CloudSmartz approaches transformation differently. Instead of rip and replace, it puts a platform above existing systems and connects to them via APIs. This enables service providers to harness their existing systems, while opening the door to hundreds more to create hybrid offerings. It also provides a marketplace for service design and delivery and makes them instantly available for one-click purchase. What’s more, it puts the power and visibility into the customers’ hands so that they have better control over their services, and experience around them. This positions a digital offering by quickly enabling a “back office” as a market product. Legacy technologies can be surfaced using APIs and adapters that feed into customer facing experiences (Rich UI).

This approach helps service providers evolve by enabling a digital experience for their customers – and their customer’s customers—and it’s what CloudSmartz has undertaken with its Acumen360™ product. Acumen360 is a digital marketplace platform solution for delivering a 360-degree unified service experience for service providers. It enables them to build a modular solution that enhances operational efficiencies, reduces OPEX, eliminates swivel chair, and helps deliver a better user experience for service provider customers. Think of Acumen360 as creating a digital-marketplace experience for hybrid telecom services, while providing single-pane automation and enabling CX nirvana.

Digitizing the hybrid customer experience

In describing the contrasts between the traditional approach to transformation and CloudSmartz’s path, Wagner first emphasized striking a delicate balance between the value of legacy and the opportunity of next-generation services.

“There are ways you can manage your legacy business as a standalone while focusing on creating a highly efficient, highly automated next-generation services business that’s going to drive revenue,” he explained. “Service providers, especially Tier 2 and 3, can’t afford to automate legacy, as it’s not where the business is growing. Instead, many savvy service providers are focusing transformation on their next-gen business and on digitizing the customer lifecycle.”

This means moving away from the old, network-centric approach, which entailed putting equipment into the network and reselling it to customers—the “build it and they will come” philosophy. Digitizing the customer lifecycle requires a fundamental shift toward customer centricity.

“You’re really reorienting the business toward the customer experience and providing the product orchestration underneath,” Wagner said. “It’s about managing the entire cycle of CX with a platform across silos and establishing a meaningful e-commerce relationship with your customer and, by extension, your customer’s customers.”

Phased transformation toward CX nirvana

Transformation starts with a focus on enhancing the customer experience. “Start with what your customer buys, how it gets turned on, how they consume it, and how it performs,” Wagner explained. Acumen360 enhances the customer experience through a self-service customer portal allowing 360-degree integration of the service provider’s legacy infrastructure. Automation unlocks operational efficiencies, lowering CAPEX and OPEX, and enabling faster turn-ups and decreased churn, both of which boost brand loyalty.

Introduction of a digital marketplace is the second phase. In this marketplace, operators can sell services that their customers can purchase with one click. They can also bundle services from other providers and partners, and Acumen360 handles correlating these bundled services, bringing information, data, and pricing together in a streamlined transaction. Enterprise customers are empowered to order on-demand connectivity services in a pay-as-you-need-it service environment that enhances the value chain.