Now, Not Later: Policy and Charging's New Imperative

Ours is a world in a hurry.

We live fast. We live in the moment. Our personal and business lives converge, and push the pace forward, faster in 2011 than it was in 2010 or 2009 and – count on it – faster in 2012 than it was in 2011. Technology is an accelerator.

When we reflect, most people tend to express this nearly universal sense of speed in individual terms. How often do we hear friends and colleagues say something like, “I couldn’t come up for air all day." “Need to get this done now." “I’m late. I’m behind."

Clearly, however, the same is true for the institutions that are at the center of our social lives, with the possible exception of the U.S. Congress, where a day, week, month or year spent doing no legislative work seems to count as time well spent.

Certainly this is true in the business world, and particularly in the communications service provider industry. And in the CSP world, things are about to get much, much faster.

Next week, on Jan. 23, we'll publish a B/OSS Report written by Editor-in-Chief Tim McElligott that will explore the important opportunities – and imperatives – created by second-generation policy and charging strategies.

“Time-to-market has become the new battle cry," notes McElligott. Why? Operators “verge on getting beaten to the punch or cut out of the value chain in key new markets such as mobile commerce, personalized apps and services and machine-to-machine communications. [This year] just may be a banner year for the fulfillment of long-held promises by operators to innovate and start punching back. Managing costs is still important but the time has come to focus on revenue generation, the realities of competition and building customer relationships rather than customer databases." (Emphasis added.)

New, strong winds are blowing in the BSS/OSS world. M-wallet, personalized apps, M2M – any one of these dynamic factors is a game changer. Together, they presage a “telecom spring" that will transform the CSP industry. As McElligott notes in this B/OSS Report, the price of delay is to concede an important day’s march to formidable competitors like Apple, Amazon, PayPal, Microsoft and Google – companies that have built amazing success stories on a solid foundation of innovation, and are geared to scale innovation at warp speeds.

Larry Lannon is group publisher of VIRGO’s Communications Network, which includes Billing & OSS World, Channel Partners and V2M.