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 Service providers are facing a perfectstorm with new competitors, newdemands from customers, and a brutaleconomic downturn.Navigating successfully through thestorm requires that service providerssimultaneously develop and deliver asuperior customer experience whilereducing costs and maximizing theimpact of every new investment.Four initiatives are particularly critical:improving process efficiency, speedingtime to market, increasingorganizational agility, and ensuringdisciplined transformation.Solution partners play an essential rolein critical initiatives, but often fall shortdue to product limitations, a product-centered approach, reinventing thewheel, lack of depth, or weakness inproject management.Selecting the right partners requires arigorous look at their industryknowledge, product and serviceexcellence, solutions orientation,integration capability, projectmethodology, collaborative work style,and management commitment tosuccess.The idea of businesses and industries
facing a ―perfect storm‖ has become a
widely used metaphor ever since a
giant Nor’easter storm hit the east
coast of North America on Halloween1991. That storm was literally a once-in-a-century event with multiple stormsystems converging to generateoverwhelming energy and impact. Themetaphor may be overused, but in thecase of the communications industry, itseems perfectly apt.For service providers, three different
 ―storm systems‖ have combined to
wreak havoc across the sector:A wave of new competitors,including content creators and onlineinformation channels, washing overexisting customers and prospectsAn accelerating demand fromconsumers for always-onconnectivity to support anincreasingly multi-device,personalized, digital lifestyleThe current deep recession andcorresponding pressures to cut costsand find new sources of profitablegrowthA safe course through the storm seemsat least generally clear, but is far easiersaid than done:Deliver a superior customer experiencethat reduces churn, strengthens
 
 loyalty, and expands capabilities to
build new revenue streams…while
reducing operational costs andensuring maximum impact for eachand every new investment.Navigating this course successfullyrequires that service providers makeheadway in four critical areas at once:Increasing process efficiency inareas such as billing, serviceconfiguration, resourceprovisioning, and customersupport
—
and doing this from anoutside-in perspective to makesure that every process changesupports the intended customerexperienceSpeeding time to market with newofferings in content and service toensure continuing relevance,interest, and convenience for end-consumers while better monetizingexisting carrier assetsImproving organizational agility toinitiate and react to marketchanges and emerging customerneeds more quickly, includingproviding faster, more accurate,and more personalized servicedeliveryEnsuring the success of ongoingbusiness transformation byprioritizing initiatives to enhancethe customer experience,rigorously managingorganizational change, andselecting partners that minimizethe risk of wayward investmentSuccessful navigation also requires avery delicate balancing act on thebudget front: cutting spendingenough to maintain profitability evenas your own customers cut theirspending, but at the same time stillinvesting enough to roll out essentialnew services, fend off competitors,and lay the strongest possiblefoundation for longer term successwhen economic growth returns.
Veering off course withtransformation projects canbe costly indeed. Consider afew recent service providercrashes amid failed attemptsto reach higher ground:A large carrier in Asia-Pacific launched a two-year, $200 million projectto replace its customercare and billing system.Four years later the costhad doubled but the firstrelease was inoperative.A subsequent upgradeeventually solved theproblem, but companysubsidiariesunderstandably backedoff from similar projects.A large US wirelesscarrier launched a multi-year project to implementa new CRM system andimprove customer loyaltyand spending. Two yearsand $80 million later, thecompany canceled theproject after discoveringthat the chosen solutionwas significantly morecomplex than promised,and would have requiredmuch greater spendingand a longer timeline topossibly achievepromised results.A large US digital mediacompany launched a $15million CRM replacementproject planned to takeabout a year and half.Following extensiveintegration problems, thecompany rolled out thenew system a yearbehind schedule at morethan three times the cost.Ultimately, managementdecided that ongoinglicense fees were notworth it so dumped thesystem and went back tolegacy applications.
–
Dr. Raul Katz,
Why CRM and Billing Systems Implementationsin the TelecommunicationsIndustry Are So Prone to Failure
 (Telecom Advisory Services,October 2008)
One thing is extremely clear: Serviceproviders with the best solutionspartners will have a great advantage.The rapidly increasingly complexity
—
and interconnectedness
—
of thechallenges facing service providersput a much greater premium onhaving partners with a clear vision of the future, top-quality capabilities inevery area, and the ability to bring itall together with no risk of delayor failure.The problem, of course, is that whilea great many vendors promise themoon, their collective track record is
littered with failure. In today’s
market, partner failure can translatequickly into business failure. Themargin for error in choosing the rightpartner is fast approaching zero.Consider some recent advice fromGartner to vendors in the operational-support system (OSS) domain, acritical and highly competitive arenafor service provider partners:
“A leadership position in the
current OSS market requires that vendors offer, besides best-in-class products, strong professional services consulting and a systemintegration constituent. They should achieve this by taking a
holistic approach toward carriers’ 
 processes, organization and IT operations, complemented by long-
term migration guidance.” 
 
–
Gartner,
Dataquest Insight: OSSMarket Overview and Strategic Scorecard for Vendors, 2008
(Oct 2008)
Strip away the dry language and jargon and what they really mean isthat service providers need partnersthat literally can do it all, partnersthat can design, integrate, andmanage the necessary new processesand technology.From a slightly different angle,research from the IT ServicesMarketing Association (ITSMA)suggests pretty much the same thing:Communications industry executivesare looking most of all for solution
 
 partners with a proven track record,
deep industry knowledge, and ―anorganization they can trust.‖ They
simply have no tolerance for sub-parperformance.
–
ITSMA,
How Customers Choose SolutionProviders, North America 2008
(Nov 2008)
 High standards and skepticism arefully justified. The costs of failurewith a large implementation areenormous, and the examples are fartoo common for comfort.Gartner and other analyst firmssuggest that up to 40% of major ITprojects fail. One recent study of fivefailures in implementing CRM andbilling systems documented projecttimelines more than doubling, costsescalating tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, andonly two of the five projects eventuallybeing implemented fully. The negativeimpact of this type of failure inessential areas such as customeracquisition, customer churn, and newservices deployment can besubstantial, to say the least.
–
Dr. Raul Katz,
Why CRM and Billing SystemsImplementations in the TelecommunicationsIndustry Are So Prone to Failure
(TelecomAdvisory Services, Oct 2008)
 
While the headwinds forservice providers are strong,the opportunity to thrive inthe converged future isenormous. As consumersmove toward an always-on,multi-device digital lifestyle,their appetite for content andcommunication is growingexponentially. And serviceproviders are extremely wellplaced to sit at the center of that 24x7 experience.Carrier assets
—
networkcontrol, customerinformation andrelationships, billing andpayment systems, contentand device partnerships
—
create a strong foundation todeliver next-generationservices to consumers andfinancial value to everyoneon the value chain.Building on that foundation,though, requires asubstantial effort tomodernize systems, takeappropriate advantage of existing assets, develop orpartner with the right newservices, and ensure a near-flawless experience forconsumers every step of theway.In so doing, the risks and
challenges are clear: don’t
move too quickly or tooslowly, stay focused on theright initiatives, pick the rightstrategic partners andtechnology, control costs andtimelines, and keep thecustomer experience frontand center in every actionand decision.
Navigating successfully through theperfect storm to gain competitiveadvantage and deliver a superiorcustomer experience will requireundertaking some enormouslycomplex projects. Typically these willinclude investing heavily in newhardware, software, and services;rethinking and reshaping criticalbusiness processes; and, perhapsmost difficult, implementingorganizational and individual changeacross multiple functions and teams.Doing all this in partnership with oneor more strategic vendors adds evenmore complexity to the effort. Of course, it all has to be done whilerunning full speed and not missing abeat with existing systems andprocesses, too.
It’s not surprising, then, that majorimplementations go bad. But it’s how
they go bad that really matters. Tominimize the risk of failure, it isespecially important to understand fivespecific problems that typically emerge(individually and in combination) inprojects that fail to achieve promisedand expected results.Deploying best-in-class softwareplatforms and applications to supportcustomer management, billing,resource allocation, and other criticalbusiness processes is not sufficient forsuccess, but it certainly is a necessarystep in the right direction.The real product challenges, though,are related not to individual features,but rather to customization for diversecorporate environments and ease of integration with existing systems.Difficulty in getting new and olderproducts to work in the necessaryharmony is one of the most commonstumbling blocks to success.Great products that are easy tocustomize and integrate are step one,but they should not sit at the center of the decision process. The reality is thatcomplex implementations are muchmore about service than product.
As Gartner notes: ―Besides best
-in-class products, carriers should
prioritize vendors’ integration andinteroperability expertise.‖ 
Serviceproviders that ignore the centrality of the service dimension of complexsolutions have a much tougher path toprogress.The good news is that best practicedoes exist. As the industry hasadvanced, best practices haveemerged and been documented indozens if not hundreds of criticalbusiness processes.
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