In The Loop

The data discussion is heating up for utilities. Anyone who isn’t paying attention after this week’s news may want to start.

The smart grid renovation of the utility market is going to create a torrent of usage data like nothing the utility industry has seen before. It’s something telecoms and wireless operators have dealt with for a while now: timely usage, two-way machine communications, and near-real-time account updates from the consumer device. And we in the billing and OSS space who serve these operators understand the data magnitude intuitively. But it’s going to be a change for utility operators who are used to gathering usage once every month or two. A reality check, you might say.

The buzz around Google and Zigbee in the home area networking space lends even more credibility to the size of the data project that lies ahead for all of us as the smart grid become reality. When the world’s most prevalent data miner gets involved, you know there’s value in the space. Jesse Berst at Smart Grid News raises the question this week of whether Google can overtake the Zigbee standard already begun.

It may be that utilities will borrow the experience and lessons learned by the telecom industry as they prepare to build the networks that will carry this data. Or, they may stay traditional and build it themselves. We’ll be discussing this with others in the utility space in a few weeks at the B/OSS Live event in D.C. Join us there or let us know your thoughts here. And stay tuned. More…

In 2011, it’s an amazing time to be in business, especially in the technology business. New speeds, systems and protocols we never imagined 10 years ago are being launched all the time. It’s a time of sweeping change in the telecom, cable and utility industries, and yet I’m hearing a constant theme over and over again. Despite all these technological advances around the globe, business still boils down to just one thing — customers.

The companies destined to succeed are those that continually seek a culture of customer service. By that, I mean they seek to infuse their companies with values, processes and tools that help them understand and serve their customers — because the customers are their business.

Our goal at Cycle30 is to assist service providers, which are our customers, by providing some of those values, tools and processes that bring them closer to their own customers. We think service providers’ ability to truly know and serve their subscribers with perfect service is really the holy grail. Many seek this, but too many fall far too short of the goal

Technology is amazing. It helps us every day. But while it can bring enormous benefits, it can’t help you take care of customers if your values and processes aren’t in place as well. None of us can afford to forget that customers always hold the power in the customer-provider relationship: the power to trust you with their services, and, more importantly, with their hearts.

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Request for proposals (RFPs) are popular today in enterprise services. The RFP entity contributes one thing to a billing evaluation process, which is documenting a service provider’s or carrier’s requirements. That’s it! The purpose of an RFP should be to state what the business wants to achieve in a better world, if these systems can be found to exist, and nothing more. The RFP is simply a piece of paper that can be discussed and re-architected on and on.

The downside, unfortunately, is that these RFPs drive vendor evaluations and selections, and this process can take months or even years in an enterprise, order-to-cash, billing decision for telecom, cable and utility BSS. After all the evaluation, some enterprises decide to do nothing.

RFPs help enterprise purchasers evaluate vendors on a scale from 1-10. Often, six to ten vendors blindly get the RFP with an invitation to bid and a subjective look into one’s true capabilities. The vendor’s answers to these RFP questions come down to making the cut or being eliminated. Many times, all this effort has run its course before one real conversation between customer and vendor takes place.

RFP processes don’t save time. In fact, they waste time on both sides, where vendors offer up proprietary information without visibility into the real nature and seriousness of the request. Customers waste time on analysis, ranking and meaning of the requirements and answers. Too much time wasted on both sides that could be avoided if communication and collaboration were better between customer and vendor.

Enterprise billing solutions are the kind that many companies really only want to select, implement and run once. So why not eliminate the lengthy RFP process and instead open up the vendor contest to a select few vendors that can do the job. Customers, do your homework upfront and put a realistic analysis together that not only has the technical requirements documented but also includes the more human or culture factors too. It’s more than just Vendor A or Vendor B meets/does not meet the requirement.

In the end, customers and vendors will have to work together daily so that they can collaborate when it’s time to execute. That means a lot more than whether the software solution meets that RFP requirement in Section B, Question 210. Eliminate these boring RFPs, start on the real objectives and goals at hand, open up the process, talk to your vendors frequently, and let them know what the playing field will be like and what it will take to win your company’s confidence.

In the end, organizations that eliminate the RFP process and just pick the few vendors that can execute is a better return on investment, and a more efficient selection process. And a vendor/partner that is truly the best in class and vested in the continued success of your organization.

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A couple of weeks ago, we joined the gathering of independent cable operators at the American Cable Association annual Summit in Washington D.C. Attendance was fantastic, and the energy in the room and conference sessions was high. Even the social activities seemed to hit the spot for everyone, including the Capitol Steps performance at the House of Sweden.

It's an exciting time in cable. New bandwidth demands from consumers, digital TV, 3D TV and multi-platform technologies are making cable operators part of the American household more than ever before. At the same time, the fragmentation of media is creating uncertainty about cable operators' role — specifically what happens to TV with all of the Internet usage, over-the-top (OTT) Netflix-style TV services, and cellular data rates that are approaching TV-like video viewing. Most people seem to agree that cable TV remains at the heart of U.S. households' entertainment centers, but the world is definitely evolving.

The regulatory environment is also intense. We heard from ACA Chairman Steve Friedman of Wave Broadband about the FCC's review of retransmission — something cable operators have called for for years. We also heard from U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, chair of the House Communications & Technology Subcommittee, about the latest news on retransmission, spectrum policy and Net Neutrality debate.

One thing was clear from the hundreds of attendees at this year's summit: America's independent cable industry is healthy and vibrant — and determined to seek the systems, programming, and environment they need to keep delivering great content to customers all across the U.S. Cycle30 was glad to be there, and glad to be a part of the ACA supporting the cable industry.

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