David Croslin, chief technologist at HP, led a discussion with four senior-level service provider executives at the recent Billing and OSS World Conference and Expo in Chicago and elicited insight on the business practices and technologies that will support their next-generation services – whatever they might be.
Executive panelists included Curtis Elswick, vice president of architecture at EchoStar Satellite LLC; Vercie Lark, vice president of IT at Embarq; Steve Taff, executive director of IT Integration at XO Communications; and Melinda White, senior vice president and general manager of new business operations at Citizens Communications Co.
Partnerships play a big role in helping these service providers grow and meet the demands of new services and a new customer base driven by data. And revenue assurance will play an equally big role once services are deployed.
But certain fundamentals still will be key to determining service rollouts and managing them, said Citizens’ White, who claims, as the person responsible for new business initiatives in a 100-year-old ILEC, to have the best job in the company.
Citizens conducts research through both customer satisfaction surveys and focus groups. “Knowing how products and services are used is very important to us; it helps generate momentum so we can ramp quicker,” White said.
The focus groups help Citizens weigh demand against what makes economic sense for the company. So far, the feedback has helped convince Citizens that the shift to IPTV can wait.
“Given our markets and the competitive nature of the cable companies, it doesn’t behoove us to run out and start recreating the world when we have a solution that works well and customers tell us they like,” White said, referring to Citizens' Dish Network service supplied by EchoStar.
White said when it comes to evaluating the business case for new services, nothing really changes.
“There is the same risk assessment. So we think about how to ensure multiple uses when selecting the products and services we chose to develop. That may mean using the same content, but in different ways in order to monetize it. It boils down to this: If the application has value and relates to market share and if the customer demands it, then it is business as usual as far as the business case,” she said.