Speak to anyone in the telco industry and they’ll almost inevitably want to discuss their network automation aspirations. Unfortunately, most overlook the single biggest factor that will prevent those aspirations ever being realised, regardless of how much budget is available to spend on tools and integration.
This article will look at the factor above and the four other most costly errors in resource planning and management. It will also provide hints on how to avoid or mitigate each of them.
Mistake #1 - Inventory Discrepancies that Trigger Repeat Truck Rolls
Network inventory solutions are effectively a digital twin of your network. Discrepancies between what your OSS thinks is live and what’s actually in the field remain a perennial headache. Without automated asset discovery, it’s easy to lose track of equipment that has been purchased, moved or newly installed. In almost all cases, network designers rely on the digital twin of the network, not recent audits of how the network is really configured, to prepare new design documentation.
Technicians often arrive on site with a Design Pack only to find mismatches such as the wrong part or no spare capacity, forcing costly second visits (known as repeat truck rolls). At an average cost per truck roll that might be in the vicinity of $2,000, and with repeat dispatch rates sometimes exceeding 20 percent, a single site fault can balloon into tens of thousands in extra spend.
The solution lies in a dynamic Network Inventory platform and well-honed processes that continuously reconcile field-discovered assets against your master database. By integrating automated discovery agents and reconciliation workflows, operators can drastically improve first-time fix rates and recoup millions in avoided truck-roll costs.
Mistake #2 - Stranded Assets and Disorganised Procurement
When a device has been purchased, and potentially even installed, but remains forgotten or idle then it is known as a “stranded” asset. Stranded infrastructure effectively represents dead capital, invisible capacity. Stranded assets are worse than having no assets at all because there are invariably annual support or licence costs that are payable for equipment that’s been purchased but not utilised.
When procurement teams lack real-time visibility into the location of installed equipment or spares, they either over-order additional stock, which ties up unnecessary CAPEX, or face stock shortages that can cause maintenance delays.
Moreover, rushed orders to external suppliers can even carry premiums of 30 percent or more, rapidly inflating budgets.
A coherent Network Inventory platform and procurement blueprint, supported by a Smart Service Designer tool, centralises requisitions, automates approval workflows and synchronises purchase orders with actual inventory locations and levels. This approach not only slashes safety-stock margins by up to 40 percent but also uncovers hidden assets, potentially freeing millions of dollars in working capital and available capacity.
Mistake #3 - Misaligned Capacity Planning and CAPEX/OPEX Penalties
Traditional capacity forecasts often rely on quarterly snapshots and manual extrapolation from historical usage. They also rely on an understanding of available infrastructure (see stranded assets above) and awareness of current utilisation (see inventory discrepancies above).
If there are delays in resource utilisation / availability snapshots, by the time plans are approved, network utilisation may have shifted, leading to over-provisioning (which results in bloated CAPEX) or under-provisioning (which leads to SLA breaches and emergency OPEX).
Sudden traffic surges or new service roll-outs can trigger unplanned upgrades that cost up to 50 percent more in expedited hardware and labour charges. Similarly, capacity threshold breaches can lead to an increased volume of alerts / alarms for already-busy NOC teams to handle.
When augmenting existing networks, AI-driven planning, such as AI Net Planner considers available infrastructure, utilisation metrics and business-growth indicators to generate dynamic designs that can reduce CAPEX by up to 40% compared to manual designs.
Mistake #4 - Service Order Workflow Fallout and SLA Breaches
Service Order workflows tend to rely on multiple different systems to provision a new customer or service onto the network. For example, fragmented OSS/BSS integrations force manual hand-offs and repetitive data entry between order-management, inventory and configuration systems.
Inaccuracies in order validation, such as those driven by inaccurate inventory or missing configuration templates, can lead to provisioning errors, failed activations and customer complaints. With today’s virtualised networks, resource allocation can change dynamically, requiring network inventory reconciliation to keep pace.
Any discrepancies cause a cascading cost-impact to the network operator. For example, SLA penalties can mount to large per hour / day rates for missed delivery targets on premium services. But the bigger cost impacts can be damage to brand reputation arising from dissatisfied customers.
Unifying Service Order Management with Network Configuration Management and Network Inventory Management creates an end-to-end fulfilment pipeline, where each order automatically checks inventory availability, applies standardised configuration templates and tracks status in real time. Early notifications via Jeopardy Indicators and cohesive workflows can eliminate up to 95 percent of SLA breaches and accelerate service turn-up by days.
Mistake #5 - The Contagion Effect of Poor Data Quality
A single erroneous data field, be it an incorrect port label, service to resource allocation, outdated site coordinate or mis-typed MAC address, can propagate across inventory, planning, fulfilment and billing systems.
These “data contagions” manifest as repeat truck rolls, inaccurate capacity models, missed deadlines, revenue delays and reputational damage.
Establishing a centralised data-governance framework facilitates master-data consistency, sophisticated reconciliation, automated validation rules and other data integrity controls. By treating network inventory as the “single source of truth” and enforcing strict data stewardship across multiple data sources, operators can eradicate a multitude of data errors. This safeguards operational efficiency, brand integrity and regulatory compliance.
Are you ready to eliminate these costly mistakes? Contact SunVizion today to schedule a demo of our end-to-end OSS/BSS suite and discover how our solutions from Network Inventory to AI Net Planner can protect your reputation, margins and accelerate your network automation journey.
