Transforming the Business Support System (BSS)
March 23, 2021
RESEARCH REPORT
In brief
In brief
- COVID-19 and disruptive forces have fundamentally changed communications industry and what’s expected of Communications Service Providers (CSPs).
- CSPs are mired in technical debt, can’t quickly change course when market forces require, and suffer from high operating costs.
- At the root of these challenges is the Business Support Systems (BSS) that CSPs have spent decades and untold amounts of money building.
- Transforming the BSS via the cloud is an imperative for CSPs. Accenture has developed an integrated solution framework to help the transformation.
In the past decade, technology-driven disruption has affected all industries. The impact has been especially strong for the communications industry and CSPs. The COVID-19 pandemic has only added fuel to the fire, changing the way consumers live, learn, work, and play and further accelerating digital transformation at both the consumer and enterprise levels.
During the pandemic, many businesses struggled mightily, but CSPs overall have performed well. Despite the massive increase in consumers’ demand for bandwidth, CSPs’ networks were resilient and customers were largely pleased with CSPs’ performance.
Yet CSPs are struggling to respond
COVID-19 has also intensified demands on CSPs, so they can’t rest on their laurels. Greater dependency leads to increased customer expectations for powerful new products, delivered more quickly. But they’re mired in technical debt, can’t quickly change course when market forces require, and suffer from high operating costs. This adds up to an increasingly uncompetitive position in the industry relative to other players and an inability to capitalize on new growth potential. At the root of these challenges is the system of record—the BSS. Modernizing the legacy BSS is critical for CSPs in order to adopt a new business model that positions them to capture revenue-generating opportunities created by disruptive changes across the communications industry (for example, monetization in the era of 5G and edge computing).
BSS transformation requires CSPs to embrace a leaner, agile, and intelligent infrastructure as the company’s backbone—and the way to do that is through the cloud.
Redefine the BSS
By transforming the BSS, CSPs can more quickly and easily reinvent their core business, develop ecosystem partnerships that will help them create richer new offerings, and optimize customer touchpoints and the end-to-end experience with personalization and customization. Cloud-based solutions will enable CSPs to create significant economic value by both boosting revenue by as much as 3 to 5% and by cutting costs by 20 to 30%.
From legacy to intelligent BSS
- Cloud-native infrastructure to fuel the move from legacy to a smart BSS that is more automated, responsive, personalized, and scalable and provides the agility to evolve to remain leading edge and affordable
From on-premise to cloud-based platforms
- Serverless data platforms
- Modularized, containerized “anywhere” data solutions
- PaaS and SaaS as testing grounds for new initiatives
- Lower IT infrastructure investment to free up budget for new business lines
- Pluggable platform that preserves openness and interoperability with other platforms to build a true ecosystem environment
From point-to-point to decoupled data access
- API management platform
- Service platform virtualization to ensure communication service functional and technical decoupling
- Decoupling techniques that enable “from prototype to production” with a low software and infrastructure investment and untethered from the telco core
From batch to real-time processing
- Real-time data streaming and analysis for immediate decision making
- Recommendations and predictions
- Integrated with ERP and CRM systems
View All
Accelerating the transformation with Accenture
Accenture has developed an integrated solution framework to help guide CSPs’ cloud-based BSS transformation. The framework is tailored to the communication industry’s unique business and technology requirements, reflects recent implications from the pandemic, and is underpinned by Accenture’s distinctive, integrated technology assets that have been developed in concert with leading technology providers. With this framework, CSPs can realize the cloud’s twin value proposition of greater revenue and lower costs.
The Accenture Integrated Solution Framework
Explore the framework for cloud-based BSS transformation.
read moreThe future
The key to future growth hinges on the BSS for CSPs who can no longer tolerate their legacy BSSs that are costly, rigid, and siloed, and that impede the kind of innovation CSPs desperately need to remain relevant and competitive. It’s time for CSPs to use the cloud.
As the saying goes, the only constant in this industry is change. And big change is what CSPs need today so they can thrive tomorrow.
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