmakes operational sense to have a small number ofvendors addressing their IT architecture.

Another aspect is the increase in outsourcing of backoffice systems. We’re seeing that specifically in CSPs

TA L K I N G H E A D S

Another trend that

is developing

quickly is the

investment around

social media that

CSPs are making

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C E O G U I D E - C 7

that are taking advantage of cloud-based systems. Wehave launched a cloud-based Software as a Service(SaaS) converged billing and customer care solutionfor the US market and CIOs are willing to make use ofcloud systems in parts of the back office – especiallythose who are themselves offering cloud-basedsolutions to customers.

VP: CSPs are seen as having been left behind byOTT players and other organisations in the digitaleconomy. However, they seem to have becomemore confident about their role as enablers ofthe digital value chain in the last year or so. Whatwill it take for CSPs to catch up and maximisetheir opportunities?

LS: It’s an interesting business to be in when you takea step back and consider how rapid the pace ofchange has been over the last ten years. I thinkperhaps we went through the initial period of thosechanges with questions about whether there was arole for CSPs. CSPs are now focused on identifyingwhere they can add value. They are tending away fromcompeting directly with OTT providers by offeringsome services and identifying where they can play andadd value.

What is it they can bring to the table that others can’t?CSP’s are focusing on customer service andpartnerships. There are really interesting and excitingthings happening in the market. In the US, forexample, CSP’s are actively addressing the M2Mmarket by establishing partnerships with automotivemanufacturers and in other verticals to innovate andmake use of the data network and their location andbilling capabilities.

Mobile operators are really bringing innovationinto their business. In some cases, thisinnovation is turning into solid revenuestreams. Back office systems need to bethere to enable that platform for innovationto allow services to launch successfullyand quickly and fail just as fast if thingsdon’t work out.

I’m sure we’ll see a similar level ofchange in the next decade butwe are noticing a lot moreconfidence and innovationamong CSPs.

It’s an interesting business to be in when you

take a step back and consider how rapid the

pace of change has been over the last ten years

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F L O O R P L A N

Expo Booth Company Name6 Amdocs Management Ltd7 cVidya Networks Ltd. 8 Clarity10 Infovista12 Netscout Systems14 iisy AG16 Alcatel-Lucent 17 CSG International18 Netcracker Technology19 Etiya Information Technologies21 Huawei Technologies Ltd22 Mycom Int. Inc.25 Ericsson Inc26 Wellink 27 Ascom Deutschland GmbH28 gen-E29 Sigma Systems30 MDS31 Oracle Corp.

Expo Booth Company Name32 IBM Corp33 TOA Technologies Inc.34 Matrixx Software36 Teoco Corp37 Microsoft Corp /Tribold42 Comarch S.A43 Clicksoftware Inc.44 Nakina Systems45 AsiaInfo-Linkage Inc.47 Infosim GmbH & Co. KG48 FNT GmbH49 Redknee Inc.50 Comarch S.A52 Empirix Inc.53 Rainstor Inc.54 Siemens AG Oesterreich 55 Centina Systems Inc56 Casewise57 Zira Ltd

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Expo Booth Company Name58 GIP AG59 Infonova60 ESRI61 ZTE Software62 Netadmin Systems63 CA Technologies Inc64 CA Technologies Inc65 Nexus Telecom AG66 VMWare67 Tail-f Systems68 Accanto Systems69 MetraTech Corp70 Trendium71 Atos72 ESRI98 Intraway Corp

Private Company NameTerrace

1 Huawei Technologies Ltd2 Mycom Int Inc3 Tektronix CommunicationsMW Ericsson Inc.

Expo Booth Company Name73 Tieto75 MindTree76 Synchronoss77 Tibco Software Inc.78 ETI Software Solutions79 Comverse80 Codix USA81 Monolith Software82 SevOne Inc.84 Tom Sawyer Software85 Micronova AG86 Edge Technologies87 Quindell Telecoms88 Enterest GmbH89 Anritsu A/S90 Multicom d.o.o91 Nexio92 SML Technologies93 Virtual Instruments94 Cellvision95 Hewlett-Packard96 Hewlett-Packard97 Hewlett-Packard

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F E AT U R E

The author,Robert Emery,

is vice president ofcustomer solutions

and productmanagement at

ConceptWave whichis now part of

Ericsson

Time is money. That sounds like a cliché, but it’s also the truth when it comes to summing upwhy mobile CSPs are getting serious about slashing the lead time for developing and launchingservices, writes Robert Emery

obile CSPs typically require six monthsto develop and launch a service. Thatmeans two financial quarters before anew service starts driving revenue andhelping the CSP attract and retaincustomers. If the new service is a

response to a rival’s offering, the CSP is at acompetitive disadvantage for up to half a year.

The competitive disadvantage can be even worse ifthe launch needs to occur before the holidayshopping season but doesn’t happen until January. Ifpostpaid dominates the market, that delay means therival has locked up a bunch of customers who wouldhave to be willing to pay a hefty termination fee to takeadvantage of the new service when it finally launches.

The good news is that operators now have the abilityto slash lead times to less than one week. Next-generation mobile order management systems enablenearly immediate time to revenue and the ability torespond right away to changing market conditions.That’s the kind of nimble operator that third partieswant to partner with and Wall Street wants to invest in.For operators that target younger demographics suchas twenty-somethings, the ability to launch a servicethat capitalises on a new fad is critical for stayingrelevant in those customers’ eyes.

CSPs’ enterprise customers also benefit because thenew mobile order management systems enable themto launch services quickly and provision devicesimmediately for individuals, employee groups or theentire company. For example, an insurance companycould push out a new sales tool app to its agents’tablets and smartphones, a travel-concierge app to C-level executives and a calendaring app to allemployees. This flexibility helps the CSP attract andretain enterprises, government agencies and othercoveted types of customers.

For operators, the first step is to scrap their traditionalorder management process and replace it with acatalogue-driven model, with a set of componentsthat can be quickly assembled to produce new

product offerings, including all of the related technicaland third-party requirements. This architecture is thefoundation for next-generation mobile ordermanagement systems.

The mobile order management solution also workswith the CSP’s other OSS/BSS platforms to collectinformation about the network capabilities and thencoordinate that infrastructure to provision the newservice or device. This automation makes it easier forCSPs to provide the kinds of self-service options thatconsumers increasingly prefer. That also helps theCSP’s bottom line because when it’s fast and easy forcustomers to sign up for a service or change its settings,contact centre overhead costs are significantly lower.

The catalogue-driven model also gives the CSPs’enterprise customers – or even MVNOs and partners– the option of providing their users with self-serviceportals for provisioning apps and new devices. That’sattractive to enterprises because self-service freestheir IT staff to focus on revenue-generating projectsand other tasks.

These benefits aren’t hypothetical. One real-worldexample is a Tier 1 North American CSP thatdeployed a centralised catalogue that now drives allorder processes. This CSP’s next-generation mobileorder management system also features a commonset of business rules and a single database thatstreamlines operations to the point that customerscan get access to new services quickly.

This infrastructure also enables new services to launchwith minimal impact to downstream systems. Meanwhile,the CSP’s customer operations staff can work moreefficiently because the new system lets multiple orderoperations be conducted from a single screen.

That’s just one example of how savvy CSPs areslashing launch times and improving both theircompetitive position and revenue opportunities in theprocess. Will your company be next? If not, it’s a safebet that one or more of your rivals will.

www.ericsson.com

Six months vs. six days:

Next-generation mobileorder management

M

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ericsson.com/realize

New ways of delighting customers lead to new revenues. But all too often, too much complexity or a closing window of opportunity puts the brakes on a great idea before it can get to market. Ericsson helps you REALIZE innovation faster through more efficient business processes — supported by modular and configurable OSS/BSS. Designed for speed in a fast-changing world, full of new business potential.

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C 1 2 - C E O G U I D E

Mobile Communications, Google Enterprise, INGBank, KPN, Orange Group, Phillips, SingTel Optus,Telefónica Digital, Telefónica UK and others.

With a CEM workshop sponsored by Oracleentitled: ‘Using Data Analytics to Deliver 1-to-1Customer Engagement Management’ and threedays filled with thought-leading sessions on CEMand big data analytics, attendees can take awayplenty of insight on two of the hottest industrytopics, including:

• Embracing customer centricity across the business – what works and what doesn’t? • Harnessing data, customer feedback and insight from multiple channels• Deciding what to measure and what matters to the customer’s experience• Measuring and assuring customer experience across multiple touch points • Delivering self-care and customer loyalty programs that pay for themselves • Combining data and policy management to improve customer experience • Understanding and complying with local data privacy and security issues

In addition, the following Catalysts, TM Forum’srapid technology innovation projects featured insideThe Hub at the event, demonstrate new, cutting-edge CEM and data analytics work by TM Forumand its members:

• Converged Network Operations Improving Customer Experience• Measuring the Touch Points of the Customer Lifecycle• Quantifying Customer Experience through Performance and Probe Measurement

“In today’s connected and complex world,businesses are only as good as their last miserablemoment,” said Keith Willetts, chairman, TM Forum.“Today’s service providers have access to a vastamount of valuable customer information, but theyneed to cut through the complexity of big data, andanalyse the data quickly and efficiently to extract realbusiness value often in real time. Our ManagementWorld 2013 conference is a must-attend event forany business looking to learn how to cut throughthe noise and understand their customers so theycan treat them right and turn a profit.”

“We are structuring the conference to be a meetingpoint between all types of players in the digitaleconomy and helping these players partnertogether, not only for mutual benefit but also tohelp the digital world move faster so everyone canbenefit,” adds Willetts. “A lot of the focus atManagement World this year is on the shift fromfirst-generation consumer digital services whereservice quality, security and so on can be on a bestefforts basis, to a complex environment whereconsumers and business alike will rely on SLAsfrom their providers.”

Gervais Pellissier, the chief executive officerdelegate of France Telecom-Orange

Ben Verwaayen, the former CEO and director ofvendor Alcatel-Lucent and former chief executive ofBritish Telecom

Stephen Shurrock, the chief executive of newbusiness ventures at Telefónica Digital

Michael Harte, a group executive and CIO atCommonwealth Bank

Neil Ward, the general manager of global businessoperations at Skype

Steve Mills, the chief information officer atRackspace

Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, a director and group chiefexecutive at Dialog Axiata Plc Sri Lanka and chiefexecutive of Axiata Digital Services

Hany Fam, president of Strategic Alliances atMasterCard Europe

Bhaskar Gorti, the senior vice president andgeneral manager or Oracle’s CommunicationsGlobal Business Unit Oracle

Eric Klinker, the chief executive of BitTorrent

Pascal Viginier, the Group CIO of FranceTelecom-Orange

Bob De Haven, the General Manager of WorldwideCommunications & Media at Microsoft

Andrew Feinberg, the president and chiefexecutive of NetCracker

Vinay Vaidya, the vice president and chief medicalinformation officer of Phoenix Children's Hospital

This year, TM Forum has assembled a wide range of keynote speakers from across the telecoms landscapeand from within the adjacent industries that are increasingly partnering or working more closely with CSPs.They include:

The Keynote Speakers

E V E N T P R E V I E W

TM Forum chairmanKeith Willetts:

CSPs need to cutthrough the

complexity of bigdata

“In today’s

connected and

complex world,

businesses are only

as good as their last

miserable moment,”

Page 36: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

We’re CSG, and we excel at delivering revenue and customer management solutions to progressive CSP clients around the globe. Clients just like you. Our unparalleled set of business support solutions and services can help you launch new services, strengthen customer relationships, optimise revenue and stay competitive in today’s transforming environments. Simply put, our solutions and services can help you accelerate business anywhere.

Visit us at TM Forum Management World in the Expo Hall at Stand 17

like here.

and here.

and here.

accelerate business. anywhere.our business support solutions

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AsiaInfo-LinkageBooth 45AsiaInfo-Linkage is a leading provider of high-quality software solutions and IT services to thetelecommunications industry. Headquartered inBeijing, the company has offices throughoutChina, a joint venture in Singapore to supportcustomers across Asia, and a recently openedEMEA regional headquarters in Cambridge, UK.The company employs more than 11,000professionals worldwide, of which approximately8,500 are highly skilled engineers and researchand development professionals. AsiaInfo-Linkage’s systems serve more than 890 millioncustomers daily.

With almost 20 years of deep industry knowhow,AsiaInfo-Linkage provides a full suite ofBSS/OSS solutions, branded Veris, andassociated professional services. The VerisBusiness Support Systems include billing,customer relationship management andbusiness intelligence solutions. In China,AsiaInfo-Linkage has more than 50% marketshare in billing, CRM and business intelligencethrough the company’s longstandingpartnerships with China Mobile, China Unicomand China Telecom.

Stand contact: Mohammed Sha,director of product marketing,email: [email protected]

AstelliaAstellia provides E2E mobile network monitoringand optimisation solutions, presenting CSPs witha clear, independent insight into their networkperformance and a real-time visibility of the QoEof their subscribers. Astellia’s passive probe-based monitoring solution covers 2G, 3G and4G technologies from radio access to the corenetwork. Astellia delivers real business value byproviding intelligence through a powerful productportfolio. This translates in unique capabilities ofidentifying, correlating, analysing, reporting andtroubleshooting issues which greatly contributeto a better user experience. In parallel, Astelliaoffers a wide range of services such as networkperformance audits, telecoms training andtechnical assistance.

Astellia actively works with more than 180worldwide CSPs and employs 230 collaborators,of which 80% are telecoms engineers, todevelop innovative solutions that match the fastpaced telecommunications environment.Headquartered in France, Astellia has offices inParis, New-York, Reston, Singapore, Beirut, Riode Janeiro, Prague, Saint Petersburg, Pretoriaand New Delhi.

www.astellia.com

ComarchBooth 50Comarch is a global supplier of IT products andservices for the telecommunications industry thathas been present in the market since 1993.Comarch provides solutions in the areas ofBSS/OSS, M2M and Cloud Service platforms, aswell as a range of Managed Services. Comarch’suniqueness lies not only in the compliance of itsproducts with industry standards, but also intheir flexibility and high competences of itsengineers. Having completed projects for over50 CSPs, Comarch has accumulated a lot ofexperience in the fields of designing,implementing, and integrating IT solutions.Customers include Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2, E-Plus, MTS or KPN.

Stand contact: Alina Wietrznytelecoms.comarch.com

CSG InternationalStand 17CSG International is a business supportsolutions and services company serving themajority of the top 100 global communicationsservice providers, including leaders in fixed,mobile and next-generation networks such asAT&T, Comcast, DISH Network, France Telecom,MasterCard, Orange, T-Mobile, Telefónica, TimeWarner Cable,Vodafone, Vivo and Verizon. With over 30 years of experience and expertisein voice, video, data and content services, CSGInternational offers a broad portfolio of licensedand Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-basedproducts and solutions that help clients competemore effectively, improve business operationsand deliver a more impactful customerexperience across a variety of touch points.

Contact details: Heidi Hallidayemail: [email protected]:+44 1483 745825 www.csgi.com

Edge TechnologiesBooth 86Edge Technologies’ develops data visualisationand information integration solutions for serviceproviders, government agencies and enterprises.Edge’s patented OSS/BSS Integration Platformfacilitates faster, more complete data integration,user-centric visualisations, and easy, secureinformation sharing using COTS-basedintegrations from top software vendors. Edgeprovides secure, multi-tenant, Single-Sign-Onaccess to proxied web content seamlessly

integrated with a variety of backend datasources. Edge’s Cyber Security and SituationalAwareness solutions are currently in use bynumerous government agencies.

Stand contact:Steve Harwood, director of businessdevelopment.www.edge-technologies.com

EricssonBooth 25Ericsson is a provider of communicationstechnology and services. We are enabling thenetworked society with efficient real-timesolutions that allow us all to study, work and liveour lives more freely, in sustainable societiesaround the world. Our offering comprisesservices, software and infrastructure withinInformation and Communications Technology fortelecom operators and other industries.

Today 40% of the world's mobile traffic goesthrough Ericsson networks and we supportcustomers’ networks servicing more than 2.5billion subscriptions. We are more than 110,000people working with customers in more than 180countries. Join us at Management World Booth25 as we discuss how OSS/BSS is enabling theNetworked Society through topics such as cloudmanagement, connected devices, serviceenablement, m-commerce, analytics, diagnosticsand more. We will share our experience helpingservice providers to unlock new businessopportunities, drive efficiency, enable innovation,and deliver a superior customer experience.

www.ericsson.com/oss-bss

GuavusAgora Meeting Room 13Founded in February 2006, Guavus has beenbuilt from the ground up to unlock the value ofoperational, sensor and network-generated bigdata to reduce the economic and technology riskassociated with deploying a traditional businessintelligence solution. Guavus’s big data analyticssolutions, which are based on pioneering patent-pending technology for network operations,marketing, monetisation and customer care,enable more timely and intelligent decisionmaking. The company’s suite of decisioningapplications contains contextually-aware insightsthat trigger business processes at the exactmoment of need and includes the sophisticatedSevenFlow solution, which transforms massivevolumes of unstructured data into compact andusable data sets, making them functional formultiple applications. Global Tier-1 CSPs utiliseGuavus big data analytics solutions to controlcosts, maximize profits and deliver an enhancedend-to-end customer experience.

Stand contract: Sumeeta [email protected]: +1 416 802 5996www.guavus.com

Exhibitor Showcase

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MDSBooth 30MDS provides agile, scalable and assuredmanaged revenue and customer managementsolutions for telecoms and IT service providers toprofitably grow revenue and effectively serve themost complex customer bases, in particular thebusiness and virtual network operator markets.

MDS empowers service providers to monetise,price, launch and bill any product and service,rapidly, accurately and at a low total cost ofownership, helping providers to betterunderstand and enhance the experience of theircustomers. Headquartered in the UK, MDSmanaged BSS solutions support millions ofsubscribers with customers including BT, Gogo,Telefónica UK, and Vodafone

www.mdscem.com

RedkneeBooth 49Redknee supports communication serviceproviders (CSPs) with a complete portfolio ofmonetisation and subscriber managementsolutions for mobile network operators,MVNE/Os, and service providers across theworld. Redknee enables CSPs to monetise andoptimise the subscriber experience across theentire customer lifecycle. From activation toprovisioning, to providing a 360 degree view ofthe customers’ usage, preferences, andintegration with third party social media sites, toempowering customers with self-care tools andthe ability to pay for services on the go, Redkneeprovides the industry’s most comprehensive real-time converged billing, charging, customer careand payments solution. Redknee’s highlyscalable and flexible solution enables CSPs tomonetize third party relationships and content,support resellers and dealers and launch multi-country operations quickly, effectively and with alow total cost of ownership. Available on-premise, cloud-based and as a Software-as-a-Service offering, Redknee provides a completemonetization and subscriber managementsolution to more than 200 service providers,including some of the largest Tier 1 operators inthe world.

Contact: Michaela Radmanemail: [email protected]

Siemens ConvergenceCreatorsBooth 54Siemens Convergence Creators is the globalcommunication technology partner for the digitalage. We combine groundbreaking innovation

and decades of experience to provide intelligentsolutions to a variety of industries, bridging thegap between technology, processes, andservices. By seizing new opportunities fromconverging communication and designingsolutions, we improve efficiency and growrevenue for our customers. We engineeropportunities that turn visions into reality.

Siemens Convergence Creators GmbH,headquartered in Vienna, provides its customerswith turnkey solutions and services in the fieldsof communication networks, service andcustomer management, public safety andsecurity, multimedia infotainment, as well asspace technology. In fiscal 2011, SiemensConvergence Creators had about 2000employees at 19 locations in nine countries:Austria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic,Germany, Hungary, India, Romania and Slovakia.The company supplies more than 70 countrieswith communication and media products andsolutions.

Stand contact: Ekkehard Uhremail: [email protected]/convergence-creators

Tektronix Communications Private Terrace 3Tektronix Communications is uniquely positionedas the communications industry’s firstTelecommunications Intelligence Provider (TIP)offering both service assurance and monitoringand network intelligence solutions that uniquelycover all four dimensions of the service provider’senvironment: subscriber behaviour, the servicesand applications they consume, the networkenvironments they occupy and the technologiesthat enable them. Our comprehensive set ofassurance, intelligence and test solutions andservices support a range of architectures andapplications such as LTE, HSPA, 3G, IMS,mobile broadband, VoIP, video and triple play.Tektronix Communications is headquartered inPlano, Texas.

Stand contact: Neal Fulmanwww.tekcomms.com

Tibco SoftwareBooth 77Tibco Software is a provider of infrastructuresoftware for companies to use on-premise or aspart of cloud computing environments. Tibcoprovides companies the two-second advantage– the ability to capture the right information, atthe right time, and act on it preemptively for acompetitive advantage. Tibco Spotfire is thecompany’s enterprise-class in-memory analyticsplatform that enables users to instantly visualise

data so they can discover actionable insights.Spotfire’s intuitive dashboards and highlyinteractive analytic apps provide an astonishinglyfast and flexible environment for all users withinan enterprise to quickly uncover trends, patterns,outliers, and unanticipated relationships hiddenin data.

To learn how Spotfire drives users from insight toaction with industry-leading capabilities such asdimension-free data exploration, data mashup,and contextual collaboration.

www.spotfire.tibco.com

TrendiumBooth 70Trendium is a provider of real-time intelligence forcustomer experience assurance and assetmonetisation of fixed and 4G/LTE mobilebroadband networks and services. Our portfoliodelivers unparalleled scalability at a fraction ofthe cost, complexity, and equipment footprint,and enables a significant increase in personnelproductivity. Our solutions provideCommunications Service Providers with theunprecedented ability to proactively and rapidlyidentify, isolate, and resolve the network andservice performance issues that have the biggestimpact on the customer experience, and identifyand capture the short-lived asset monetisationopportunities related to subscribers, services,and the network. Our portfolio is built onServicePATH, a real-time, carrier-gradecollection, mediation, correlation and analysis,policy and alarm management platform that hasbeen deployed for many years and has proven toscale in the largest network in North America.Trendium, led by a group of industry veterans, isheadquartered in Boulder, Colorado.

Stand contact: Bre Corson,[email protected]

Exhibitor Showcase

Page 39: VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2013 Edition

Siemens Convergence Creators Visit us at booth # 54

End-2-End Mobile Management

The complete suite for the management of CSP networks

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