Integration revisited: Under new management, Beechwood tries to stay on task

A new corporate parent may have put Beechwood on the verge of an identity crisis. The operations support system integrator, freshly acquired by Cap Gemini Group, must reconcile how it has long-tried to portray itself in the U.S. carrier market with what it now represents.

As a result of the acquisition, Beechwood, the honed telecom OSS integrator, has become the North American telecom unit of one of the large, diversified consulting companies from which it previously tried to disassociate itself. The challenge for the former Beechwood - now combined with the existing telecom practice of its parent and known as Cap Gemini Telecommunications - is to maintain the neutral third-party integrator identity it worked hard to achieve.

But Beechwood doesn't necessarily view its acquisition as damaging to its public perception. Rather, the company sees the additional capabilities and reach of Cap Gemini as characteristics that will strengthen its position in the carrier market.

"This is the most comprehensive set of services that a systems integrator has ever provided in the U.S.," said Jason Donahue, a vice president of marketing for Cap Gemini Telecommunications and a carry-over from the Beechwood acquisition. "Carriers can now go to a single place for everything."

Indeed, the combination of assets from Beechwood and Cap Gemini pack a wallop as far as integration capabilities go. Beechwood's contributions include experience in post-merger OSS consolidation, flow-through provisioning, carrier-to-carrier OSS interconnection, new carrier OSS integration and OSS implementation for Internet protocol (IP) networks. Cap Gemini adds specialties in customer relationship management, customer care and billing - items of ever-increasing importance for all carriers.

"The high-level offerings are similar, but there's a lot more depth," Donahue said. "This merger allows us to finally flesh out these offerings in the market."

For example, Cap Gemini's mergers and acquisitions practice adds a pre-merger OSS unification effort to Beechwood's post-merger acumen, said Perry Snow, also a vice president of marketing at Cap Gemini Telecommunications. Cap Gemini also brings sales and marketing consulting components, and experience in information acquisition efforts such as data warehousing, that could help the combined company better advise carriers on customer strategies and other competitive issues.

"We've counseled a number of new and growing carriers about competing in the price wars," Snow said.

The growing need for IP OSS integration guidance could also be enhanced by the union. Cap Gemini has an R&D lab for IP OSS development, where the combined company can continue to develop its efforts to adapt its telco-optimized approach to Internet service providers and other IP-focused carriers, Donahue said.

Another positive is that Cap Gemini Telecommunications will continue to be led by Ron Ponder, the Beechwood CEO responsible for putting the company on a straight integration track - shedding software development efforts and opening itself to multiple partnerships.

That partnership development effort will continue on course, said the company's principals. Even as more software developers try to integrate their own products, Cap Gemini Telecommunications will continue to work with them as a neutral partner that can take their software, combine it with other OSS components and mold it all to fit a given carrier's specific needs.

"We generally look for partners that derive less than 20% of their revenue from services," Snow said. "If they're not product-focused, they're probably not an ideal partner for us."

At its core, Cap Gemini's acquisition of Beechwood was a geographic play. Beechwood's efforts at being a telecom systems integrator and consultant only positioned the company well among U.S. carriers - something Cap Gemini needed.

"In their own language, Cap Gemini called Beechwood a leading American company in the OSS market," said Jeff Cotrupe, a senior analyst at RHK. "Those are telling words. Beechwood only began making a serious push into OSS four or five years ago, but they had already established a bankable name. Cap Gemini wasn't really on the map. They really needed this."