Removing risk, increasing opportunity

Failure or degradation of the provisioning service presents a major reputational risk. Yet with successful BPO engagements already demonstrating real savings and rock solid delivery (see box), it is clear that carriers can benefit greatly by moving to this model.

In practice, the resilience of the BPO service and its larger pool of experienced talent clearly offers a significant reduction in operational risk. Combined with the variable cost model, BPO for provisioning offers telecom companies an attractive opportunity to make a positive business change. Operational risk is considerably reduced, as BPO is able to provide greater technical resources in terms of both people and technical capability than a self provided provisioning department.

Shocked? Enterprise Provisioning, formerly seen as a core and unique telecom skill, is amenable to cost reduction and service improvement through BPO. For the industry majors, released from the burden of very high in-house fixed costs, what other opportunities can BPO open up?