As the dust settles on the Management World 2012 event that took place in Dublin (May 21- 24), I thought I'd share some of the happenings, industry buzz words (there's always several key terms and ideas at such events!) and MYCOM activities over the past week.

The Management World event (MW) is TM Forum's (www.tmforum.org) yearly flagship conference and exhibition where the OSS/BSS community gathers to reflect on the latest developments in the industry, showcase latest products and review standardization work. Although TMF’s standardization work has been primarily targeted at Telecoms Service Providers, it has recently expanded into other industry verticals such as defense, health care and finance where IT is playing an ever greater role in the conduit of operations and business.

I like this focused event with a reasonable size (3,000 attendees) that creates a favorable environment for quality exchanges, in-depth discussions and excellent networking opportunities. The unbelievably great weather in Dublin throughout the week made the event all the more enjoyable.

This year keynotes focused on the need for more innovation and speed in our industry (“fail fast, learn fast”), as a way to avoid commoditization and marginalization. As Keith Willets, chairman of TMF puts it; the industry needs to evolve towards greater innovation centricity, customer centricity and information centricity. At the same time there is a disconnect between those who invest (Service Providers) and those who benefit (Over the Top players) that is distorting the financial attractiveness of the sector.  It is therefore becoming more and more urgent for Service Providers to better leverage the mass of subscribers’ context data they hold in order to deliver personalization and differentiation and create a place for themselves in the value delivery chain. As a result, the key themes and I should say “buzz words” of the conference this year were Customer Experience Management (CEM) and Analytics.

CEM provides the Service provider with the capability to monitor the subscriber’s Quality of Service in real time and take the necessary actions to maintain it at an optimal level. Analytics enables the SPs to better understand and analyze the behavior and preferences of their subscribers in order to deliver differentiated and personalized services and commercial offers.

In addition to the above, everyone insisted on the importance of increasing productivity and reducing costs to cope with the falling margins. OSS convergence and rationalization in particular continue to be a key requirement in SP’s transformation programs.

In this context, MYCOM’s unique value proposition based on a portfolio of leading Service Assurance solutions was very well received. Our unique converged platform (fixed/IP/mobile) delivering Network and Service Performance Management capabilities is seen by SP’s as a key asset, as they roll out LTE and transform their architectures into all IP. Not only does our solution NIMS-PrOptimaTM introduce significant cost saving opportunities, but it allows maintaining an optimal Quality of Service thanks to its end-to-end cross domain correlation capabilities. Also, the close integration between Service Management and Network Management layers enable Service Providers to implement a customer centric approach and focus on their Customer Experience at all times.

Testament to this great interest was the very high number of quality meetings and demos that kept us very busy throughout the show, including a presentation to the global technology group of our partner Deutsche Telecom.  As well we hosted a number of briefings with lead analyst Patrick Kelly from Analysis Mason (www.analysismason.com), Alan Burkitt Gray from Global Telecoms Business (www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com) and Michael Barrel from TelcoProfessionals (www.telcoprofessionals.com). We were also pleased to host the very successful Middle Eastern lunch that was the occasion of very interesting exchanges with senior executives from leading Service Providers such as Etisalat, STC and du. This falls in line with our growing focus on this dynamic region that materialized with the opening of our offices in Dubai late last year.

MYCOM was also invited to expand its involvement in the standardization work, by taking an active part in the Catalyst program for converged OSS integration. More to come on this topic in the next MW events.

Finally, as we were packing to return home we learned that the event was returning to Nice after two years in Dublin. So we are looking forward to another exciting event on the French Riviera from the 13th to the 16th of May 2013.

For more insight on the hot topics discussed at the show, please visit my video interview at MW 2012 by TelcoProfessionals:

http://www.telcoprofessionals.com/Telcoprofessionalscom/vid/327/Hot-topics-at-MW-Dublin-discussed-the-CTO-Mycom

Mounir LADKI, CTO, Mycom