Most of the companies I've spoken with have had to build their own OSS/BSS systems to run their Software-as-a-Service operation. Provisioning, metering, and billing are core business functions for service delivery organizations, and while there are custom aspects to them, and hence good reason to build your own, there are probably better reasons to buy them off the shelf… if they were available.
Companies like Portal Software and Convergys have long supplied these systems to the telco industry, yet I've seen no indication that they are moving to engage the SaaS segment; nor have I heard of VC-backed startups targeting this critical infrastructure space.
A related need is that for a robust pricing engine that is capable of handling multiple pricing schemes (i.e. per transaction, per user-month, or per CPU-month). Again, this is a core business function, and as we saw in the great Telco battle between Verizon and AT&T Wireless, the winner is the one that can combine their difference service assets into the widest variety of packages. The story behind this (from my perspective) was partly due to integration (Verizon made the investments required to integrate their dozen-plus backend billing systems) and partly due to pricing & packaging - the ability to target a new demographic or customer segment with a custom package that is more attractive than the competition.
One quote I heard in the last few months - and I apologize, I have forgotten who said it - is that in the end, telco margin per customer is probably the same between "friends and family", "small business", and "enterprise" packages… but the success of the business is in crafting the package that feels right to the target customer and incents them to make the purchase. So Verizon won, because they used their pricing agility to win new customers.
The corollary for SaaS that I'm taking away is that pricing flexibility is going to be key to competitive advantage… which brings me back to "where are the OSS/BSS apps for SaaS?"
I echo your sentiments Sam and feel that there is a need for SaaS offerings in the Telco space especially for VNOs...
I feel that it will still be time for large Telcos to adopt this model and move away from their investments of OSS/BSS systems they have built over the years.
In emerging and fast moving Telcom countries like India there could be more openness to this model.
There is a clear need of different pricing models for new generation of services. Also the time-to-market for new services is very short.
Questions are > What impact will this have on teh Telco's internal IT workforce > How do we integrate with existing systems > Can we build linkages to 3rd party content providers > Can we use Offshore based model for this ???
Posted by: jags | August 23, 2006 at 08:21 PM
Hi
I'm currently investigating the intresset in SaaS for BSS, so I want to now if your still wondering
Doow
Posted by: doow | December 02, 2006 at 12:33 PM
We have launched our SaaS for BSS it's called SIMiX. More information is available on http://www.simix.com.au
Posted by: FrankGee | May 06, 2007 at 11:53 PM