The world of telecommunications is undergoing a massive information revolution—and Thirdera is right there for every step of it.
On a recent episode of Alldus’ ServiceNow podcast series, I sat down with host Mark Kelly to chat about telecommunications and Thirdera’s impact on the industry. By taking information silos and transforming them into common data points, Thirdera helps telecoms truly leverage their data — all through the use of ServiceNow.
Here is what you need to know about the evolution of telecom, how Thirdera is helping telecom organizations achieve operational excellence using ServiceNow, and where we think the industry is headed next.
Functioning as the “platform of platforms,” ServiceNow essentially enables organizations to plug-in various software components through the ServiceNow platform—and, as a result, gain instant access to all of their data.
And nowhere is that more important than in the telecommunications space—an industry that’s long been plagued by siloed information.
The ServiceNow platform is a key ingredient in the evolution of the telecom industry. Its telecommunications applications allow companies to pull all of their data together—from revenue generation to billing to CPQ (or Configure, Price, Quote)—and ensure it flows all the way through to recognized revenue.
While creating a unified platform to compile the data sounds easy, it’s not so simple in the telecommunications industry. Many telcos have legacy systems they adopted 30 to 40 years ago that they continue to perpetuate. Instead of overhauling these systems and starting from scratch, many simply add on updates and stay mired in their legacy systems.
As the largest and most experienced pure-play ServiceNow implementation partner in the world, we help companies reimagine the telecom experience—and simplify mission-critical business processes like order management. By helping companies implement and get the most out of ServiceNow, we enable telcos to finally gain full visibility into all of their data so they can run more efficiently—and profitably.
There are two telecom companies in particular that Thirdera recently helped take control of their data: ngena and LIT.
German-based telecommunications provider ngena started with its own unique CPQ system. Working exclusively with resellers instead of directly with consumers, ngena needed a platform that could take its quoting system, identify hardware and software to be provisioned, and offer its resellers complete flexibility throughout the order process. That way, sellers could decide where the individual circuitry would be and what the equipment would look like—and then provision it themselves.
With the ServiceNow implementation and consultative services provided by Thirdera, ngena deployed a full ServiceNow telecommunications application stack. These solutions enabled ngena to develop a cutting-edge portal for suppliers, partners, and resellers to use when managing and placing orders for ngena’s telecommunications services. By automating the entry, validation, and execution of telecommunications orders securely in the cloud, ngena was able to eliminate lengthy and complex order processing.
By adopting ServiceNow, ngena achieved a level of reporting and speed to market that completely transformed its business. With the ServiceNow implementation orchestrated by Thirdera, ngena was able to enhance the customer experience, automate service assurance, and get real-time data visibility.
Interested to learn more about ngena's journey? Read this case study to find out how ngena achieved telecom operational excellence with Thirdera and ServiceNow.
Another great example comes from Lera Investment Technology (LIT)—an organization that helps technology service providers confidently enter into flexible consumption contracts with their customers for hybrid cloud solutions.
Providing all of the Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) capabilities and hardware provisioning for major Global System Integration (GSI) clients, LIT has to pull data from all of the IT and major desktop manufacturers into its system to provide hardware for managed services companies. But with its spreadsheet-driven environment, the manual process was cumbersome and took time away from LIT’s small team.
Implementing ServiceNow with the help of Thirdera, the order management capabilities that ServiceNow brings to the table now allow LIT to completely automate order intake and validation. ServiceNow also enables LIT to ensure the orders the providers send are accurate. Even though LIT is small in size, harnessing data enables LIT to identify for its large global clients duplicate orders and orders going to the wrong place by using ServiceNow’s order management capabilities.
Want to learn more about LIT's story? Watch this on-demand session to learn why our customer LIT chose ServiceNow and Order Service Management to innovate its business model and create a nearly fully automated process.
While these real-world examples establish the practical use for ServiceNow, change management also plays a significant part.
Being able to build the telecommunication medium technology (TMT) platform on TM Forum-based protocols is critical for collaboration. TM Forum enables various telecommunications providers to come together and establish set standards. This means that anyone utilizing TM Forum-based solutions can tie into other TM Forum-based solutions.
The ServiceNow platform—since it is based on TM Forum approaches—enables companies like LIT to tie into other GSIs that also use ServiceNow. As a result, LIT can feel confident that the records in their ServiceNow environment will seamlessly and completely bridge into their partners’ environments.
Because of this enhanced collaboration, GSI clients can enter orders in their system and those orders will be automatically transferred to LIT—without requiring any manual, duplicate effort.
In the telecom space, the conversation is shifting from “We have the technology; let’s find a way to make it work.” to “What do we need to get accomplished?” Thirdera takes our telecom clients’ goals—what they want to accomplish—then implements the technology that will help them get there. And ServiceNow is making it easier than ever to achieve that.
There are a lot of movements taking place in the telecom marketplace right now. This is primarily because telecommunication companies are increasingly willing to shift their focus from legacy systems. They now truly appreciate the business requirements and urgency to bring all of their data into a commonplace.
At Thirdera, what we see as a significant trend in the industry is the bridge forming between IT and telecommunications leadership. This shift is helping IT more fully understand what the telecommunication requirements are—and this level of visibility has historically been lacking. Now that this gap is being closed, companies can even take it one step further into how they can make it easier for users to adopt technologies.
Change management and user interface (UI)/user experience (UX) are critical to where telecommunications is going. This not only has an incredible impact within the organization but on their customers as well.
At Thirdera, we are also seeing a significant uptick in requests for reporting and dashboards for communications customers. Managed service providers (MSPs) within major communications service providers, for example, are looking for ways to provide a dashboard for companies to see the status of circuits, access service level agreements, and use predictive analytics to anticipate possible outages based on metrics across all of the network components.
The telecommunication industry was locked into outdated legacy technology and disparate systems for too long. We’re at a major crossroads in the marketplace now—and ServiceNow and Thirdera are at the forefront.
With ServiceNow and Thirdera’s deep telecommunications expertise, telcos are shaking up the industry to bring a better experience to consumers—while also improving profitability and operational efficiency.
Ready to learn how Thirdera and ServiceNow can help you eliminate data silos and reimagine the telecom experience? Let's get in touch!