Pipeline Publishing, Volume 4, Issue 7

	This Month's Issue:
	On The Horizon

TMW - Americas:
Changes in A Shifting Market

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We wanted to maximize input on the TMW-Americas show, so we solicited the input of frequent contributors Barbara Lancaster and Wedge Greene of LTC International. Here's what they had to say.

Conference [definition: a pre-arranged meeting to exchange information]

By Wedge Greene and Barbara Lancaster

TM Forum’s Management World Americas was a good trade show, but how was it as a conference? TMF started life as an organization with service providers as its members and as target beneficiaries of its development efforts. The TMF conference might have been a place where service providers – and others – could confer on the challenges facing the industry. TMW gave us some of that, but could it have given us more?

With some 1500 people apparently focused on making and renewing contacts, and using break times to exchange information about their priority challenges, it was clear that the event still works as a place to network, to make sales pitches, to gather information about the latest goodies from the vendors. That’s all well and good. However, in the keynotes and the many forum sessions, it was not easy to discern a clear purpose or theme, or even a sense of urgency about the future of the industry. This seemed to us to be a step back from TMW in Nice, earlier this year, where we reported favorably on the emergence of a sense of realism about where the industry might go and what it needs to do to get there.

Has the purpose of the TMF changed while our expectations did not? Is TMF (or at least the conference) now just about making deals? Does TMF still intend to transform the industry?

The Keynotes

We always look forward to the keynotes. TMW Nice delivered at least two major hits – informative, fun, and thought provoking. In Dallas, the keynotes featured a couple of service provider reps (three if you count RIM as a service provider). This is important. Service providers attend this show to learn from each other, not just to be sold to. Our favorite?

The Hit

For some time the industry has been seeking a corporate role model – an example of a major old guard communications company successfully making the transition to a modern, IP-based new world leader, succeeding with the transformation of their OSS/BSS systems as well as converting to

In Dallas, the keynotes featured a couple of service provider reps (three if you count RIM as a service provider). This is important.

NGN IP infrastructure. BT’s 21st Century project looked good in at first, but seems to be faltering at completing the transformation of the whole network and company. Telecom Italia’s approach while working for them seems a bit too edgy for most carriers. Telstra’s transformation seems to have run out of resources, bled out by perhaps too many projects and not enough direction. So where to look next?

Telus, the incumbent western Canadian carrier looks like a very good candidate. Kevin Salvadori, Telus’ Executive VP of Business Transformation & CIO gave a strong keynote laying out why and how they did it. It was a credible story. Even if the presentation prettied up the story, skated over some difficulties and maybe overlooked some missed original goals, it might well be the “real life” transformation story we need. Like BT, Telus is still a work in progress, but there are lessons to be learned if other companies want to try to emulate this early success and adapt the Telus strategy to their own circumstances. As a world role model, Telus is on the small side for a major carrier and that might have made the complete transition more manageable; however, it does not lessen the significance and impact of management attitude and buy-in. This may just be the single most important reason for the success, more important than picking any particular product or even architecture.

There is nothing new here that can’t be found in dozens of books on large-scale change management, but it seems that Telus decided from the very top of the company to follow the recipe. Mr. Salvadori’s message was cleanly delivered in slide after practical slide.

His key program success factors:

Executive Support, executive support and executive support
Committed Business leadership
Disciplined Project Management
Innovative thinking
Adapt to the unexpected
Strong external business partners

Key elements of the technical strategy included:

Build your own architecture,
Stick to it,
Pick partners who will adhere to it.

In Kevin’s words, the technical mainstays were network and service abstraction, leading to reuse, repeatability, and adaptability.

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