We all know it is tough economic times for those involved in Communications IT solutions. For the most part, gone are the days of the massive CRM, ERP and EAI investments. These days, service providers are mostly trying to figure out hold to hold onto a customer base that is become evermore fickle while trying to grow revenues in a sluggish economy with tougher cost constraints.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. Industry consolidation and convergence are still opening up opportunities to better leverage IT investments. A few of the top trends we’re seeing so far in 2010 are:
- Convergence between the MSOs and wireless carriers. The MSOs are dead set on covering the whole access spectrum with a quadruple play of VoIP, video, Internet and mobile. Their forays into wireless are mostly via partnerships with the incumbent carriers for 3G as well as the emerging 4G carriers. System integration needs are immense and require diligent program management. In many ways, the challenges are reminiscent of the previous unsuccessful MVNO models.
- “True” Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) implementation. Carriers are realizing that the true promise of SOA is as much about enabling effective business process management and even project governance as it is about managing IT costs. SOA is quickly becoming the foundation from which all new IT spending is being based on.
- Portals are now all about enabling content. With the broader acceptance of alternative content access via Apple TV, real-time video access on Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, etc., traditional service providers are rushing to find ways to avoid being marginalized as dumb pipe commodities. Just look at Comcast’s entry into network programming with its NBC deal to see how serious service providers are. All this new content is going to require portals that are comprehensive yet easy to use for the traditional television watcher come Internet content downloader.
- Master Data Management (MDM) finds its business case. MDM is no longer about just having a data source of record with a hard to quantify ROI. There’s a strong business case behind using MDM as a means to prevent customer churn through real-time and accurate customer analytics. At the same time, there’s new promise for past fads like revenue assurance that are dependent on creating a reconciled picture of customers and their services and inventory in order to prevent revenue leakage and excessive cost.
Tags: communications, convergence, IT, master data management, mdm, MSO, portal, service oriented architecture, SOA, wireless
