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ON THE
RECORD
|
Accelerating change: A Q&A
with
Telus' Kevin Salvadori
By Tim McElligott
November 6, 2007
Kevin Salvadori, executive vice-president of business transformation
and
chief information officer at Telus, gave one of three keynote addresses
today at TM Forum's Management World Americas in Dallas. As his title
suggests, Salvadori is managing his company's immense wireline
transformation project. On Friday, he spoke with Telephony
Senior
Editor Tim McElligott about life on the driving side of transformation
and his guest appearance at the forum.
On creating a new Telus:
Telus circa 2000 would have been a regional, Western-based wireless and
wireline operator with $5.7 billion in revenue. But we set a new
strategy then to be a carrier focused on wireless, data and IP. And we
have transformed the organization into almost a $9 billion per-year
company and have had very strong success developing that strategy.
We come from the merger of a lot of different organizations. And when I
came here in 2004 (after coming to Telus Mobility with its acquisition
of Clearnet in 2000) the wireline side of our business really had a
very
fragmented application environment and that was not conducive to the
kind of changes our business was really demanding.
We set out a vision based on a few key business objectives. We wanted
flexibility in entering new business markets. We wanted to reduce cost
by automating processes and to provide timely, accurate and relevant
information for decision makers. We really didn't have the platform we
needed to provide broad differentiation. And it was difficult for us at
the time to know exactly what our customers were using. So we set out
this vision for our transformation program called Imagine. Our
environment has substantially changed.
Click here or scroll down to read the full-length interview.
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NEWS FROM THE SHOW FLOOR
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IN PRINT
|
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FEATURE
|
Big-picture analysis
highlights
importance of strategic balance
By Tim McElligott
November 6, 2007
The TM Forum's Business Benchmarking group and analyst firm OSS
Observer
released the first of a series of industry updates this week that
complement and make more consumable the forum's in-depth industry
benchmarking study reports. The update report also provides additional
analysis and makes recommendations on investing in next-generation
technologies and capabilities.
The report paints a sobering picture of global telecom market dynamics
that includes PSTN revenue being cut in half over the next four years
and the boom days of the 1990s disappearing in the rearview mirror. The
report is sobering not because the market looks grim -- it doesn't --
but because the challenges for communications service providers are
both
daunting and risky...
Click here or scroll down to read the full-length feature.
|
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|
ON THE RECORD
(FULL-LENGTH)
|
Accelerating change: A Q&A
with
Telus' Kevin Salvadori
By Tim McElligott
November 6, 2007
Kevin Salvadori, executive vice-president of business transformation
and
chief information officer at Telus, gave one of three keynote addresses
today at TM Forum's Management World Americas in Dallas. As his title
suggests, Salvadori is managing his company's immense wireline
transformation project. On Friday, he spoke with Telephony
Senior
Editor Tim McElligott about life on the driving side of transformation
and his guest appearance at the forum.
On creating a new Telus:
Telus circa 2000 would have been a regional, Western-based wireless and
wireline operator with $5.7 billion in revenue. But we set a new
strategy then to be a carrier focused on wireless, data and IP. And we
have transformed the organization into almost a $9 billion per-year
company and have had very strong success developing that strategy.
We come from the merger of a lot of different organizations. And when I
came here in 2004 (after coming to Telus Mobility with its acquisition
of Clearnet in 2000) the wireline side of our business really had a
very
fragmented application environment and that was not conducive to the
kind of changes our business was really demanding.
We set out a vision based on a few key business objectives. We wanted
flexibility in entering new business markets. We wanted to reduce cost
by automating processes and to provide timely, accurate and relevant
information for decision makers. We really didn't have the platform we
needed to provide broad differentiation. And it was difficult for us at
the time to know exactly what our customers were using. So we set out
this vision for our transformation program called Imagine. Our
environment has substantially changed.
On his approach:
Our focus from an architecture perspective is really an open
[service-oriented architecture] approach, which will allow us to make
easy changes on our front end and have architecturally compliant
application partners and not have to drive a ton of customization.
We wanted to have network abstraction and service abstraction layers so
you could provide new services and not have to change your OSS and BSS
systems completely when you changed your underlying network. We have
had
strong executive support for this major transformation effort. And to
my
knowledge, we are the only carrier in North America to drive something
of this magnitude. We have enabled an environment that substantially
simplifies the highly fragmented world that existed before. We have
enabled a fully converged platform, and we have moved more than 1
million customers onto our new platform, and it's been business as
usual
on the customer care end.
On how the TM Forum can help:
I would like to see a faster pace of change across the industry. We
have
led in this space not by a desire to be first, but because others have
not blazed the trail before us. I think the industry can do a better
job
of driving these changes. We really see the transformation of OSS as a
core part of the strategic change in our business, and I don't feel
that
as within TMF we have elevated the importance of this to the level it
needs to be.
We definitely need eTOM and the NGOSS framework. We use them as
reference standards to look at where we are in our thinking and to make
sure we are not re-inventing the wheel in places where we don't need
to.
But for us, it is a broader issue than just TMF. We certainly support
and help drive TMF standards where we can, but based in our size as a
Tier II carrier, standard are critical for us to move forward in this
space. If I compare telecom to cable, we could certainly improve the
way
we adopt standard across the industry.
On the drivers of transformation:
IT is not driving our transformation. We partner with "the business"
[folks] to drive transformational projects. We both see the business as
an equal partner, and we both have critical roles to play. The business
needs to play a lead role in driving change into operations and ensure
we reap the benefits on either the revenue or cost side of projects.
We really expect significant revenue enhancements and faster product
development times through this transformation. We also expect a broader
adoption of our products. But we also expect a cost savings through
improved customer churn, call center efficiencies and IT costs --
although I am not in a position to talk specifics. Both cost and
revenue
are equal from an initial business case perspective, but the strategic
driver for us was much more on revenue and product development
speed-to-market. We also felt we needed to prove out the convergent
model.
On the sudden and growing interest in device management:
We are a long way from the early adopters who love to rip open their
Linksys modems and configure them to death. The majority just wants to
plug it in, have things work and have someone else take care of the
complexity. And that is driving the need for a lot of device management
at the edge. We view this as core to our future because to get further
adoption of technology on the wireline side you need more IP devices in
the home. And we have to manage the complexity of services because at
the end of the day, we are the organization that gets called when there
is a support issue.
|
Back to Top
FEATURE
(FULL-LENGTH)
|
Big-picture analysis
highlights
importance of strategic balance
By Tim McElligott
November 6, 2007
The TM Forum's Business Benchmarking group and analyst firm OSS
Observer
released the first of a series of industry updates this week that
complement and make more consumable the forum's in-depth industry
benchmarking study reports. The update report also provides additional
analysis and makes recommendations on investing in next-generation
technologies and capabilities.
The report paints a sobering picture of global telecom market dynamics
that includes PSTN revenue being cut in half over the next four years
and the boom days of the 1990s disappearing in the rearview mirror. The
report is sobering not because the market looks grim -- it doesn't --
but because the challenges for communications service providers are
both
daunting and risky.
Global revenue growth will be 6% through 2001, according to OSS
Observer. That's twice as fast as it has grown historically for North
American and Western European providers. However, much of that growth
is
being driven by double-digit rates of growth in Russia, China, India,
Indonesia, the Middle East and Africa and Latin America -- basically
everywhere but here.
And the global mobile market is even more promising with a 26%
subscriber growth rate last year that propelled the number of users to
2.5 billion. Global revenue grew by 18% to $712 billion, but again, not
in the established markets. There it was 14%. However, subscriber
growth
could come to a standstill soon unless operators are willing to drive
it
at the cost of, in turn, driving average revenue per user through the
floor.
To drive revenue with new services, service providers will have to
continue to invest in new service delivery capabilities and also
continue to drive automation throughout the business.
The study focuses on five "balance points" -- areas identified through
benchmarking, which service providers need to weigh their investment
options carefully. These points are (1) operational spending vs.
customer loss; (2) prepaid vs. postpaid (surprisingly, there is no
difference in retention for the two payment methods); (3) retaining and
acquiring customers; (4) service availability vs. profitability; and
(5)
timing, commitments and profitability.
"This work is a wonderful example of what the TM Forum is for, which is
to help the industry be as successful as possible," said Tonia Graham,
program manager for the TM Forum Business Benchmarking Program and
co-author of the report along with OSS Observer's Larry Goldman. "It is
one thing to say we are dedicated to supporting the membership through
this critical time as the industry transforms; it is another to belly
up
to the bar and give them something they can use."
Graham said that if service providers are going to stay in business and
thrive, the decisions they make today will have a very high impact on
their future. And the takeaway from this study is how important it will
be to maintain a balance, she said.
The balance will be between investing in infrastructure that gets you
where you will need to be in the future or in services and capabilities
that customers value. "Some service providers have chosen to attain
high
service availability, which they will need in the future, but which the
customer may not value right now," Graham said. "There are so many
trade-offs. It's great to be goal-oriented and reach six-nines
availability, but meanwhile some other part of your business has gone
in
the tank."
The report is an attempt to make sense of all the metrics the forum
collects in its major study to help service providers make these tough
decisions. Take, for example, customer care. Many company leaders
believe the way to success is through gold-level customer service for
everybody all the time. Not so, according to the report. Comparing the
customer loss rate, for example, between operators with best-in-class
performance in this area for both prepay and post-paid services, it is
very difficult to significantly improve. "It may be best to put your
effort and investment into other improvements," the report said.
This is an example of the benefits for operators that participate in
the
program and are able to compare their performance to other operators.
If
you are already among the best in a category, you can look to other
categories where you may not be the best and invest there.
While revenue growth hovers at 6%, the report said there are pockets of
higher growth opportunity in residential broadband and business
services. The key to taking advantage of these opportunities lies in
process automation, because it both keeps the lid on operational costs
and speeds up the delivery of new services.
The bottom line is: "Make sure your customers want the things you think
they do. If they don't, you'd better be spending the money elsewhere,"
the report said.
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