Pipeline Q&A: Telcordia

This month Pipeline chatted with Matt Desch, CEO of Telcordia Technologies. With an active process underway aimed at selling the company to a new parent, Telcordia is garnering increased attention regarding its strategy, its future and its leadership. The company was the center of many conversations at TeleManagement World in mid-October, and not surprisingly speculation and rumor circulated with real news. In this interview, Mr. Desch addresses questions regarding his leadership style, responds to the questions about Telcordia’s future direction and provides his perspective on the opportunities for the company.

Pipeline: At the first Elementive event in New York City, you talked about your initial priorities for Telcordia and how you went to SAIC’s board of directors for support. Can you recount that story for our readers, and tell us how your perspective on those initial priorities has since changed?

Desch: It was shortly after I joined Telcordia that I realized our fundamental strategy needed to change dramatically from a project-oriented, custom IT shop to more of a product company. We needed to expand into new markets like wireless and cable, and outside of North America . I went to the SAIC board and said that I needed to invest in Telcordia to do that. We needed to put more money into R&D, into new growth markets, and also into some of our biggest customers. Overall, they (SAIC's board) were very supportive and we went down the road quickly.

Now, we've gone well beyond those initial priorities. I have since realized that the vision for Telcordia has evolved to leverage our experience to help our customers transform, not just to transform ourselves. It's a deeper approach to the market. People told me when I came here there were a lot of smart people at Telcordia. Now I really understand what they mean. When I was with Nortel, I may have had 10,000 people in my organization and I could count on two hands the number of people, who really understood our customers' businesses, how all the systems worked together and how underlying technologies worked end to end. I now have an organization that's one-third the size, but I have 10 to 20 times as many of those people here. We can bring a much broader set of experiences and deeper understanding of our customers' operations. Customers and partners are telling us that is what is unique about Telcordia.

Pipeline: People have seen the Elementive periodic tables and heard the “have it your way” idea. But most people are still curious not about how Elementive is new and different for Telcordia, but how it’s new and different for the industry. So, I’ll ask you now, how is this approach “new and different” compared to what OSS companies have done in the past?

Desch:Elementive is different because it supports pre-integration, and embraces new standards that hadn’t been embraced before. With Elementive we not only have the breadth of our portfolio we also work with partners to bring new capabilities to market that hadn’t been brought out before. We help customers solve the really hard problems that save the most costs, help telcos be more customer service-oriented and require a breadth of knowledge and experience that goes across traditional OSS boundaries.

Being open, configurable and flexible is not new in the industry, but we’ve gone well beyond that initial vision of Elementive. We’re pursuing Elementive with a purpose. We are taking this new approach to the market and are applying it to the hardest problems in the industry in ways no one else can.

One major European carrier told us – and it’s an interesting thing because we talk to lots of players in the industry including SIs about this - that Telcordia was the only software provider that didn’t ask “how can we help you?” Telcordia came in and said, “We know your potential. We know how to help you. Here’s what you can do to accomplish your goals and here’s how we’ll share the risk with you.” The industry is crying out for leadership in terms of what can be accomplished and how and that’s what Telcordia is all about.

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