Management World Americas: 3 ‘Musts’ for Fueling Service Providers’ Performance
By Marc Lippe, Director, Worldwide Field and Corporate Marketing, InfoVista
Yesterday marked the official kick-off of TM Forum’s Management World Americas, taking place November 8-10 in Orlando, Florida. This year’s theme is about fueling innovation and new revenues and answering the question: “How can service providers effectively deliver and assure profitable, new offerings?”
In the morning’s keynote session, Martin Creaner, president and CEO of TM Forum, was the first to share his views on what’s happening in the communications marketplace and where the industry is headed. It’s no secret that revenues are under more pressure than ever before, regulation is further squeezing service providers, and competition is emerging from all sides, he commented. But to avoid being relegated into ‘dumb pipes’, and even threatened by cyber security and fraud, service providers must look to address the following:
- Being more innovative with their businesses. They need to consider new marketing techniques, pricing models, etc. to offset slipping revenues. Service providers should also think about value-add opportunities and ways of generating complimentary additional revenue streams. Take cloud, for instance; with service quality visualization, service providers can remove barriers to adoption and profit from these new offerings.
- Reducing costs and increasing flexibility while mitigating risks, particularly with integration. To achieve this operational excellence and effectively differentiate, service providers require not just common, adaptable, automated OSS/BSS but network and application performance monitoring tools, with real-time, actionable data, that empowers all of its stakeholders. A solid back-office engine will accelerate the delivery of high-margin, high-value services and ensure that business goals are met.
- Maintaining and enriching the customer experience. Managing service quality is increasingly important for mobile operators. As they roll out 3G and 4G networks and try to accommodate demand for mobile broadband, it is critical for them to assure the smooth delivery and performance of Carrier Ethernet and mobile backhaul. A holistic and end-to-end view into key performance and quality indicators is really required for meeting customers’ expectations—and driving revenue growth and sustaining margins.
For those in attendance at Management World Americas, what did you think of yesterday’s keynote sessions? Are there any other ‘musts’ that you would add to Martin Creaner’s list? (We also hope that you won’t forget to stop by Forumville and learn about the Enhanced Cloud Service Management Catalyst.)
