Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

De-regulation and auction of wireless spectrum has a rippling effect on Telecommunication industry value chain. This essentially unveils 'Greenfield' scenario in Telecommunication industry; transforming entire Telecommunications eco system in to a level playing field. Most of us know, the term Greenfield denotes 'starting on a clean slate', i.e. without any prior constraints as regards networks, business processes and Information Technology(IT)/system estate. As opposed to an incumbent or Brownfield player who has already been in business and made healthy profits; Greenfield player has to cater to multifold challenges right since inception of an idea to enter the business.

One has to have a great deal of appreciation on Challenges of a Greenfield Telecom Operator before working with them to help them ensure timely launch of new services. Let us holistically look at some key challenges that are vital to ensure timely launch of services.

Minimal CAPEX outlay

Achieving required subscriber base for break even (speedier ROI)

Introduction of new age of innovative services on day 1 of launch

Reduced Concept to Market cycle time (in months and not in years) Steady state operations and scalable network and IT solution to cater to unprecedented subscriber growth.

Insure customer stickiness

These challenges help us arrive at short and medium-long term goals of a Greenfield operator. These translate in to the fact that:

a.To cater to short term goals; key requirement is 'Growth Enablement' which leads to the lever of 'IT driver' and

b.To cater to medium-long term goals; key requirement is 'Managing Growth' which leads to the lever of 'Business Driver.

However, it is critical to note that IT alone will not help us ensure growth enablement.

Key factors to be considered for a successful Greenfield launch

From our experience, following factors become critical and are to be considered while building a solution that caters to challenges of a Greenfield operator.

This venture into communications world differs for different business plans, and, is supported by varied Business Models requiring different ways in which the processes and systems must be glued to support these integrations.

In this on-demand world, the time to market, delivering right here, right now have become the basic survival tactics. Towards this strategy, operators need to meet the customer demands for real-time responses and launch new services continuously for maintaining the competitive advantage. The IT solution should be able to adapt to the product offering needs of the vast variety of customer segments.

IT systems need to have capabilities for managing subscriber and credit profiles uniformly across services, real-time flexible bundling and pricing, seamless as well as convergent product modeling that can allow porting of product portfolios across markets and support for different payment models.

The IT systems should also be robust enough to support complex partnerships and revenue settlements with content providers. Disaster Recovery, Intellectual Property Rights management and most importantly, customer lifetime value based services management are areas of criticality, which needs exhaustive planning.

Another area is an ability to maintain Quality of Service for end subscribers, partnership based on stringent SLA and KPI measurements and reporting tools.

Operational and Organizational challenges need to be addressed to cater to the new customer paradigm like self service, zero touch, and real time. With the convergence of communications and computing, new models of collaborative business with partners and customers have emerged. It is imperative for a strategic partner to look beyond the stove piped processes, systems, and data; towards a 360 degree view of customer.

Last but not the least, strategy for data center setup and running operations with the IT solution provided, is very crucial. Well articulated and clear operational procedures are equally important. Strategic partner for a Greenfield operator has to think like an entrepreneur considering cash flows and seeing at what 'minimal', the operations could be launched.

Mantra to succeed:Choosing the right strategic partner

The 'Greenfield' term has become a misnomer today. Cut-throat competition, ever falling price-points, incumbent dominance, and fickle-minded customers are all but far from the plethora of opportunities denoted by the term 'Green'. It is a pasture nevertheless, but a pasture that promises the venture will be eventful, where even a slight indication of falter would not go unnoticed by Customers and Competitors. It sounds very primal, and it is, for no hunter waits for the newbie to learn to take the steps. All the novice can rely on is his herd - who have been there, done that; to guide him till he masters the tricks of the trade. But till that day comes, he has to actively rely on the strategic partner that can jump-start his Market Launch with a combination of best practices, innovative solutions, and reusable repositories - reducing the learning curve and bringing in more predictability. And while at it, the operator learns that the survival is about fittest, strongest and most agile. It is about capturing customer mindshare (not only wallet), differentiation in services as well as innovation. And the operator draws upon experience and expertise of strategic partners to help create an organizational set-up that allows customer acquisition, scalability, ramp-up of infrastructure and assets to support growth and ongoing customer stickiness or retention. It is imperative that the operator engages a suitable strategic partner who is competent to take ownership of the systems, networks (from IT interfacing perspective) and operations governed by strong SLA's and KPI's, often leading to higher risks being passed on to vendors of solution eco system and solution providers as such.

The choice of strategic partner should be based on its credentials of applying knowledge gained from previous experiences by doing similar Greenfield operations roll out. The expertise of a strategic partner in enabling Quality of Service, quick time to delivery, ability to manage diverse partnership models and time to adapt to changes of the services market helps the operator to create its differentiation in the competitive market.

The strategic partner must adhere to the industry best practices and be innovative in coming up with practical tools.

Such tools helps maneuver this rough terrain smoothly ensuring that components listed have clear implementation and launch plan and also how each component interlinks with other components. Ensuring re usability of artifacts as shown in the Exhibit No.2 below helps achieving efficiency gain and expedite launch cycle time.

In summary, while in this race of survival, the operator may continuously strive to outrun the slowest and hope to survive. Or, with the right set of tools, adoption to industry's best practices and frameworks enabled by a competent strategic partner, create a niche place for itself and outrun the race itself.

Dhananjay Pavgi – Director Product Management, IT applications, Shilpa Kavadia- Senior Consultant - Tech Mahindra

Page(s)   1