Convergys Q&A: Cable, M2M, utilities and the 'underlying truth'

Following the recent announcement that relationship management company Convergys had cemented its OSS relationship with Sigma Systems, Connected Planet tracked down Michelle Nowak, global head of strategy, solutions and marketing for the cable, broadband and satellite market sectors at Convergys, to find out why. After all they already have OSS capabilities.

Connected Planet: You have an existing OSS strategy in place. Does this announcement mean that the old agreement is no longer intact or is it just new business, or a new focus?

Michelle Nowak: We are very happy with our existing OSS offering, so there is no issue there. The Sigma announcement is a sealing of an existing relationship. We have had a gentleman’s agreement with Sigma for a while and our systems are already integrated. We think Sigma is ahead of industry trends and we believe that formalizing the agreement is a natural extension of our current offerings.

Connected Planet: So where will this extension lead you?

Michelle Nowak: There are many emerging opportunities. Cable, for instance, is now moving outside its comfort zone, going beyond residential into commercial markets, what is referred to as ‘large, local’ and the small, medium business market. To address these areas we believe it is important to offer a holistic, end-to-end stack. There are trends in cable that are exciting – initiatives in prepaid, personal subscriptions, rather than device specific subscriptions and TV Everywhere, which is changing the way that we view content. There are trends in the virtual world, the emergence of the CVNO – cable virtual network operator – where MSOs are talking to consumer brands about offering their own cable service. In the UK, for instance, supermarket Tesco is offering Virgin Media.

Cable companies are offering business services now, too, across their territories. They want to expand the market that addresses SMBs, and also hospitals, education and government. As part of this, the big players are beginning to offer cable from the cloud. Cable companies are also considering the mobile space – and have been for some time – and some are now ‘quad’ players.

Connected Planet: I can see the extra flexibility that is needed there – what other markets are on the horizon?

Michelle Nowak: We are also looking at utilities as a market. We already have customers, of course, but with the roll out of smart meters there are big opportunities for providers to provision and manage that network. The focus in utilities, apart from the immediate provisioning opportunity, is really about customer loyalty. Since they are not offering specific convergent services, apart from some prepaid/post paid initiatives, a huge focus will be customer service. Europe will drive a lot of the competition, beyond price.

Connected Planet: How about M2M, does that require a separate stack?

Michelle Nowak: It depends, like most things, on what the provider’s goal is. With M2M a lot of the talk about separate stacks is actually driven by a legacy discussion. There are still a lot of legacy systems out there and they are not able to perform the complex rating required, nor are they able to cope with the real time requirements. With M2M there is the requirement to bill, charge, settle, reconcile and therefore perform multiple rating functions.

Connected Planet: I see that, but isn’t the legacy question like the elephant in the room?

Michelle Nowak: It is and everyone has their opinion. We generally advocate a ‘solve and evolve’ approach rather than a ‘rip and replace’ one. There is a huge return on investment issue here – the rip and replace strategy is very risky and nowadays time is of the essence.

Connected Planet: We have talked about several seemingly different markets and opportunities, is there an underlying trend that you see as important for you and the market?

Michelle Nowak: To me the real underlying strategic question is whether you create revenue or stickiness. This is not as strange as it sounds – in Europe, for instance, the instinct of companies, based on the culture is to monetize services, whereas in other territories it can be more valuable to use new services and products to reduce churn, to create greater loyalty amongst customers. Certainly, networks need to create value of some kind it is a question of judgment as to which direction to take.

Connected Planet: Whether cable companies or telcos choose one or the other, is there another, underlying, truth or strategy that will deliver the right results.

Michelle Nowak: Actually yes. Although it has been said many times and it now sounds almost too familiar the goal must be customer knowledge, customer intimacy. Service providers must know what their customers want to watch, see, interact with, purchase, where they want to do it, with which device and when. The only way to get there is with real time actionable intelligence. And that is on its way, for sure.