Management World Americas: TM Forum on the Revenue Crunch

The communications industry is changing—revenues from traditional voice and messaging services are declining, and at the same time, consumer demand for bandwidth is proving to be insatiable. As mentioned yesterday, TM Forum is examining this conundrum and the steps communications service providers (CSPs) need to take in order to beat the revenue crunch at Management World Americas.

First to provide some perspectives on the issue was TM Forum chairman and CEO Keith Willetts, who noted that it is actually more of a margin crunch. While executives are immediately inclined to cut costs, he explained, it isn’t the only answer to level the playing field. CSPs must not also forget about the customer experience and business growth.

Mr. Willetts went on to discuss the importance of back office simplification, business process standardization and network / system evaluation (topics that will be covered in greater detail throughout the week) in addressing the challenges presented by the crunch. These, plus the intelligent application of IT, are required in order to do more—faster and cheaper. And, the smart pipes are those that glue useful technologies like SOA together, thus enabling smart services and smart business.

The keynote concluded with a look at what Mr. Willetts sees as the next big thing for enabling the digital economy. He noted that there is significant potential for a federated set of CSPs that can develop a trading platform (whether it be content, cloud services and more) for business—much like Amazon’s concept. In addition, those that can reach into the OTT part of the value chain—and extend what they currently do well—will be best positioned to offset declining revenues and diminishing margins.

What do you think of TM Forum’s perspectives on the revenue crunch?