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Lead interview - The right partnership
Tony Wilson, COO, Martin Dawes Systems and Warren Buckley, director of portfolio convergence at BT, describe the relationship between the two companies and how MDS is enabling BT to become more responsive and agile
As every operator working in the highly competitive global telecoms industry knows, success depends on business agility, innovative, easy to use services and putting customers first. This is especially true in the emerging market for converged services where end users increasingly want anywhere, anytime connections over any device.
Converged services need converged companies to supply them: companies that have both telecoms and IT expertise/experience and the next generation solutions and networks to deliver. Just such a company is Martin Dawes Systems which has over 20 years experience as a virtual mobile operator running next generation networks and creating converged software solutions for the market. Acting as a Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE), it offers a suite of specialist subscriber management systems, processes and end-to-end managed services and platforms to its virtual mobile telecoms clients. “We work in partnership with and as part of our customer's operation, becoming almost an internal department helping them to get products to market fast,” explains Tony Wilson, COO at Martin Dawes Systems.
“Since we understand both the telecoms and IT sides of the business and can draw on our history as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), we can help operators become more flexible, customer centric and responsive.”
Demanding markets and competitive challenges means operators must react fast, but few have the unified network architecture, supporting technologies or internal organisation needed for rapid response to shifting customer demands.
Typical of most former incumbents and major telcos, BT has a complex legacy environment with over 4,000 systems, hundreds of networks, over 20 million customers and several thousand products. Launching converged services efficiently requires a single unified platform. BT's answer was to choose a combination of in-house core technical innovation and partnerships with expert, trusted third party suppliers. “A big challenge for BT was in deciding how much to do for ourselves and how much to outsource, to get through a partnership or buy in,” says Warren Buckley, director of portfolio convergence at BT, which has created a close working partnership with Martin Dawes Systems to help deliver its fixed mobile convergence (FMC) service BT Fusion to SMEs.
“We partnered with Martin Dawes Systems because of their huge mobile experience combined with custom built products for SMEs. We have a unique, fully managed billing and CRM service which enables us to deliver speed to market plus the level and complexity customers demand.
“The requirements of business users in the SME space are more complex than those of consumers, especially from the mobile point of view, and represent a divergence from traditional PSTN services. Mobility entails the flexibility to offer bundled minutes, handle tariff changes and an on-going hierarchy of relationships within and between businesses. FMC needs to offer the best of both worlds and we therefore needed to converge,” explains Buckley. “We made the big decision to go to a third party for an array of different services including CRM, billing, revenue assurance and tariff set up and control.”
Explaining the relationship further, Wilson says his company acts as a department within BT, fully understanding its requirements and providing a stable group of experts who help develop new ideas for meeting tight time schedules and fostering business agility.
Traditional telco response to launching new products is to build a separate systems stack for each one. The result is a legacy of proprietary and largely manual systems; disconnected islands of automation and an environment in which valuable business information and customer data are made largely inaccessible because they are stored and duplicated in numerous separate silos. All of which adds up to inefficiency, slow response to market demand and an architecture unable properly to support convergence, business agility or customers – a situation which can be ameliorated by creating third party partnerships.
Facing other challenges
New entrants, many of which are retail brand management companies or content rights owners with little or no telecoms experience, face other challenges. For them the priority is to select a network provider plus an expert partner to whom they can outsource end-to-end service delivery. With no legacy, these MVNOs are, however, agile competitive companies used not only to anticipating customer needs but also to delivering high quality services. They are introducing retail business practices into a sector which has historically been dominated by incumbent operators with little competitive pressure to change.
Whether existing or new, all operators must cut the cost of doing business whilst simultaneously introducing a raft of innovative multimedia services terminating on different devices.
The old vertically structured point-to-point architecture is too cumbersome to support this fast moving world in which products may be quickly set up and torn down; where customers demand different billing models and on-line account management across the services they use.
“In today's market operators are trying to re-position themselves and focus on convergence,” says Wilson. “The convergent model is now all about offering quadruple play services which combine wireless and wireline voice with broadband and video in one bundled package.
“The industry is re-establishing itself. Operators are re-building and reforming the MVNO model to generate new business. They are outsourcing to third party MVNE suppliers and have a choice between a pure IT organisation or one which is a telecoms aware IT provider.”
Moving to a partnership model meant BT did not have to build/add more infrastructure or undertake the difficult, time consuming and complex task of integrating new systems into the existing estate. With the benefit of a partner that understands its aims and supplies experienced staff, plus a suite of unique product options, this relationship has helped BT launch Fusion into the SME market very fast. Buckley estimates that working with the managed services model shaved nine months off the launch time. “It would have taken us between nine months and a year to launch working with our legacy environment, but working with Martin Dawes Systems' OSS/BSS and CRM solutions we did it in three months,” he says.
Having a strong brand image is not the only ingredient of success; it is also a matter of being able to react fast, differentiate services from competitors, offer choice and value added services which can be made personal. Operators must capitalise on market opportunities – a difficult task both for established telcos and new, often inexperienced entrants. Outsourcing or partnering with an MVNE is often the quickest and most reliable route to market since it avoids the need to build, run and manage systems and adds OSS/BSS solutions and expertise.
Experienced intermediary
Acting as an experienced intermediary between the network provider and the MVNO, Martin Dawes Systems manages and runs the required operational systems to react quickly and deliver multimedia products. Depending on the contract, it also handles relationships with all the third party suppliers including the content providers so essential in converged services.
Exploiting all the flexibility of its next generation network, Martin Dawes Systems supports MVNOs quick reactions in testing, launching or tearing down new converged services fast. Tariffs can be changed equally quickly and discounts applied as appropriate, with different billing models offered to selected customers. “As we have provided a convergent architecture for years, we can deliver services very fast and connect to wireless and wireline networks seamlessly,” says Wilson. “We deliver complex services to corporate and SME customers and by employing the managed services model, act as an IT department.”
Martin Dawes Systems reduces risks and, by helping to maximise capital investments and compete effectively, speeds up the Return on Investments (ROI). MVNOs are therefore free to concentrate on core competencies, brand management and adding value in the form of innovative converged services, customised and targeted at specific users.
According to Yankee Group statistics, the MVNO market will generate service revenues of $10.7 billion by 2010 and British regulator Ofcom estimates that already they account for 5.5 million UK phone contracts.
Running and managing multimedia services depends on linking both the network OSS and customer facing BSS systems, which is a challenge best met by automation and a move from proprietary to open standard OSS/BSS estates.
While it is a slow, expensive process, the big operators are creating service oriented architectures and building next generation networks based on open standards. They are restructuring internal processes/systems and putting customers at the heart of their businesses.
However, for smaller operators, new entrants or even for incumbents wanting to move fast into new markets, rather than building their own systems or buying off the shelf and then customising, perhaps the quickest, most cost effective option is to outsource to an MVNE.
“From an IT perspective, operators need managed, secure data which is easy to manipulate and made available to customers easily. They need service oriented architectures, Java and open standard OSS/BSS systems. They need marketing, customer relationship management systems and everything in between,” explains Wilson.
“Convergence sits between two camps – in both the OSS and BSS environments,” he says. “From an OSS perspective it is delivered over intelligent networks. In the BSS space, operators must be able to bill for converged services, and contact centre agents must respond fast and accurately to customers' questions.”
Separate platforms
Among other processes, convergence affects billing systems. Traditionally, mobile pre and post-paid customers were managed on separate, independent platforms with the former handled in the BSS environment and post-paid billing supported by IT departments. In converged networks both are handled on the same billing platform managed by staff with both IT and telecoms expertise.
At the heart of Martin Dawes Systems' product offering is the dise3G pre-integrated end-to-end billing and CRM solution that handles multi-service, multi-subscription pre and post-paid billing on the same platform, making it quick and easy for operators to launch multimedia services. Operators not only use the system to manage all aspects of the customer relationship fast and economically via self care features, but also to run critical business processes including sales, marketing, order management, rating and revenue assurance. The open standard CPP billing and CRM solution provides telcos with all the flexibility and control needed to support converged services, different billing models and customised solutions.
Unconcerned about underlying technologies or the considerable complexities, costs and challenges of moving to next generation networks and services, end users are most interested in price, convenience and the quality of service. The point is to deliver better products and make them easy for people to use – convergence is also about simpler, better, end user experience.
“Convergence is the future,” believes Buckley. “Business users are starting to see real benefits as we move away from simple connectivity into bundled minutes delivered to any device over any network. Connectivity will be fundamental, but services will become increasingly important and we will work with Martin Dawes Systems for billing, billing analysis and related solutions.
“One of the most positive aspects of the relationship between the two companies,” he notes, “is that as BT realises its long term plan of moving all products, services and customers onto its 21 century network, it has a supportive, expert and flexible partner.”
That the relationship is strong and mutually beneficial is evidenced by the fact that Martin Dawes Systems won the top prize for best billing and OSS implementation at this year's World Billing Awards for its work on the SME version of BT Fusion. Similarly BT has won a number of industry accolades.
In addition to its high profile work with BT, Martin Dawes Systems works with telcos large and small, new, old, fixed, mobile or with ISPs running circuit switched or IP networks. For those MVNOs new to the business it has developed its 'telco in a box' solution which has all the OSS/BSS and other systems required to switch on, deliver and bill services. “We offer an end-to-end platform from account activation through to customer care and billing for convergent products,” explains Wilson, who believes the goal is to support operators' changing requirements and give them an efficient, flexible platform to move forward into converged services.
Choosing an MVNE is a decision to create a close and long term partnership based on trust – it is about sharing risks, increasing customer numbers and reducing churn.
Priscilla Awde is a freelance communications writer
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