MANAGEMENT WORLD PREVIEW - Navigating the sea change
With the latest buzzword ‘transformation' ringing in everybody's ears, European 
Communications takes a look at what will be on offer at the TM Forum's Management World
The great and the good (and sundry others) from the OSS/BSS world will be descending en masse on Nice again this May, to learn, debate, observe and participate in the on-going,
fast paced, and - some might say - disturbing developments that are affecting their every-day working lives.
The TM Forum's Management World - re-titled to reflect the organisation's expansion from a purely telecoms brief into the broader (and more complicated) world of communications, information, entertainment and media - runs from May 18th - 22nd at the Acropolis Convention Centre. With these separate but increasingly converging industries still going through what Martin Creaner, TM Forum's President and Chief Technical Officer, describes as "a total sea change", the Forum's role in bringing together the movers and shakers from - staying with the sea analogy - the octopus' various legs, is a crucial element in the transformation which many players are now having to undergo.
Sometimes viewed - it might be said unfairly, given the dull and bureaucratic implications - as essentially a standards organisation, the TM Forum aspires to be, and often is, much more than that. This is in no small part due to the drive and vision of its CEO, Keith Willetts, who was proselytising the theories of lean and agile corporations when telecoms, as a whole, was still trying to dislodge its boots from the sticky monopoly mud.
Willetts is still banging the drum for optimizing business processes and automating them end-to-end through integrated systems, noting that while it is certainly important to be highly efficient, fast to market and delivering great services, it is no longer enough. The industry buzzword now is ‘transformation', which Willetts describes as being as much about acquiring new skills and competencies, as it is about putting new kit into central office buildings. "It's about changing the way companies think and act, as much as it is about new service ideas," he says. "The watchwords are: innovation, partnering, exploiting assets, and taking risks."
Management World in Nice is intended to reflect all these aspects, and give those attending the opportunity to share information as they navigate transformation. The areas to be tackled at the event, therefore, include ‘Business Transformation Strategies' which looks at the proposition that service providers are continually adapting to market dynamics through transformation strategies - and only by investing in technology for managing the service lifecycle will they compete in the 21st century; and ‘Technology Transformation Strategies' which will argue that involving the right use of technology coupled with effectively managed systems migration will enhance both operations and business support systems. ‘Business Enablers and Managing the Content Lifestyle' meanwhile, discusses the fact that systems and processes that worked for more traditional telecom services may no longer be up to the challenge of delivering content-based services. The next generation of services will be more sophisticated - delivering a mix of content and media to a diverse and increasingly mobile subscriber base.
Other conference sessions will include SOA for Next Generation Operations; the TM Forum's Prosspero and NGOSS in the Real World; Strategies for Optimising the Customer Experience; Revenue Management and Assurance; and Delivering Innovative Services to Cable Customers. A specific Focus on China will look at the proposition that understanding what it takes to succeed in China as a service provider, integrator or vendor can be difficult in such a large and high stakes market - but that failure to enter that market could be significant. Speakers from China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and Guoxin Lucent will bring to the session their experience and knowledge of living and working in the region.
Reflecting the industry-breadth of its 650 plus members, TM Forum is fielding a number of keynote speakers from different parts of the converging communications industry, including Sol Trujillo, CEO, Telstra; Alan Bell, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Paramount Pictures; Paul Reynolds, CEO Telecom New Zealand; and Stephan Scholz, CTO, Noikia Siemens Networks.
The ever-popular Catalyst Showcases will also, of course, feature at the event. The Catalyst program directly supports the TM Forum's objectives to provide practical solutions, in order to improve the management and operation of information and communication services. It also aims to provide an environment where service providers can pose real-world challenges and directly influence the system integrators, hardware, software, and middleware providers to define, develop, and demonstrate solutions. Projects within the program are delivered in a very short timeframe, typically six to nine months, and the results are presented at the Showcase during the event. This year's crop includes, among the ten featured showcases: End-to-End B/OSS Framework; Delivering and Industry Information Infrastructure; Zero Touch Deployment; and Operator User Management.
Alongside the Expo, where vendors, equipment manufacturers, system integrators and service providers get the chance to show their wares, check each other out, and compare notes, the networking events at Management World always prove to be a considerable draw. As well as the expo cocktail reception, and the networking event party, this year will also see the second Excellence Awards Ceremony and gala dinner, where awards covering such areas as Best New Management Product; Most Innovative Integrated Marketing Campaign; and Best Practices - Service Supplier will be handed out to the winners, among the glitz and glamour of the Palais de la Mediterranee.
Management World 2008, 18th - 22nd May, The Acropolis Convention Centre, Nice.
www.tmform.org/ManagementWorld2008
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