The traditional BSS/OSS market is transforming as service providers seek to deploy next-generation services. Service providers must pick apart a complex telecoms IT infrastructure in order to renew and realign it, while still performing 'business as usual'. Vendors and integrators must successfully evolve in order to respond effectively to their clients' needs and thrive in a competitive landscape that is undergoing significant consolidation as new entrants from the IT sector seek to challenge traditional BSS/OSS vendors. Whether you are an established BSS/OSS vendor, or a new or prospective entrant to the sector, it is vital to understand the dynamics of the telecoms IT marketplace and the key players in it.
There are many ways now for telecom operators to equip themselves with the IT infrastructure they need, and a number of architectural options; but whatever combination of systems they choose, four broad application-layer domains have emerged: cash, customers, resources and services. Operators must also consider three other vital areas: data management, security and systems integration. These functional domains – based on integrated processes – are a more appropriate way of looking at the market than the traditional BSS/OSS distinction, which is becoming outdated:
Figure 1: Next-generation telecoms IT
- cash (includes charging and payments, revenue assurance, retail and wholesale billing, mediation, outsourcing, PRM, revenue assurance and fraud management)
- customers (includes CRM, customer self-care, order management, service activation)
- services (includes service design and creation, service assembly, service delivery, service access, product lifecycle management, service-level agreements, roaming)
- resources (includes inventory management, routing, quality of service, service provisioning and workforce management)
- integration (includes systems integration, enterprise application integration and service orientated architectures)
- data (includes business intelligence, data management and data migration)
- security (includes authentication, authorisation, accounting and compliance).
Next-Generation Telecoms IT answers your questions:
- What are the main drivers of the telecoms IT market? Which regions and sectors are the most active, and which vendors have been particularly successful in each sector?
- Who is buying what type of system and why?
- What is the size of the market?
- What new types of functionality and systems are on offer?
- What are the key difficulties faced by service providers worldwide and how are they solving them?
The service comprises:
- monthly market trends papers that provide independent, strategic analysis of key industry issues – a portfolio of more than 75 papers, and case studies of operator IT deployments are also included
- an online database, with sophisticated search tools, containing approximately 4000 vendor contracts since 1998, so you can track competitors, and identify potential customers and partners, by geography, date, customer, vendor, product and solution type
- market-size estimates and forecasts for the seven core solution domains, for Western and Eastern Europe, broken down by customer type and revenue stream
- over 140 in-depth company profiles, 500 listings of vendors worldwide and over 700 descriptions of products, providing you with strategic insight for potential partnerships or acquisitions.
- a downloadable mergers and acquisitions tracker. Need to know who has acquired whom in the Telecoms IT sector, when and for how much? Analysys Research's tracker of mergers and acquisition contains information about approximately 120 acquisitions, mergers and buyouts in the sector since January 2004, enabling you to:
- analyse and filter deals by vendor, sector, application type and geography at a glance
- understand the valuations attached to deals by including information about trailing revenue and profits of acquired companies.
