Management World 2011: A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words

Wrapping Up in Dublin

The third day of Management World is always much slower than the first two. Many delegates have either headed back home or have opted for a lie in for whatever reason (yes, the Comptel party was great! Pictures from Dublin will be posted to our Facebook page).

It’s time to take stock of the event. Overall, I would say this year’s conference has been a success. I have been locked in press and analyst meetings for most of it, but I was told that the standard of the presentations has been very high. To quote Nancee Ruzicka of Stratecast whom I bumped into this morning: “It’s so good to see case studies of operators actually DOING the things that we in the industry have been chatting about for years.” (My colleague, Steve Hateley, who attended quite a few presentations, also seemed to concur with this.) And cloud and customer experience were again prominent buzzwords at Management World. It will be interesting to see how these areas continue to develop, as the industry is looking for more real-world examples.

For Comptel, the prime objective for this event was to connect with customers, prospects and partners—and much to our delight, there have been plenty of good people to meet. The demographics of the event seem to have changed though. We saw far fewer delegates from Eastern Europe, Russia and CIS, and even from the Middle East and North Africa, than we used to at Nice. One contact at TM Forum explained to me that the ash cloud and political situation were to blame, but anecdotal evidence from our own customers suggest the event’s location also influenced their decision.

And that leads us once again to one of the biggest topics of conversation here: Dublin. Despite TM Forum pulling off the most successful event ever, people are still curious to know when we are going back to Nice. Rumours abound that it might be next year, or the year after. But TM Forum is remaining very tight lipped on that subject, maybe in the hope that we will grow to like Dublin. From Comptel’s perspective, as long as delegates come to the event, we are not too bothered about the location. Dublin has proved to be an adequate, if unexciting, location and TM Forum has demonstrated its ability to bring people to the event. If it can convince people to return next year, and delegates from the regions mentioned earlier to join, then we will be happy.

What did you think of the three days in Dublin for Management World 2011?

Management World 2011: Another Day in Dublin

Day 2 of Management World 2011 started more or less where Day 1 left off (i.e. plenty of wind outside and plenty of meetings inside).

We have been very pleased by the turnout at this event so far. When TM Forum announced at very short notice last year that it was moving the event from Nice to Dublin, my immediate concern was: will people follow?

As a result, given the perceived risk and to some extent the intransigence of TM Forum on pricing, we decided to scale back our investment in the event. Comptel is not a sponsor and has not opted to take executive appointmentsettings this year. We have invested more in the booth, however, and built on two floors to give us an extra meeting room and afford us a better view of the exhibition hall!

Anyhow, it seems that, despite the near universal grumbling about Dublin not being Nice, people have turned up. Our meeting rooms have been full, and the exhibition floor has been busy. A straw-pole of my colleagues yesterday indicates that the customer and partner conversations have been good, too.

Aside from that, today saw the presentation by Comptel’s Mika Tanttu and Stratecast’s Nancee Ruzicka on the business drivers for policy control and how to get complete control over the customer. Specifically, they shared what TeliaSonera is doing in the space, with the help of Comptel.

And tonight is THE event of the show: Comptel’s party! When Management World was in Nice, Comptel used to hold a very popular rooftop party. This being Dublin, an open rooftop party is not really an option, so we have instead opted to go underground in a bar called The Vaults. We are very much looking forward to it and Day 3!

The Innovation Revolution Makes its Way to Dublin

Management World 2011 got off to a good start today despite the looming ash cloud. TM Forum reported an increase in attendance—up from 3100 to 3500—and we had the first of 100+ pre-set meetings with customers, partners and industry media and analysts.

Unfortunately, Barack Obama was unable to swing round to our booth today, as he left Dublin early last night to London. However, Ireland’s minister for communications, energy and natural resources, Pat Rabbitte, gave a nice welcome to begin the keynote session. The major theme for this year is: innovation, and how the industry needs to evolve to deliver revolutionary, profitable services. Like Mr. Rabbitte and the rest of the morning’s speakers noted, establishing collaborative partnerships and enabling customers’ journeys (in which OSS plays a particularly important role) are crucial to this.

Ben Verwaayen, CEO of Comptel partner Alcatel-Lucent, joined in via a video message from the eG8 to discuss the challenges of today’s digital economy. According to him, it’s important to connect the dots between operators’ interactions with consumers; as we’ve written before, customer loyalty will change if subscribers’ expectations are not met. The industry needs to be better able to cope with their demands.

Following Mr. Verwaayen was Stephen Shurrock, CEO of O2 Ireland, who explained how his organisation is trying to be

relevant to customers’ and Ireland’s journeys. To seize the data opportunity, O2 is focused on taking the complexity out of service / price plans—it’s about giving consumers the confidence to further take up data offerings, he said. The operator is also spurring innovation by expanding into new areas like financial services and the mobile wallet, and through its network-sharing deal with Eircom to provide better speeds and greater rural coverage.

What did you think of the morning’s presentations on the “innovation revolution”? We look forward to discussing this concept further while in Dublin.