Telecom CRM on Cloud Challenges and
Iaas, Saas, Paas based cloud offerings are forcing the IT
managers and CIO to adopt new ways to cut the cost and change the existing IT
architecture, landscape from a predominant on-premise presence to a Cloud based
ones. This can be driven from Infrastructure, Applications or as Platform
initiatives.
This article focuses on the challenges and best road
ahead for another 3-6 yrs timeline that pertaining to adopt Software as a
Service especially for Telecom Vertical. Cost based aspects also taken into the
consideration for make more informative and perspectives taken before jumping to
final decision
making.
Vendor analysis and claims are included in final session
to make sure that what to be looked beyond a RFP response for CRM
implementation.
Challenges:
Lack of complete
solution
IT landscape for a Telecom operator is very complex,
comprising of BSS and OSS applications. As an application CRM alone can’t be on
the cloud. There should be some presence for the Billing, OSS application should
be on the cloud. At this stage, there is no other application makes CRM as
lonely application on the cloud which may throw a lot of operational challenges
in the future.
Missing Telecom
flavors
None of the CRM on the cloud has a proven Telecom flavor
for the Order Management, which is core process for any Telecom CRM
implementations. SFDC reached till CPQ. However, the ability to which Siebel
CRM supports order Management functionality it may take a huge effort required
from “Bigmachines” or Apttus CPQ to reach the level of Siebel Order
Management.
Not to mention the SID and eTOM certifications.
Neglecting them as a buzz words at this stage is better to confine the
scope.
Data
Volumes
Telecom come with huge data volumes, especially for
billing applications to be in cloud. So currently, it may take time to put those
high data intensive application on cloud and start the
operations
EDR volumes tend to increase with multiple services
provided to the
customer.
Integration
Overheads
Needs to integrate with Cloud silo applications to the on
premise applications. If you cloud offering is federated then the overhead of
integration those cloud offering is another pain. Latency due to RTT is going
may lead to some issues
later
Cost
Overheads
Cloud adoption for many product companies is attached to
their Revenue streams. Rather than providing a better solution to the end
customer.
Cloud certainly ensures there is a constant revenue
stream like a monthly recurring charge (MRC). Perform an exhaustive cost
analysis on cloud based product before leap forging to cloud
wagons.
Don’t forgot to include your current Infra, Support
spending as well, this is the place where cloud scores a handy points in their
favor.
Take 6-8 horizon into the consideration for the analysis.
Road A head and best option at this
stage:
Can we leave the ship and sit, is that an option. Never,
you have to sail. It is never an option sit and see the match. Embracing cloud
is not an option rather it is a
must.
How should be done is the right question rather than
When?
Some of the strategies can be adopted as
follows:
· Build
Cloud application around your on premise CRM: Assuming CRM as stable and serving
70%+ business needs that you have. Any new application for IoT or M2M services,
can be tested deploying from the cloud to provision. These services are mainly
driven by B2B model and have less risky considering the overall
CLM.
· Move
the functionality One at a time: Full phased migration to cloud is bit risky for
a large corporate with customer based in millions, like in Telecom. So the
transition to the cloud can be on phased approach starting with Marketing, Sales
etc. Wait for OM till a definite Maturity is attained on the
cloud.
· Think
twice before the Service Desk to be put on cloud. The product offerings in cloud
are somewhat proven. However, check on the integration complexity, Data volumes
and RTT
The following analysis on Vendor and SI are based on
publicly available information stating their current or potential presence on
the Cloud. Some of the product vendors like Huawei, Ericsson has not released
CRM cloud offering for the General availability at this
juncture.
CRM Vendor Analysis: (Pending for further
inputs)
Oracle:
Huawei:
Erricsson:
SAP:
SFDC:
Asia
Info:
Microsoft:
System Integrator
Solutions:
Wipro
TCS
Accenture
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