Transcript Opportunities & Challenges

Realizing the Service Convergence Boom
Opportunities & Challenges
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
What We’ll Talk About Today
• Where is the market headed?
• Customer needs and expectations
• What are you – an application developer,
platform developer, or service provider?
• Challenges faced by service providers
• Convergence and technologies
• Realizing the opportunity
• Getting started – service provider needs
• Conclusion
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Convergence and Communications
• The Economist (10/14/06) says convergence
is the telecoms industry’s new mantra, citing
several billion dollar mergers and acquisitions.
• It also says that regardless of consumer
demand, there is a fresh sense of opportunity
and a renewed frenzy of deal making.
• This has resulted in the coming together of
fixed and mobile telephony, broadband
internet access, and television.
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Convergence and Communications
In the Economist, the following quotes were attributed to industry
executives and analysts:
• “Convergence means freedom for consumers to use any service under
any circumstances”
• “It is about convenience, enriching people’s lives by providing
communications, information, and entertainment any way they want it”
• “IP in a converged world enables one network, many services, any
access. By 2010 it will be difficult to find a fixed/mobile operator that’s
not running its traffic over an IP core”
• “IP technology has matured to the point where it can carry other
services( phone, data, television) reliably and efficiently”
• “Convergence is solving complexities for service providers, but it is not
solving much for consumers”
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Where is the Market Headed?
The Dynamics
• Increased commoditization of traditional telecom services
• Decreasing ARPU and eroding margins require deployment
of new high-value services
The Opportunity
• Leaders will be the ones that deliver the right product at the
right time
• To be a “one stop shop” for enterprise and residential
services
• An on-going cash cow business for the winners
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Where is the Market Headed?
What Industry Experts Are Saying:
• “For all the advanced technology deployed by hosters, much of it
is held together by a patch work of home brewed band-aid
solutions”
• “ The market requirement to offer new and integrated offerings
will leave many service providers behind”
• “Smart hosting executives should create new offerings to capture
customers dissatisfied with their current providers”
• “In the telecom world, services are seen to be the future driver of
revenues rather than voice minutes.”
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Customer needs and expectations
• Enhance web presence and corporate
marketing
• Increase company productivity with better
collaboration and interaction with employees,
customers, partners, and devices
• Simplified usage of the service, control and
management via common administrative
interface for all hosted services
• Ability to trial and purchase service bundles
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Customer needs and expectations
Converged communications allow customers to:
• Enable higher productivity and improved possibilities
for interaction between and within organizations
• Deliver greatly improved customer care and service,
using different devices – wired/unwired.
• Gain amazing flexibility to switch, increase, or relocate
functions as staff requirements change
• Replace old/obsolete equipment with hi-tech options.
• Centrally manage their network, and cut support or
maintenance costs
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
What Are You Here?
• Application developer:
– Builds compelling web-based applications to solve specific
customer requirements: site design, statistics, CRM, trouble
ticketing, accounting, etc.
• Platform technology developer:
– Builds a complete extensible platform to address back end
requirements to provision and manage customers and
services
• Service provider:
– Owns the customer relationship, orchestrates service
bundles to engage vertical and horizontal markets, develops
and deploys unique go to market strategies.
– Operates applications and platforms specific to a
subscription based model and meet uptime requirements
• All of the above?
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Challenges Faced by Service Providers
Service Provider Challenge
Deliver service bundles
Deliver convergent services
Keep up with new service demand
Need to integrate & differentiate
offering
Time to market
Lengthy integration time
Long training cycles
Cost Efficiency
High cost of delivering next
generation hosted services
Maintaining legacy equipment
High cost of sales & support
Solutions
• Simplify deployment, delivery and
management of services through product
based solution
• Pre-integrated hosted services
• Separate applications from infrastructure
to speed roll-out of new services
• Deliver single platform with centralized
administrative interfaces
• Automation of provisioning and service
enablement
• Enable resellers to lower your costs of
sales
• Deliver role-based delegated
administration
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Challenges Faced by Service Providers
• Flexibility. Everyone does not want an entire bundle of
services, so providers must allow customers to pick
and choose. Research shows most users prefer single
or double play.
• Simplicity.The converged services must be simple for
the customer. Even as this has been shown to be high
priority, products have proven complex to use.
• A Strong Brand Name. One that’s based on good
customer service. Else, customers will not come
onboard even with attractive incentives.
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Convergence and Technologies: SDP
SDPs: Service Delivery Platforms
• SDPs enable rapid development and
deployment of new converged multimedia
services, from basic phone services to
complex audio/video conferencing.
• For telecom service providers, they are the
current answer to enabling rapid deployment
of services to customers in a controlled
manner.
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Convergence and Technologies: IMS
IMS - Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem
• A cost effective platform for top operators, that enables
economies of scale by allowing many vendors add
market value to their particular focus areas.
• IMS-based networks will increase average revenue per
user, by bundling sets of services.
• IMS can enable building an universal service
architecture for both wireless and wireline networks. It
allows streamlining of infrastructure, lower costs and
converged networks.
“A full-blown IMS world is at least five years away”
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Convergence and Technologies: IMS
• “IMS is the hottest industry topic of the past 10 years. One
of the biggest buzzwords in the history of
telecommunications.”
• “With IMS, telcos compete with the enhanced services
emerging from online companies such as eBay, Google,
MSN et al”
• "The IMS network will understand its users' needs and
capabilities. This momentum will finally stimulate the
always-on, fixed/mobile convergence that the industry has
always talked about. And all this will be stimulated by the
end-users' endless drive for lifestyle and productivity
enhancements.”
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Convergence and Technologies: IMS
HP and IMS
• HP’s OpenCall Media Platform “can support the realtime, simultaneous blending of voice, data and
multimedia services on IMS networks.”
• Wireless users can create an audio/video conference,
share photos and messages and provide locationspecific information - all in one session
• HP’s IMS suite helps open new revenue channels
across broadband - cable, DSL, and WiFi—as well as
traditional networks .
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Convergence and Technologies: OSS
OSS: Operations Support System
• The OSS provisions and manages services. OSSs
used to manage network infrastructure; now they
manage subscribers, services, and their relationship
to the network infrastructure.
• To gain prominence in the new IP services value
chain, service providers should reinvent their OSSs
and business support systems (BSSs), and costeffectively deploy SDP and IMS technologies to
compete effectively.
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Convergence and Technologies: OSS
• IMS and SDP complement OSS/BSS systems like
ERP and CRM that comprise enterprise logistics and
customer care.
• SDP/IMS implementation and OSS validation have to
occur simultaneously, to get the correct architecture in
place to support businesses in the future.
• OSS companies are entering the world of IMS. VON
cites the example of Atreus Systems who have an IMS
solution for carriers to deliver converged offerings to
any customer, using any device, on any fixed or
mobile network.
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Convergence: Realizing The Opportunity
• There are great advantages to putting voice, video and data on one IP
network. For companies with an HQ and 7-10 branch offices, picking
convergence over a traditional network typically saves 20 % on IT costs
annually.
• An integrated single communications platform is also easier and cost
efficient to sustain. Security and redundancy are simplified, support and
maintenance are efficient, and IT administration costs are reduced.
• It allows the creation of new CRM and applications that can integrate
unified messaging, streaming media and intelligent call routing across
sales and customer care.
Next-generation converged applications such as these are crucial
for realizing the full value of converged IP networks.
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Getting Started - Service Provider Needs
• New Services
– Accelerate time to market; first mover advantage, higher
margins (ARPU), extend value chain, create stickiness with
multi-service offering, increase ARPC, better ROI on CAC
• Automation
– Operational efficiency as base services commoditize, enduser and reseller control increase satisfaction and decrease
churn, lowers op-ex
• Channel
– Lower cost of sales and support, increase reach, access to
customer relationship owner, adds additional non hosted
services to value proposition
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Getting Started – Technology Requirements
• A Platform With:
– Latest technologies, web-services, web-parts, extensibility, IP and App
hosting
Features such as:
• Service Creation tools
– Add new services quickly
• Resource Management
– Physical and logical resources
• Common authentication and authorization
– Single sign-on across multiple services, link to existing SP and SMB
directories
• Provisioning across multiple services
– One platform and transaction for multiple-services
• Delegated Admin
– End-user and reseller control
• Channel Enablement
– Virtual Service Provider like functionality
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Conclusion
• There is a great opportunity for converged services,
and we’ve only started to explore.
• Service providers must be strategically positioned to
capitalize on this opportunity with new technologies.
• To succeed, it’s not just about getting onboard the
fastest. Providers need to be flexible in their offerings,
and provide easy to use products.
• Effectively offering the “value chain” requires the
creation and delivery of new services rapidly and
efficiently. Convergence makes it possible.
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Ensim Overview
• Ensim is the leading supplier of service enablement and
automation software for hosted IP and Application based
services. In business since 1998.
• Over 250 Major Service Providers worldwide depend on proven
and award winning products: Ensim Pro and Ensim Unify
• Solutions include Web Hosting, VoIP, Email/Messaging,
Collaboration, Mobile Devices among others.
January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida