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2014
WHAT IT TAKES TO B2B Serving the Enterprise
What Business Customers Really Think of CSPs The survey results are in
XO Communications Helping companies do more with less
business support solutions that
accelerate business. anywhere.
At CSG, we excel at delivering revenue and customer management solutions to progressive CSP clients around the globe. Clients just like you. Our unparalleled set of business support solutions can help you launch new services, strengthen customer relationships, optimize revenue and stay competitive in today’s transforming environments. Simply put, our solutions and services can help you accelerate business. anywhere. Contact us today: +1 303.200.2000 or spectrum@csgi.com
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ACROSS THE DESK
ISSUE IV, OCTOBER 2014
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Across the Desk The digital world we live in has dramatically changed the face of business. Customers demand more from their service providers than ever before—and loyalty is harder to come by in this highly competitive world. From what researchers and our own clients around the globe tell us, this pace of change will only accelerate. In fact, the convergence of social computing, Big Data, the cloud and mobility—what Gartner Research calls the “Nexus of Forces”—is expected to drive more than 26% of total enterprise software sales (an astounding $104 billion) by 2017. For CSPs supporting enterprise customers, the Nexus of Forces will drive a revolution in enterprise IT over the next 10 years: amazing opportunities await companies serving enterprise customers as they usher in new cloud, connectivity, digital content and mobility offerings. As you will see in this latest edition of SPECTRUM magazine, the focus on real-time services will be even more prevalent, as will the focus on solutions to bolster cybersecurity. They will need the capabilities to treat each enterprise as a “market of one.” They will look to their CSP to do more—but do it efficiently, and securely. I am excited about the opportunities ahead for this unique market— and how we will help our clients evolve to support the emerging needs of the enterprise. I am proud to say that CSG International has invested in our solutions to ensure that our clients can address the needs of the enterprise customer—and we look to the future with confidence. Sincerely,
Peter Kalan President and Chief Executive Officer CSG International spectrum@csgi.com
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IN THIS ISSUE
16. THOUGHT LEADERSHIP FEATURE
10. SUCCESS STORY OF TW TELECOM
14. IN CONVERSATION WITH DON MACNEIL
In this Issue FEATURES
10 14 16
OCTOBER 2014
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
5
WHAT WE’RE READING
6
ANALYST VIEW
Don MacNeil of XO Communications highlights the realities of serving the Enterprise and the importance of customer experience
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IN A SNAPSHOT
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP FEATURE
12
ANALYST VIEW
13
BLOGGING
SUCCESS STORY tw telecom delivers strategic value to the Enterprise
IN CONVERSATION
CSG SVP Ken Jenkinson discusses the key trends and macro forces impacting the Enterprise
CSG Employees Reveal All
Survey Results: Enterprise Views of CSPs
Security Investments to Protect Data
Analysys Mason: Enterprise Revenues Under Pressure
Does One Billing Solution Fit All?
18 COFFEE WITH Ian Watterson
20
IN DEMAND
22
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Cyber Security’s Need for Speed
We’ve Been Busy at CSG
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WHAT WE’RE READING
What We’re Reading
READER: Siew-Boon Ng Service Management Director APAC
READER: Jawahar Sabapathy Principal Architect Global Services
READER: Mandy Collie Service Management Director EMEA
READER: Jennifer Van Vliet Marketing Manager Americas TITLE:
Namma: A Tibetan Love Story
Srinivasa Ramanuam
TITLE:
TITLE:
Nelson Mandela: The Boy Called Troublemaker
Born to Run
AUTHOR:
AUTHOR:
Kate Karko
Sydney Srinivas
AUTHOR: Ellie Crowe
AUTHOR: Christopher McDougall
REVIEW: This is an amazing true story of the author herself, which is really captivating. This book talks about how two people from two different worlds, with enormous differences in culture, met and got married. I like the vivid description of the Tibetan scenery in this book. The book has a lot of insights on the Tibetan culture, religious rituals, people and their daily lives, that make me want to visit the ‘roof of the world’ one day.
REVIEW: Srinivasa Ramanujam came from a small town in South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, rapidly becoming famous for his mathematical genius—going on to become a Fellow of the Royal Society and Trinity College. Sydney Srinivas covers the most important scenes of Ramanujan’s life well in this biography— overall a good read for your next short flight (if you exclude the second part on mathematics!).
REVIEW: A compelling insight into the childhood of a great man of not only South African, but world history. The book describes some of the formative experiences in the life of a young Nelson Rolihlahla (which means “Troublemaker”) Mandela that helped to mold the nature and psyche of the wise man he later became. I found it riveting and not wanting it to end. A highly recommended read.
REVIEW: Like the act of running, which starts with a single step, this fast-paced story begins with a single question, “Why does my foot hurt?” The author deftly weaves in the story of an Indian tribe of distance runners as well as scientific research with his personal running experiences. As a newbie to the sport who aspires to move up to halfmarathons, it was a fascinating foray into how to run faster, happier and injury-free.
RATING:
RATING:
RATING:
RATING:
TITLE:
SPECTRUM Magazine: Issue IV info.csgi.com/morespectrum
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ANALYST VIEW
Analyst View Survey Results: What Enterprises think of their CSPs Business-to-business services are an important part of most CSPs’ operations. Are CSPs up to the challenge of serving the future needs of businesses? Earlier this year, the technology insights firm MachNation conducted a survey of over 800 smallmedium and large enterprises to understand their views of CSPs and the services they provide. In partnership with CSG, the Business Services Global Survey 2014 asked respondents in North America, India, France, Germany, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Indonesia about their business and technology challenges, pain points and future communications technology and support needs.
The findings were sometimes surprising, and sometimes validated some long-held beliefs. We have summarized the results below, and included recommendations for CSPs pursuing strategies to attract and retain ongoing enterprise revenue: 1. Productivity, innovation and managing change are the top business challenges for both SMEs and large enterprises. Interestingly, cost reduction didn’t feature in the top three. CSPs should create marketing tools that ensure business customers understand how services lead to measurable productivity gains, encourage innovation and help manage change.
Steve Hilton Managing Director
2. Security is the top technology challenge today for large enterprises, and top of mind for businesses of all sizes in 2-3 years. CSPs should build upon their position as trusted technology brands to expand into the enterprise IT and network security arena.
STEVE HILTON Steve Hilton is the Managing Director at MachNation, the leading insight services firm for the Internet of Things, Internet of Everything, connected things, analytics and M2M. His primary areas of expertise include competitive positioning, marketing media development, cloud services, small and medium businesses and sales channels. Steve has 20 years’ experience in technology and communications marketing. Prior to founding MachNation, he built and ran the IoT/M2M and Enterprise practice areas at Analysys Mason. He has also held senior positions at Yankee Group, Lucent Technologies, TDS (Telephone and Data Systems) and Cambridge Strategic Management Group. Steve is a frequent speaker at industry and client events, and publishes articles and blogs in several respected trade journals. He holds a degree in economics from the University of Chicago and a Master’s degree in marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
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ANALYST VIEW
3. Device management is the top technology concern for SMEs following the continued growth of business mobility and bringyour-own-device (BYOD) options at work. CSPs should offer device management tools and services to complement their connectivity services offerings. 4. Cloud services are the differentiator in a bundle. Almost double the number of businesses that bundle cloud and communications believe they get exceptional value from their CSP compared to non-cloud bundlers. For CSPs, cloud services are a mechanism to expand beyond the realm of traditional communications. However, SMEs are not very interested in procuring cloud from their CSPs. CSPs need to increase recognition with SMEs and position themselves in the expanded IT services realm. 5. Self-care is a key requirement demanded by businesses. CSPs must ensure that their self-care platforms and operations are adaptable and expandable to accommodate the needs of a business, including offer discovery, ordering, and product, account and channel support.
Top 5 CSP Recommendations to Serve the Business Segment Challenge
Recommendation Marketing tools that ensure business customers understand how services lead to measurable productivity gains
Productivity
Build upon CSP’s position as trusted technology brand to expand into enterprise IT Security
Offer device management tools and services Device Management
Increase CSP’s recognition with SMEs and position itself in the expanded IT services realm Cloud Services
Have adaptable and expandable self-care platforms and operations Self-care
For the full report of the survey, please visit www.info.csgi.com/enterprise-survey
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IN A SNAPSHOT
In spite of increasing IT security investments... defending your business is not getting easier A constant news stream about high-profile data thefts has everyone on high alert. In 2013 alone, there were more than 2,000 disclosed breaches totaling over 800 million individual personal records stolen. And yet this alarming statistic was dwarfed by recent news that a Russian crime ring had stolen the largest known collection of Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses, by breaking into websites of companies large and small from around the globe.
And according to the company that discovered the records, most of those attacked sites are still vulnerable. IT security isn’t a problem that can be solved by just spending more money. While most large organizations have a significant IT security budget and a wide range of controls in place, they can still be breached. Investments in security solutions have been significant and will continue to be so, with many planning to increase spend in a range of technologies:
Security Technologies
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
Web security
Data loss prevention
Firewall/UTM/next gen firewall
Security client software Network access control/ management Messaging security Vulnerability management/ assessment DDoS mitigation
IPS
Increase
Keep flat
Not investing
Don’t know
Decrease
Figure 1 Enterprise Threat Mitigation Spending Plans [Source: Infonetics Research, 2013]
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100%
IN A SNAPSHOT
Compromise n=169
Exfiltration n=169
Discovery n=178
88%
85%
51% 36%
0%
Never
Years
Months
1%
Weeks
1%
Days
Hours
Minutes
0% 0% 0%
Seconds
Never
0% 0%
Years
Days
0%
Months
1%
Weeks
1%
Hours
Minutes
1%
Seconds
0% 0%
Never
1%
Years
Days
13%
11%
Months
1%
Weeks
1%
Hours
Minutes
Seconds
11%
Figure 2 Timespan of Events within POS Intrusions [Source: Verizon Data Breach Incident Report, 2014]
The motivation for increased spending is based on the realities of an escalating threat environment, with companies seeking to protect themselves against both intentional data theft and accidental data loss. Are they wrong to spend on new threat mitigation technologies, knowing that companies with even larger investments in security technology can be breached? Not exactly. Because attacks will happen, the practical problem that many companies face is how to effectively deal with an attack once it happens. The Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report for 2013 looked at 169 POS intrusion events, and Figure 2 above shows the timeline for compromise, exfiltration, and discovery. The picture couldn’t be more clear: in 88% of these events, data was stolen within minutes of compromises that weren’t discovered for weeks.
WHAT’S NEEDED: ORCHESTRATION AND AUTOMATION It is reasonable to assume that in most cases multiple security controls raised alerts and threw up red flags when a breach occurred. There are many products on the market, including SIEMs, that help distill and correlate events, and most companies rely on SIEMs to discover the event. But most enterprises lack a central console for orchestrating all the disparate installed solutions. Orchestration allows them to interoperate and change behavior, configurations, or access policies when an event occurs, and then take the final (and much more difficult) step of automating the orchestration process in cases where the choices to act are simple. As an industry, we’re very good at building solutions that can identify and in some cases automatically block individual security threat events. Enterprise IT departments have the brainpower to do a great job reducing the threat window but are short on resources. Orchestration and automation solutions will help them respond faster and focus on the hard problems that require human intelligence.
JEFF WILSON With more than 18 years in the data networking and telecom industry and one of the most accurate forecast track records in the business, Jeff Wilson is a certifiable network security market guru. Jeff covers the complex interactions between products, traditional managed services, and SaaS, and authors numerous network security market share and forecast reports, service provider and end-user studies, and Continuous Research Service (CRS) research notes.
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SUCCESS STORY
tw telecom Success Story: Delivering strategic value to the Enterprise
A long-time CSG client, tw telecom leveraged CSG IntermediateTM—with its proven capability for handling massive transaction volumes quickly, securely, and accurately—to implement a Single Source of Record (Master Data Record) for usage, cost, revenue and margin information. With CSG Intermediate at the heart of its Single Source of Record, tw telecom ensures that timely, accurate and complete information is available in a consistent fashion to all its internal users and processes as well as to its enterprise customers for their own reporting and analysis purposes. CHALLENGE: DATA COMPLEXITY & VOLUMES Based in Denver, Colorado, tw telecom is a leading US provider of managed services, including Business Ethernet, converged and IP VPN solutions for enterprises throughout the U.S. and globally. tw telecom also delivers secure, scalable private connections for transport data networking, Internet access, voice, VPN, VoIP and security to large organizations and communications services companies. With their business expanding and networks and services evolving, tw telecom rapidly approached the limits of their ability to process the growing volume of usage data from their voice and data networks. To fuel their continued growth and deliver greater value to their customers, tw telecom set out to create a Single Source of Record that would aggregate all network, cost and revenue records.
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As with most Master Data Management (MDM) projects, tw telecom anticipated reaping a number of benefits and aligned their approach to defining a new Single Source of Record accordingly: 1. Consistent and timely data: With a growing number and frequency of requests from across the tw telecom business, rapid and accurate data correlation was critical. 2. Advanced business intelligence: tw telecom’s business units rely on correlated data to ensure complete and accurate billing; audit and revenue reporting; network analysis; vendor management and settlement; and offer analysis and creation. Increasing requests for data for reporting and analysis created unmanageable workloads for tw telecom’s IT staff.
SUCCESS STORY
3. Optimized Partner Management: tw telecom needed to account for and track data feeds from their partners and vendors with increasing speed and automation. 4. Reduced Risk: Previously, the organization and the revenue transactions processed were entirely dependent upon a few key internal resources. 5. Enhanced Customer Experience: Perhaps most importantly, tw telecom’s Enterprise customers required direct access to data for internal reporting and analysis of their own business.
TIMELY, ACCURATE, COMPLETE CSG Intermediate performs mediation and correlation and creates usage records that are stored in a columnar database. Information is correlated from network sources (switches, SS7 routers), cost records, other trading partners, and subsequently enriched with tw telecom billing details. Given the volume of data records from multiple sources, and the retention requirements for regulatory, auditing, and analytics purposes, the elimination of partial or duplicate records is vital. CSG Intermediate’s ability to collect, aggregate, compress and store historical data in a costeffective, high-performing manner is essential to tw telecom’s Single Source of Record operations. “Intermediate’s correlation capabilities are critical in managing the volumes when translating voice usage transactions into consumable business records,” states Atilla Tinic, VP of IT, tw telecom.
“CSG Intermediate is at the heart of our Single Source of Record solution, enabling our customers—both internal and external—to access timely, accurate and meaningful information.” SINGULAR SUCCESS The Single Source of Record solution has been a singular success for tw telecom, delivering a host of business results. •
Usage records are available for analysis by every business unit in a timely and accurate fashion, with all parameters incorporated—cost, network, switch, trading partner and billing information. Previously, billing issues took days to identify, assess and resolve. Now this process leverages automation and proactive daily monitoring so issues are identified within hours, assessment takes minutes, and resolution occurs immediately without business or customer impact.
•
Fraud identification is significantly accelerated. From the point when a switch record is produced to the point that it is available to the Fraud Department has been reduced by 50% to 70%.
•
Business visibility has increased, producing actionable insights. The Network Management team recently analyzed their 8xx call routes. Based on this data, they were able to avoid multiple DS3 trunk augments, saving tw telecom over $20,000/month in planned costs.
•
Customers are now empowered to better manage their own business. The solution provides customers with easy access to their usage, supporting a positive customer experience and ensuring the ease of doing business with tw telecom.
ENTERPRISE-GRADE In an ultra-competitive environment, accuracy and responsiveness to the needs of its Enterprise customers is critical for tw telecom to deliver superior service and experience. A key driver for the Single Source of Record project was improving the Enterprise customers’ self-service experience through tw telecom’s MyPortal. Via this customer self-service portal, tw telecom’s Enterprise customers can pull billed usage or view Trunk Group utilization and usage trends based on Trunk Group capacity data and usage records. Customers can filter and classify trending charts by usage type and by time periods. Leveraging Intermediate’s Enterprise-grade capabilities, the system responds to customer queries within seconds, and the performance and efficiency of the Single Source solution ensures timeliness and accuracy. Delivering this high level of customer service allows tw telecom to attract and retain valuable customers.
Due to the success of the initial project scope, tw telecom is extending its use of CSG Intermediate to correlating ALL views of usage into the Single Source of Record. This includes cost to switch to bill to network. This new insight provides an end-to-end view of the business, accelerating the identification of trends and supporting analysis of traffic and revenue patterns never before possible. With CSG Intermediate at the heart of their Single Source of Record, tw telecom is ideally positioned to leverage its varied sources of information to manage costs, accelerate revenue, and address the current and future needs of their enterprise customers.
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ANALYST VIEW
Analyst View Enterprise Service Revenues Under Pressure Justin Van Der Lande
The pressure is on for service providers offering enterprise services Enterprise services—those services that a CSP delivers to its business customers to support their communications and IT needs—are growing both in scope and complexity.
So CSPs will have to manage through a period of deteriorating enterprise services revenue to reach the point when new services—driven by digital networks, increased speeds, mobility and cloud—reverse the decline. To reduce the duration of this ‘dip period,’ the CSP has no choice but to 1) focus on the rapid roll-out and support of new services and 2) drive efficiencies in support of established services. To meet both of these objectives, many CSPs are re-considering their BSS and making new investments. 1. Many CSPs find that supporting new services within current BSS/ OSS infrastructure is not always viable, for differing reasons. The revenue generated by new services, at least initially, often dictates low-cost environments to maintain margins. And frequently CSPs set 1
2. Driving efficiency in the processes and systems supporting traditional connectivity services is no easy task. Large CSPs who have gone through rounds of M&A over the years typically have multiple, disparate systems in place. Verizon Enterprise Solutions, for example, removed 160 IT systems in one 12-month period leaving them with a mere 855 remaining. Verizon Wireless, in comparison, has about “70 systems that runs a business three times the size”. 1
Efficiency will require a change in attitude as well as systems. Supporting every customer requirement has resulted in highly manual processes that are expensive to run. Partner management to automate and manage the many partnerships that are used to create and support new services is critical to remove manual processes and manage the complex settlements needed for revenue sharing. Necessity is the motherhood of invention; the economic pressure on CSPs is driving innovation in the way enterprise services are delivered. Finding the right partner will be critical to achieve the transformations needed.
Total telecom services revenue
Demand for traditional connectivity services is being supplemented by demand for cloud, M2M and unified communications. But demand for more types of enterprise services is not matched by growing revenue: overall revenue from enterprise services is, perhaps surprisingly, on the decline, as depicted in Figure 1.
up separate divisions to roll out new services and desire operational separation for accounting reasons, resulting in separate, new stacks being deployed.
Principal Analyst
Connectivity Services
New Services
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Figure 1: Total revenue mix worldwide between traditional and new enterprise services [Source: Analysys Mason, 2014]
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2165693/wireless/verizon-enterprise-chief--we-re-headed-for-cloud-computing-s-a-list.html
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BLOGGING
Does One Billing System Really Fit All? In the words of Accenture, “Communications companies must disavow two detrimental beliefs: that enterprise customers can be treated the same as consumers and that billing is not especially important to such customers.” 1
We’ve had many CSP clients over the years ask us whether a single billing system should serve all customer types, from consumer to enterprise. There are fairly obvious advantages offered by using a single billing solution: one system, one place to go for support and other benefits. However, a deeper look reveals fewer gains than might be thought, especially for CSPs serving larger enterprise customers.
Some of the complexities an enterprise system needs to address include: wide and deep hierarchy management—both organizational and financial hierarchies; ensuring accuracy in very large bills; monitoring contracts; modeling a wide variety of products (cloud, XaaS, M2M, satellite, video, ICT services); white labeling and other B2B2C models—the list goes on. And that’s just the baseline systems. The business processes behind the BSS need to be able to cope with complexity too.
Telecom industry analyst Analysys Mason offers this rule of thumb: in general the larger the customer, the more flexibility is needed in business support systems to cater to their specialized needs.
So for any CSP considering using the same billing system for consumers and large enterprise: think again. A scratch beneath the surface reveals a wealth of unique requirements that are likely best served separately.
So for CSPs serving very large enterprise customers representing millions in annual revenue, many of them find themselves challenged by the unique nature of their contract, and the difficulty of shoe-horning their requirements into a ‘one-size-fits-all’ system designed for consumer billing.
Millons
Consumer
Number of Customers
Soho Ten of Thousands
Small Business Figure 1: Customer classifications, with approximate relative revenue, according to scale and complexity [Source: Analysys Mason, 2012]
Medium Sized Business
Thousands
Large Business (Major Accounts) Hundreds
Low
Medium
High
Complexity of the services 1
‘Communications Industry Billing: The Enterprise Customer Dilemma’, Jean-Marie Pierron, Accenture, 2012.
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IN CONVERSATION…
In Conversation... DON MACNEIL Chief Operating Officer, XO Communications SPECTRUM: Could you share your background with us—your experience in the industry, your main responsibilities at XO? DON MACNEIL: As an officer in the United States Navy, I developed and designed complex network systems. I joined XO in 2000, and have held various management positions in operations, network engineering and sales with responsibilities that included the selection, engineering and deployment of new technologies associated with next generation XO network and services focused on Ethernet and IP. I served as vice president of carrier services operations and subsequently as chief marketing officer until February 2014 when I was appointed COO. Today, I lead a talented team responsible for company strategy and visibility and for the customer experience lifecycle—from early adoption of new products and features, to customer care and repair. The team is responsible for all XO marketing functions, as well as product delivery, care, network and operations. I also provide leadership for program management with its end-user driven prioritization and development processes. My experience in leading people in complex operational environments has served me well in meeting the day-to-day challenges of a competitive and complex marketplace. SPECTRUM: XO Communications is laser-focused on serving the enterprise space. What are the key changes, technology or otherwise, in the industry that are impacting XO’s business and technology strategy? DON MACNEIL: The enterprise segment is awash in technology innovation. Companies are faced more than ever with how to make sense of technology, how to optimize their investments and how to do more with less. They face these challenges against a backdrop of increased budget pressures, skill set misalignments, and increasing internal and external demands. The resulting key trends include the continuing need to outsource, reduce the number of vendors, and make use of the cloud. The cloud promises to increase mobility and collaboration, enabling companies to make better use of big data. XO, in response to the demands companies face, is focused
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on supporting a more comprehensive approach to Unified Communications and offering our customers direct access to multiple public cloud resources via programs such as Amazon’s AWS Direct Connect. In addition, XO is pursuing a strategy that enables customers to integrate valueadded services including our Managed Services offerings, Applications Performance Management, Hosted Security, Bandwidth on Demand, Class of Service, Hosted PBX, Enterprise SIP and Contact Center on Demand.
“Companies are faced more than ever with how to make sense of technology, how to optimize their investments and how to do more with less.” PERSONAL FUN FACTS… First Job:
Mowing Lawns
Favorite Author:
James Patterson
Favorite Movie:
Miracle
Favorite Travel Destination:
Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA
Favorite App:
NHL Game Center
Technology he can’t live without:
iPhone
SPECTRUM: What choices did you have to make around your systems and operational strategies to ensure your team’s ability to adjust and meet these demands? DON MACNEIL: Our focus relative to our systems and operational strategies is to reduce cycle times and provide a more inclusive customer experience. This is especially true in a world in which telecommunications services have become more virtualized and customized. The key is the continued development of our newly launched customer portal we call “myXO.” The myXO portal provides
IN CONVERSATION…
XO customers with a “single pane of glass” through which to manage, view and otherwise control the products and services they procure from us. Its centralized dashboard helps us enhance the overall service delivery experience for our customers. Customers now can choose how and when to interact with XO. It’s designed to be very intuitive, easy to use and can be accessed from any mobile device such as smartphones and tablets in addition to laptop and desktop computers. SPECTRUM: Cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) have fast become mainstream initiatives. How has XO addressed the demand for these types of offers? DON MACNEIL: Companies of all sizes are looking for reliable, more secure access to cloud resources through direct connections to a wide variety of cloud computing providers. Our vision is to satisfy that demand through the XO network. We already do that today through our cloud voice services (such as Hosted PBX and ESIP) and the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect program. XO also offers customers retail cloud products with an emphasis on cloud backup services. We will be expanding our direct connectivity with other leading cloud providers over the course of the next several months.
access to higher throughput when they need it, without having to preschedule their requirement. SPECTRUM: As an IT and Telecom professional, what emerging market or newly launched technology do you find most interesting and potentially most impactful on our industry? DON MACNEIL: The virtualization of the network through initiatives such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Network (SDN) will lead to very interesting structural changes within the telecommunications and technology industries.
“Companies of all sizes are looking for reliable, more secure access to cloud resources through direct connections to a wide variety of cloud computing providers.”
SPECTRUM: You mentioned Bandwidth-on-Demand as part of your strategy. What does having this capability mean for the Enterprise? DON MACNEIL: XO launched its Bandwidth on demand (BoD) offering earlier this year. The XO BoD offering enables MPLS IP-VPN and Ethernet Private Line customers to scale their bandwidth automatically, whenever businesses need to burst the bandwidth available to them. Businesses can save money by not paying for bandwidth they don’t need every day, enjoy
ABOUT XO XO Communications is one of the nation’s largest communications service providers. Exclusively serving businesses, large enterprises and other telecommunications companies, XO understand the need for instant, reliable and secure access to applications and information anytime, from anywhere. XO Communications brings together a breadth of local, national and international capabilities to support its clients’ communications needs wherever they do business—across town, across the country or around the globe. XO operates one of the largest networks in the United States and globally. XO has a long history of innovation,
including the first 100 Gbps nationwide network, and a network built with the most advanced IP and optical networking technologies. It’s no wonder that more than 50 percent of companies in the Fortune 500 trust XO to help them connect, unify, accelerate and secure their businesses. These customers recognize and appreciate the superior customer experience and higher level of support XO offers and the company’s commitment to the highest standards of ethics. Over the years, leading industry analyst firms and business publications have consistently recognized XO for its innovative services, solutions and IT leadership. XO is among the leading providers of VoIP, SIP Trunking, and Ethernet and MPLS IP-VPN services in the communications industry.
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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP FEATURE
Harnessing the Nexus of Forces to Serve the Enterprise In the IT world, Gartner’s Nexus of Forces (NoF) is a useful model for assessing the macro forces at work on an enterprise. Describing the Nexus of Forces as “the convergence and mutual reinforcement of four interdependent trends: social interaction, mobility, cloud, and information,”1 Gartner observes the convergence of social collaboration, mobility, information and the cloud to “create a consumerdriven ecosystem filled with emerging business opportunities and paradigm shifts.”2 All businesses are increasingly becoming digital to some degree; CSG’s Communications Service Provider (CSP) customers have the opportunity to position themselves as key enablers of their enterprise customers’ transition to digital by understanding how the NoF will impact those customers and in turn, their customers’ customers. The most obvious and best understood of the forces for many of our clients is Mobile. Self-evidently, the mobility revolution would not have happened without networks, and as those networks get faster, more opportunities are enabled. CSPs in many countries are already providing innovative mobile services over 3G, with location, video and ubiquitous internet access enabling them to offer enhanced communications, entertainment and business services. With LTE becoming increasingly common, especially in developed markets, CSPs are enabling ever faster communications speeds which drives
new business models when consumers can perform, while mobile, all the functions they are accustomed to in their office or at home. From realtime collaboration with coworkers to downloading content, to online education, to remote diagnosis in healthcare, the opportunities are endless. Many of these applications of mobility are increasingly available in the Cloud, the next of the NoF forces. With LTE and its faster speeds and low latency, more opportunities have emerged to host applications in the cloud. This is driving the redevelopment of office-bound applications to become mobile and gives rise to new and innovative ways to interact with customers, all of which create a perception of greater value in the service provider network by an enterprise customer. CSG’s customers who provide mobile services are seeing rapid adoption by their business customers of enterprise services and applications in the cloud for an increasingly mobile workforce. But equally for our fixed network and cable clients, increased cloud adoption provides opportunities to enable their enterprise customers through applications and infrastructure in the cloud. This may mean becoming a hub for OTT services or by providing and managing applications directly or providing a managed security infrastructure and data sovereignty guarantees in response to legislation.
1
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/nexus-of-forces/
2
https://www.gartner.com/doc/2652816/agenda-overview-nexus-forces-
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CSPs also have an inherent advantage in the third of the NoF forces, Information. Cable and telecommunications providers are more accustomed to gathering, storing and processing huge volumes of data than almost any other industry. In the new world brought about by the Nexus of Forces, many industries are experiencing the challenges of ‘Big Data’ for the first time. Cable and telecoms providers have the opportunity and the expertise to help their enterprises customers address their analysis, scalability and complexity issues and by doing so, create new lines of business for themselves. One example is the utilities market, which is seeing transaction volumes increase by several orders of magnitude through the adoption of smart meters. Where once they took a meter reading each quarter, some utilities are now processing smart meter readings every 15 minutes or less. In addition to the opportunity to help utility providers deal with the network collection and processing issues created by the volume of new data, CSPs have the opportunity to further extend their services to these enterprises by utilizing their expertise in analyzing massive volumes of network traffic to provide an analytics infrastructure and solutions tailored for these next generation Big Data problems. Mobility, Cloud and Information are, for many CSG clients, ‘bread and butter’
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP FEATURE
or core competencies. But what binds them all is the Social force of the NoF. For enterprise customers, CSPs can play an important role in connecting people within organizations—and between organizations. We are all increasingly part of an ever more complex ecosystem. This presents CSPs with a great opportunity. If they can bring together their expertise in the other three Forces and combine it with the Social or Connected Force, they have an opportunity to be at the heart of everything that is important to their enterprise customers. The health industry is an example— patient records can now be shared between medical providers that
have never been connected before, enhancing diagnosis and even saving lives. But a trusted intermediary is needed to manage that connectedness and CSPs have an opportunity to carve out a key role providing identity, authentication, encryption and QoS services for the health industry. By remaining sensitive to each of the NoF forces, CSPs can ensure that they remain at the heart of a communications ecosystem which is both innovative and constantly changing. By doing so, they will make themselves an essential partner to their enterprise customers. We see many CSPs who are successfully managing the influence on their
business of one or more of the Nexus forces, but it is rare to see them all handled equally well. For that, CSPs need to look across their entire enterprise and utilize resources, talent and ideas from some unexpected quarters to become incubators of innovation and always alert to the four Nexus Forces.
“For enterprise customers, CSPs can play an important role in connecting people within organizations— and between organizations.”
KEN JENKINSON, Senior Vice President, Software Development Ken is a 30-year industry veteran responsible for the development of CSG’s worldwide telecommunications products. He joined CSG with the acquisition of Intec Telecom Systems where he was CTO. Ken manages a worldwide development team across 7 countries and travels extensively to meet with them and major international clients to plan the next generation of CSG technology.
SPECTRUM Magazine: Issue IV info.csgi.com/morespectrum
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COFFEE WITH
Coffee With…... IAN WATTERSON Vice President and Managing Director, Asia Pacific Appointed in March 2011, Ian’s role is to leverage CSG’s market-leading products through direct and partner channels to deliver customer value. Ian joined CSG in 2006 as CFO, Americas, and was appointed Vice President Americas in 2008. During his tenure as head of the Americas region, Ian grew the Americas revenue base and was responsible for numerous strategic initiatives and new customer acquisitions. Originally from the UK, Ian’s experience spans regional operational management, corporate strategy, finance and marketing, having held senior management roles at various companies including BSkyB and Ernst & Young. SPECTRUM caught up with Ian over a latte in Brisbane where he is based—although he is rarely there, spending much of his time traveling throughout the APAC region.
SPECTRUM: Ian, you have had a truly global career and are now firmly established in the Asia Pacific region (APAC). What is it about the region that interests you? IAN WATTERSON: Having worked in high tech industries for 20 years, I’ve been fortunate to operate in countries as varied as Russia, Burkina Faso and Uruguay. Originally from the UK, I relocated to the USA in 2004 to be part of a management team building a license- and cloud-based software business across Latin and North America. I moved to Asia Pacific in 2011 to lead the high growth business CSG had acquired here and enjoy the dynamism
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“Enterprise billing can be one of the key growth engines of revenue and profitability for a CSP.”
of the region and cultural diversity of a territory ranging from Taipei to Delhi to Auckland. SPECTRUM: So what is it about the diversity that you enjoy? IAN WATTERSON: The APAC and EMEA regions are the most diverse of CSG’s regions. From culture to economic status, APAC has huge variety, and I find that very inspiring as I travel around the region visiting clients. Each of the CSG countries and subregions we serve has its own unique challenges which I enjoy helping our clients to address. For example, I was with one of our clients in Australia
SPECTRUM Magazine: Issue IV info.csgi.com/morespectrum
recently. We were comparing their situation, of a saturated market with a high proportion of postpaid customers, with Indonesia—the closest geographic nation to Australia after New Zealand —where they have over 99% prepaid subscribers, an ARPU of around US$5 and multiple SIMs. This creates markedly different competitive environments, and results in very different solutions for many aspects of their business. I relish the thought that CSG is helping clients in both countries.
COFFEE WITH
SPECTRUM: What are some of the key trends and opportunities you see in the APAC region?
IAN WATTERSON: I have been fortunate to be involved in the Enterprise market globally for over 15 years.
IAN WATTERSON: The APAC region has been an incubator for many of the global trends we’ve seen emerge recently. In our most developed markets like Taiwan and Singapore, we’ve seen some of the leading technology trends emerge, such as the testing of 5G mobile technology, and the Software Defined Networks and cloud-based virtualized operating environments that are already being deployed across the region.
When we discuss the telecoms marketplace it is often broken down into Consumer, SMB (Small Medium Business) and Enterprise. The requirements for each of these sectors can be very different depending on the maturity and competitive nature of each market.
Conversely, markets such as India are leading the way in innovative support for rural communities. RJIL is a great example of this, with their promise of education for all delivered over LTE. SPECTRUM: What trends do you see that are directly impacting Business Support Systems in APAC? How is CSG helping clients address these issues in the region? IAN WATTERSON: For all the diversity in the region, almost every provider is seeing downward pressure on their traditional revenues. Voice and SMS revenues are declining in most countries, so there is a strong pressure to replace those revenues from alternative sources. Typically those sources are in the same or adjacent markets, and are almost always concerned with digital services: our clients are moving from being Communications Services Providers (CSPs) to Digital Services Providers (DSPs). These services need to be charged for in a wide variety of ways, occur in large volumes, and are often sourced from third parties. So for Business Support Systems, this means that our customers need flexible and real-time charging, scalable and efficient systems, and sophisticated partner settlement. SPECTRUM: In this issue we have a focus on Enterprise. What does Enterprise mean to you?
CSG has a legacy of serving some of the most complex and competitive Enterprise markets in the world with our solutions, from Verizon Business in the USA to Spark New Zealand. The requirements of large enterprise customers often mean customized individual offerings, rebilling of multiple systems’ rated charges, complex hierarchies, BOBO (Billing on behalf of) arrangements and complex, multi-party partner settlements for both macro and micro transactions. CSG’s convergent charging and billing product Singleview excels in these situations. SPECTRUM: How does the management of Enterprise customers by CSPs work in the APAC region? IAN WATTERSON: The characteristics of the APAC enterprise market vary across its different regions and countries, similar to other regions around the globe. For example Australia has a well-developed Enterprise marketplace with several major players competing for large contracts. Other markets such as India have been more consumer-focused and their Enterprise market has yet to mature into the type of complex, large, longterm contracts that are the norm in the USA or Western Europe.
SPECTRUM: If you met the head of Enterprise at a CSP tomorrow, what are the key messages you would want to impart? IAN WATTERSON: Enterprise billing can be one of the key growth engines of revenue and profitability for a CSP. In many markets, while consumer penetration is slowing or has plateaued, there is much growth remaining both organically and through bringing new offerings to market in the Enterprise space. The larger contracts available in Enterprise and the growing cloudbased offerings available to a CSP make Enterprise a key focus for any provider. There are complex requirements in individual large contracts that often require dedicated account teams, but once in place the churn rate of Enterprise customers is low and the profitability and growth potential is higher than either the consumer or SMB markets. CSPs have an opportunity to establish a position in Enterprise and then build on that position to provide adjacent offerings around Cloud, M2M, smart energy or e-health. Updating current BSS infrastructure is critical to this process, and CSG is a long-term vendor with multiple assets and a long history of serving the enterprise market, delivering to its numerous customers in the space every day.
“CSG has a legacy of serving some of the most complex and competitive Enterprise markets in the world with our solutions”
We are supporting many of the mature and developing Enterprise markets from New Zealand to the Philippines, where CSPs need the breadth of capabilities CSG Singleview offers through its open architecture and complex bundling and charging capabilities.
SPECTRUM Magazine: Issue IV info.csgi.com/morespectrum
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IN DEMAND
The Need for Speed
The faster you resolve cyber threats, the better your outcomes The complexity of the modern technical enterprise is massive, and the cost in revenue and reputation that a network or systems outage creates can be crippling. So you build redundant systems, you invest in disaster recovery, you build in change management policies, all out of a desire to create a bulletproof weave of checks and balances aimed at protecting your network and your data—from yourself. But what about all those bad guys? Your chief security officer knows the facts. For even simple threats, this repeatable cycle of threat enrichment, ticket documentation, and approval takes time. By itself, it’s not overwhelming. But what happens when you’re getting hit hundreds, even thousands of times each day?
with the host of services and systems that make up your enterprise. When you’re getting hammered by cyber attacks nothing is more important than response time. When an attack comes at you at machine speed, you need to be able to respond in kind. But how?
UNIFY your defense
ORCHESTRATE your response
AUTOMATE your win
It’s too much. Staffing can’t keep up with the volume of attacks; neither can they keep up with the increasing number of technology specific toolsets that come
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ACT with confidence
SPECTRUM Magazine: Issue IV info.csgi.com/morespectrum
Think about all of the steps your Security Operation Center (SOC) teams go through just to respond to an attack. What if you could automate it? Better yet, what if you could make that automation play seamlessly with your organization’s change management process? What if you could tie all of your endpoint defenses, your SIEM, and your incident management tools into it as well? This is what security orchestration does. What took minutes, and even hours before, now takes place in seconds. The result? Your SOC team spends more time actively defending your network, and less on repetitive tasks and bookkeeping. Using security orchestration you can leverage existing investments in your enterprise—firewalls, trouble ticketing systems, change management, etc. You don’t need another tool, what you need is the tool box that brings it all together. You need InvotasTM Security Orchestrator.
AUTOMATED THREAT RESPONSE
ARE YOU AS FAST AS THEY ARE?
THE SOLUTION: AUTOMATED THREAT RESPONSE Automated Threat Response solves your biggest problem when cyber attacks flood your network—response time. By integrating your tools, workflows and processes into a single console, Security Orchestrator ensures you can detect and contain threats, protect your data, prevent revenue loss, and preserve your company’s reputation—all in just seconds.
UNIFY
Your Defenses
ORCHESTRATE Your Response
AUTOMATE
contact@csginvotas.com | +1 844 468 0827 | csginvotas.com Copyright © 2014 CSG Systems International, Inc. and/or its affiliates (“CSG”). All rights reserved.
Your Win
ACT
With Confidence
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
In the Spotlight DIGITAL LIFESTYLE SURVEY
PIPELINE INNOVATION WINNER 2014
Game-Changing Security Offering Selected for Top Security & Assurance Innovation Honor
New Research Reveals that Portability, Partnerships, and Profits Are Top-of-Mind for CSPs Digital lifestyle transactions cross both our business and personal lives. However, with digital transactions growing exponentially, Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are experiencing significant impacts to their network capacity and the billing and operational systems that support the commerce behind these transactions.
To better understand just how prepared CSPs are to embrace this change from an operational perspective, CSG survey polled nearly 100 Communications Service Providers (CSPs) in North America about key topics related to the evolution of CSP operations needed to support the digital lifestyle. Read more http://pr.news.csgi.com/press-release/ csg-releases-survey-results-supporting-todays-digitallifestyle
CSG InvotasTM™ offers holistic security solutions that enable organizations to reduce risk by cutting response times to cyber-attacks and decreasing the time analysts spend performing routine tasks. Innovation drives the everyday culture at Invotas, which can be seen in the flexible and adaptable solutions it offers—solutions that can grow and change as security needs grow and change.
“Our innovative mindset is not limited to the industry-leading technology we provide,” said Mike Henderson, president of CSG Invotas. “It also encompasses future-proof features that allow our clients to shift focus from simply supporting emerging technology to exploring the ways that technology can be used to drive business success.” http://pr.news.csgi.com/press-release/csg-invotaschosen-2014-pipeline-innovation-winner
TMC INTERNET TELEPHONY WINNER 2014
Survey Findings http://info.csgi.com/ DigitalLifestyleSurveySummary
MTN GROUP SELECTS CSG FOR MANAGED SERVICES
MTN Selects CSG for Comprehensive Managed Services Program
CSG is providing significant cost savings, vendor consolidation, and business efficiencies throughout the MTN billing stack. Under the terms of the multiyear agreement, CSG will provide end-to-end management of the MTN wholesale billing and business services platform. The engagement includes the management of a variety of complex solutions, from CSG products and services such as CSG Singleview, CSG Route, and CSG Interconnect, to home-grown MTN tools and systems from thirdparty providers. For more information, please visit http://pr.news.csgi. com/press-release/mtn-selects-csg-comprehensivemanaged-services-program
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CSG’s Singleview 9 Selected for Exceptional Innovation in Convergent Billing
Singleview 9 offers a single view of the customer through a centralized repository with out-of-box integrated customer management, convergent charging, policy and billing, and business insight. It supports multi-device customer care with the ability to address non-traditional hierarchical relationships and two- and three-sided business models that include consumer, business, enterprise, and B2B2X using a real-time convergent solution and value-based billing platform. http://pr.news.csgi.com/press-release/csg-wins-tmcinternet-telephony-magazines-2014-product-year-award
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
INMARSAT GLOBAL XPRESS®
Inmarsat Chooses CSG’s State-of-the-Art Billing Platform for New Network
Global Xpress is the world’s first globally available Ka-band, high-speed, broadband satellite network for mobile and fixed consumers. It is designed to enable seamless global coverage from a single operator and to support consistently higher performance (up to 50Mbps) delivered with the market-leading network reliability for which Inmarsat is known. “Global Xpress is a game-changer,” said Leo Mondale, Managing Director, Growth Management and Support at Inmarsat. “Our commercial success requires robust revenue management and billing solutions that enable us to take the complexity out of global high-speed connectivity and allow us to support the growing needs of our partners and customers.”
CSG UPCOMING EVENTS CSG IN ACTION
2014 •
7-8 October Melbourne, Australia •
The CSG solution will create sophisticated models to manage wholesale channel and reseller billing partners; it will also deliver the next-generation solutions necessary to meet the complex retail billing needs of direct subscribers. Pre-paid, post-paid, and hybrid billing will be supported across all Global Xpress applications and content services. Additional details can be found here http://pr.news.csgi.com/ press-release/csg-selected-support-inmarsat-global-xpress-offering
Futurecom 13-16 October 2014
CSG will help deliver those robust solutions with CSG Singleview, CSG’s nextgeneration convergent charging and billing platform, and CSG Intermediate, one of the most trusted offline and online network mediation platforms in the world.
“Our holistic billing and mediation solution will allow Inmarsat Global Xpress to evolve, adapt, and adjust to changing market needs while staying far ahead of the competition,” said George Fraser, vice president of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa at CSG.
CommsDay Summit
Sao Paulo, Brazil •
2014 Alamo ACE 27-30 October 2014 San Antonio, USA
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AfricaCom 11-13 November 2014 Cape Town, South Africa
2015 •
CES 6-9 January 2015 Las Vegas, USA
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TMC AWARD WINNER 2014
CSG Content Direct® Wins Cable Spotlight Magazine’s Product of the Year Award
CSG Content Direct®, the leading end-to-end content monetization and management platform in the world, has been chosen as a TMC Cable Spotlight 2014 Product of the Year Award winner. Many of the world’s largest entertainment companies, cable operators, studios, and retailers use CSG Content Direct as the direct-to-consumer platform of choice to offer individualized experiences for the browsing, discovery, payment, and consumption of premium digital content. Content Direct’s rich functionality is delivered seamlessly across multiple devices—from TVs to laptops to mobile devices and more—to cater to individual user preferences and viewing tendencies.
“Content Direct is literally changing the way cable providers, studios, and retailers provide direct-to-consumer digital content,” said Kent Steffen, president of CSG Content Direct. “Serving the evolved consumer across many devices requires efficient and personalized delivery. The Content Direct solution provides not only unique user experiences that allow consumers to access their content from any connected device whenever they choose, but enables our customers to market, package and sell interesting and innovative content offerings to their customers.”
Convergence India 21-23 January 2015 New Delhi, lndia
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CSO50 Security Confab & Awards 23-25 February 2015 Florida, USA
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Mobile World Congress 2-5 March 2015 Barcelona, Spain
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NGT Asia Summit 11-13 March 2015 Hong Kong
For more information please visit: http://www.tmcnet.com/ usubmit/2014/06/05/7864185.htm SPECTRUM Magazine: Issue IV info.csgi.com/morespectrum
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ENTERPRISING IDEAS FOR SERVING YOUR BUSINESS CUSTOMERS
With over 30 years’ experience in helping our clients serve their customers, it is no surprise that CSG International supports the majority of the top 100 global communications service providers, including leaders in fixed, mobile and next-generation networks such as AT&T, Comcast, DISH, France Telecom, Orange, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Time Warner Cable, Vodafone, Vivo and Verizon. More than ever, initiative and resourcefulness are needed to support the digital businesses that CSPs’ customers are becoming. Trust CSG to provide the infrastructure, applications and BSS operations that will make your enterprising ideas a reality. www.csgi.com