Integra: Bridging the Telecom and Data Divide (Blog)
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Transcript of Integra: Bridging the Telecom and Data Divide (Blog)
2/10/2015 Big Data Analytics & Telecom: Business Intelligence Opportunities
http://blog.integratelecom.com/bridging-telecom-data-divide/ 1/10
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Home » Executive Insights • Technology • Top Stories March 2014
» Bridging the Telecom and Data Divide
Bridging the Telecom and DataDivideBy Robert McCarroll On March 19, 2014 In Executive Insights, Technology,
Top Stories March 2014 1 Comment
Four Steps to Transforming Your Business
Big Data. To most people, it’s the latest buzzword, the next frontier forachieving competitive advantage. For Communications ServiceProviders (CSPs)—it’s an everyday part of how we do business.
CSPs have always lived in the world of Big Data. Everything we do asa networking and communications company generates data – fromnetwork performance, to bandwidth utilization, to traffic prioritization,and service delivery—packets of information are quite literally flowingnonstop throughout our operation. And the volume is growing, withnetwork performance and utilization reaching unprecedented levels asXaaS adoption moves workloads to the clouds.
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2/10/2015 Big Data Analytics & Telecom: Business Intelligence Opportunities
http://blog.integratelecom.com/bridging-telecom-data-divide/ 2/10
The challenge for CSPs like Integra, and telecom as a whole, hasnever been a dearth of information, but rather the ability to analyze itacross disparate business units in realtime to gain actionable insightsand drive improvement. In “Analytics: RealWorld Use of Big Data inTelecommunications,” the IBM Institute for Business Value states that,more than in any other industry, CSPs define Big Data as thecapabilities needed to perform realtime information analysis, with 40%taking this view in comparison with 15% of respondents across otherindustries.
As a recent Heavy Reading study, sponsored by Huawei on “Big Dataand Advanced Analytics in Telecom: a MultiBillion Dollar RevenueOpportunity” asserts:
“Service providers are sitting on terabytes of data that are stored insilos and scattered across the organization…however, most serviceproviders suffer from realtime decisionmaking challenges. Mostoperational decisions are either made manually, or they’re hardcodedinside the business/operations support system application, whichmeans they are not dynamic and cannot keep up with changingbusiness environments.”
We are literally sitting on a gold mine of digital data, with theopportunity to understand our customers and improve service deliveryat an unparalleled level. It’s a priceless corporate asset, particularly inan increasingly competitive environment, with the potential to deliversignificant competitive advantage across the value chain, including:network infrastructure and management, service delivery, operationalefficiency, marketing and sales, and product innovation—all of whichdirectly impact the customer experience.
There’s nothing but upside to the exploration of Big Data in telecom,and yet, as an industry, we’re behind the curve on mining itsopportunities. In the IBM 2013 Global CMO study, over 53% oftelecommunications CMOs said that data will have the greatest impacton their organization over the next three to five years (Tweet this!), butmore than 70% of those same respondents feel unprepared to dealwith its complexity or speed. In the 2013 Global CSuite Study, 55% ofCIOs report concerns that they’re missing a scalable foundation for BigData. This may explain why only 16% of COOs are currently usingadvanced analytics to inform decisions, while 76% are planning (orperhaps hoping) to do so in the next two to five years (Tweet this!).
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2/10/2015 Big Data Analytics & Telecom: Business Intelligence Opportunities
http://blog.integratelecom.com/bridging-telecom-data-divide/ 3/10
So what’s stopping us as an industry? And more, importantly, how dowe get out of our own way?
There are many ways to answer those questions, I suppose, with avariety of explanations and suggested paths forward. To simplify, I’dsay that we, as an industry, need to commit to change in four coreareas.
1. Breaking Down Barriers to Organizational Collaboration
As previously stated, it’s not a lack of data that’s the problem. It’sthe ability to connect it all in a 360 degree view across theorganization that is the top operational challenge for serviceproviders. Fixing that requires fundamental changes in bothattitudes toward collaboration, and the analytical capabilities thatenable it.
Telecom is an industry that has traditionally functioned in silos andit’s time for that to change. To quote one technology Chief SupplyChain Officer from the IBM study “we need to collaborate andcreate a transparent supply chain.” We need to learn from OverTheTop (OTT) providers like Google and Facebook who treatdata as king, with virtually every product decision flowing fromwhat the available data says about customers and how it can beused.
At Integra, we’re working on doing this exact thing, moving awayfrom thinking of data on the operational side as an end tobusiness process improvements, and instead looking at how it canenable improvements in other areas of the organization, includingproduct development, customer service delivery and industryinnovation. We’re investigating how we can leverage securityrelated data, and other information to add value to customers andacross the ecosystem.
Other Chief Operations and Supply Chain Officers seem to bemoving in the same direction, however slowly, with 56% expectingmore openness in the coming years, and a drastic increase insupply chain integration within the next five.
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2/10/2015 Big Data Analytics & Telecom: Business Intelligence Opportunities
http://blog.integratelecom.com/bridging-telecom-data-divide/ 4/10
Source: IBM CSuite Study
The bottom line here is that any Big Data pilot program needs tobe crossfunctional to succeed—with representation from networkoperations, IT, product development, finance, marketing andperhaps even customers, who can all bring their varied functionalexpertise to the table.
2. Bringing Advanced Analytics Capabilities to the Table
Of course, the other half of this equation is a move towardsadvanced analytics, which offer more robust collaboration andinsight capabilities to support crossdepartmental efforts.
Analytics have grown up since the good old days, and we need tokeep pace. Check out this chart for an easy comparison betweenLegacy Analytics vs. Big Data (aka “Advanced”) Analytics.
2/10/2015 Big Data Analytics & Telecom: Business Intelligence Opportunities
http://blog.integratelecom.com/bridging-telecom-data-divide/ 5/10
Source: Heavy Reading, “Big Data & Advanced Analytics inTelecom,” Sponsored by Huawei
Advanced analytics don’t replace traditional or legacy analytics,but instead “fill in the gaps” between structured and unstructureddata, allowing for richer context and deeper insight, while helpingeliminate silos gradually and organically with improved decisionmaking across the organization.
Big Data analytics also enable predictive planning, an area withhuge potential upside for the industry (Tweet this!). Imagine, forexample, if we were able to use the information advancedalarming systems provide us about failures to predict theconditions that lead to them? What about the information we haveabout our customers’ networks? Perhaps several minutes worth ofoverutilization on a single VPN link is not cause for alarm, or aminor fan tray warning, but we can begin to compile and trendacross thousands of circuits, alarms, and conditions to predictwhen the aggregate of smaller occurrences will spell imminentfailure. The possibilities are endless.
3. Leading with Existing Data, Not Objectives, To UncoverNew Insights
Although the temptation might be to look at Big Data through thelens of solving business challenges, the smarter path is to avoidthe oldschool topdown method of setting up a problem to besolved and looking for a path to solving it. This approach isinherently flawed, as it lends itself to bias, and usually doesn’tyield any real revelations.
As a great article by global consulting firm Booz & Co.recommending a bottomup approach states, “Data has noagenda. It’s incorruptible, it has no boss, it doesn’t want to bepromoted, and it doesn’t quit.” (Tweet this!)
CSPs need to start with the data that’s readily available and seewhere it leads, being prepared to act quickly and iteratively, inagile cycles not burdened down by the usual approvals and gatingprocesses. The data has to be allowed to speak for itself, bringingout the obvious connections, as well as the unexpected, ultimately
2/10/2015 Big Data Analytics & Telecom: Business Intelligence Opportunities
http://blog.integratelecom.com/bridging-telecom-data-divide/ 6/10
leading to insights that provide a holistic view of the customer anda transparent view of the operation that serves them. This not onlyis the path of least resistance, it also allows us to focus on themost mature, wellunderstood data available to us.
Source: Booz & Company, Benefiting from Big Data: A NewApproach for the Telecom Industry
More than half of CSPs are using internal data as the primarysource of data within their organizations, which suggests hugeuntapped potential still exists within its troves. We need tocontinue to take a pragmatic approach towards sourcing andapproaching data analysis, while investigating new methods toferret out analytical insights with enhanced tools.
4. Focusing On CustomerCentric Outcomes andImprovements
Finally, at the end of the day, the customer has to be at the centerof everything we do as service providers. It’s a cutthroat world outthere, and increasingly the customer is in control, as they rightlyshould be. Not only do we have to be competitive, we need to giveour newly empowered customers “reasons to believe” bycontinuously focusing on their needs and how we can better servethem.
Next to delivering on shareholders expectations of increasingrevenues and reducing Opex, customer loyalty and customerexperience rank as the highest business objectives for telecom
2/10/2015 Big Data Analytics & Telecom: Business Intelligence Opportunities
http://blog.integratelecom.com/bridging-telecom-data-divide/ 7/10
providers in 2014.
Source: Heavy Reading, “Big Data & Advanced Analytics inTelecom,” Sponsored by Huawei
It’s a huge driver for us at Integra, where we vow to “measure oursuccess through the eyes of our customers” by delivering“Technology you trust. People you know.” It’s our objective to setourselves apart from the competition by offering a superiorcustomer experience, with hightouch, responsive service andreliable products tailored to our customers’ business success.
Big Data can only advance us in the pursuit of understanding ourcustomers and connecting with them in ways they value. That iswhy we, as an organization, and in my department as a part ofthat organization, are moving quickly to implement the above foursteps to reap its rewards. It won’t be easy, but it will betransformative—helping us better understand, predict, and givecustomers what they want today, and tomorrow.
Data is part of the operational DNA of our organization, as anetworking and communications company. It’s inherent in everythingwe do, which is why its intrinsic value can often be overlooked or goesunnoticed. It’s our job as service providers to look deeper, more closelyat what may very well turn out to be the most valuable, unintendedresource we have as an industry. Please join me in this effort.
I look forward to your comments and collaborating with you.