There are only two categories of role in an organisation - you either serve the customer or you serve someone else who does (i.e. you serve internal team members who serve customers).
The same is true of OSS and BSS. They tick both boxes in terms of the roles they support.
When you’re running a network, particularly a modern network, there are many balls that need to be juggled simultaneously. The list of factors you need to monitor, manage and balance include:
Virtualization has become a key component of modern communications networks. The ability to dynamically provision and configure network resources in response to changing business requirements is an important aspect of the success of any virtualized network investment. Network automation is the lofty ambition that every service provider is striving for globally. The ability to provision physical network functions (PNFs), virtual network functions (VNFs) and cloud-native network functions (CNFs) from a single network orchestration platform provides communication service providers (CSPs) with great flexibility.
When you work in an organisation that has a multi-tiered hierarchy and you’re not the top boss, then you have a person or people above you. Obviously!
What’s also probably blatantly obvious is that when you work for someone, the one thing they value most of all from you is the ability for you to figure out solutions to problems. They want you to do the tasks assigned without creating or escalating problems that they need to solve.
There’s a concept in the packaging industry known as wrap rage. According to Wikipedia, it’s “the common name for heightened levels of anger and frustration resulting from the inability to open packaging.”
We in the telecommunications industry don’t have a similar term. However, the industry does have a history of causing customer rage, as partly indicated by consistently underperforming on Net Promoter Scores (NPS). Moreover, “In 2021, there were over 300 million wireless carrier subscribers in the U.S. With an industry churn rate of 22 percent, that gives us 95 million frustrated customers taking their interests—and wallet—to another provider.” (source)
Jack Welch, the business leader famed for his decades of service as CEO of GE, has said that there are only two sources of competitive advantage: identification of info about customers faster than competitor and putting insights into action faster than competitors.
It’s one of the main reasons why digital transformation has been a major trend across all industries for many years. It seems like almost every industry wants to use data collection as a means of developing or enhancing competitive advantage.
Every OSS stack goes through periods and decisions that radically shape its direction and impacts for years to come. Whether an off-the-shelf product suite (like SunVizion), or an integrated OSS assembled by carriers, the same is true.
There’s an old saying, “if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.”
We’ve found this to be true in the work we do. The people who are best at delivering will be asked by more people to deliver on more tasks. The jobs pile on up. The beneficial by-product of this is that the busy person tends to become even more efficient at using available time and resources. They become invaluable for the organisations they represent.
