A survey of more than 100 operator respondents released today highlights a change in operators’ BSS (business support systems) transformation strategies. There is a clear move towards smaller projects, with shorter timescales and reduced risk for operators with individual use case based solutions and adjunct systems seen as the most effective way to overhaul BSS.

The study, carried out by global leader in real-time BSS and customer engagement systems Openet, reveals the main reason that operators are transforming BSS is to provide the platform to develop, deliver and monetize new digital services. The survey showed that the traditional method of a ‘big bang’ approach to transformation is now seen as the least effective approach to transformation.

The survey reveals an adjunct systems approach – the switch to real-time charging as an adjunct to existing billing systems – is seen as having significantly shorter timescales than traditional transformation projects. This has led to 46% of operators forecasting this approach as taking 6-12 months, with 42% looking to implement within 3-6 months. This move to smaller, more agile projects was demonstrated by the fact that operators view solutions for individual use cases being seen as a very effective approach to achieve transformation. The use cases which were deemed most likely to have individual solutions were VoLTE charging and quality of service, management, intelligent upsell, real-time usage alerts, sponsored data and shared data.

Historically transformation projects have been lengthy, expensive and have had a high failure rate. 68% of operators know of BSS implementations that have failed. The cost of faltering BSS projects varies between operators. 50% put the cost between $5-$20M, and 10% put the cost at over $100M. However, the impact of failed BSS projects is felt mostly in marketing and product development. Operators see the main impact of BSS failures as new products being delayed (80%), an inability to react to competitive advances (64%) and then an overall OpEx cost increase (62%).

“Operators are feeling the reverberations of the digital transformation going on around them and want a piece of the action. Whilst the likes of Google, Netflix and Amazon forge ahead, operators are encumbered by legacy systems,” said Barry Marron, GVP Marketing, Openet. “It’s now imperative that operators can access and use real-time automated systems, becoming truly data driven. The days of transformation projects taking years are being consigned to the waste bin. The next phase of transformation within operators now has to be measured in a matter of months.”

Download the research report: BSS and Digital Transformation – Operator Views on the Role of BSS in Digital Transformation