Survey Says: We’re Not Prepared for New Services

Cramer, the Amdocs OSS division, has released the results of a survey that asked 100 executives from wireline and wireless service providers about their OSS. The results identified a need to modernize their existing systems to reduce time to market for new services, improve data accuracy and more. For example, only a small percentage of service providers can introduce new services in less than six months, Cramer found.

“Many providers are choosing an enterprise-wide approach, while others continue to approach OSS transformation on a service-by-service basis,” said Guy Dubois, president of Cramer. “As services become more complex, service providers need to ensure that their OSS is equipped to be a catalyst for change, rather than an obstacle to agility and profitability.”

The survey revealed that service providers face significant operational challenges when attempting to roll-out new services such as VPNs, IPTV and even VoIP; 77 percent of service providers stated that legacy systems are unsuitable for meeting the needs of today’s customers, and that these systems are not equipped to quickly introduce new services. Additionally, issues such as a lack of visibility into business processes and systems, shortfalls of legacy systems and data management have negative impact on cost, fallout rates and time to market.

Several key themes emerged from the survey.

• Speed to market and complexity: The survey concluded that rapid introduction of new services is a key challenge to service providers now and will continue to be over the next two years. Despite the fact that most service providers ranked reducing time to market as a high priority, a mere 34 percent of service providers can introduce new services in less than six months, with most new service introductions ranging from six to 18 months.

• Fallout rates continue to impact margins: Fallout occurs when there is an exception in the service fulfillment process that needs to be processed manually. This can ultimately result in increased costs. Only 18 percent of respondents said fallout rates were decreasing; 82 percent stated that fallout rates are not moving or are increasing.

• Data accuracy and a single view of the network, service and customer: Of the respondents, 73 percent stated that data is insufficiently available to roll out new services and 56 percent stated that inaccuracy of data is an impediment to rolling out new services. Additionally, more than 70 percent of respondents cited that a single view of the network, service and the customer is a key requirement for OSS.

The survey revealed that the number one OSS requirement over the next two years is the integration of OSS and BSS to create a more holistic and collaborative business.

Amdocs Ltd. www.amdocs.com