Efficient service delivery is becoming more critical to success among communications service providers of all types. The need to improve efficiency is stimulating increased investment and consolidation as service providers work to transform and fully automate the service delivery process. However, service providers have a range of service delivery approaches to choose from because equipment vendors, independent software vendors and industry fora have announced disparate products, platforms and initiatives. As a result, service providers are not sure which processes and systems are going to prove the most effective in creating and delivering next-generation services, thereby delivering the key competitive advantage that they seek. They also have to contend with considerable challenges while making the transition from their legacy approach to an effective next-generation approach.

Best Practice in Telecoms Service Delivery answers your key questions:

- Which approach to service delivery is most suitable for my company?
- What critical factors do I need to take into account to create a successful service delivery transformation project?
- How do SDPs and BSS/OSS work together to deliver an efficient service delivery infrastructure?
- What opportunities do long-tail services provide and how does my company's infrastructure need to change to exploit these opportunities?

Who should read this report

- Service providers that want to: discover which key technologies are applicable to telecoms service delivery and why, and what these technologies can do; find out what other service providers are doing; and understand new trends and market initiatives.
- Vendors that want to: gain up-to-date insight into the service delivery market to inform sales and marketing initiatives; find out how well they are performing in comparison with their competitors and identify possible partners and acquisition targets; and discover how the evolving needs of service providers will affect their client relationships.
- SIs that want to: discover what service providers' key strategies are, and which technologies they are adopting; identify emerging technical requirements and the key transformation models that service providers are employing worldwide.
- Investors that want to: understand the characteristics of a successful service provider; learn about the new disruptive factors entering the market; determine which technologies are of interest to service providers and why, and identify the vendors that provide them; identify the vendors that are best placed to dominate this lucrative market and discover why it is of strategic importance.

About the author

Teresa Cottam (Analysys Associate) is a senior telecoms analyst with more than 13 years' industry experience, who specialises in revenue management and service delivery technologies and markets. She is the author of a wide range of industry articles and in-depth industry reports, including Billing and OSS Trends: the transition to telecoms IT, The Next-Generation Bill: commercial and technical strategies and World Telecoms BSS and OSS Markets: trends and analysis. She has been a judge at IIR's global billing awards and is a regular speaker and chair at industry events. Prior to working with Analysys Research, Teresa was Publications and Research Director at BSS/OSS specialists Chorleywood Consulting and before that worked for industry analysts Ovum.

Danny Dicks (Principal Analyst) is a senior member of the Custom Research team at Analysys Research and is Project Director of Analysys Research's Next-Generation Telecoms IT online market intelligence service. He has undertaken a number of consultancy and custom research projects in the field of telecoms software for equipment vendors, operators and finance houses. Danny was the lead author of the Analysys Research report Business-to-business E-billing and co-author of Billing and OSS Trends: the transition to telecoms IT and The Next-Generation Bill: commercial and technical strategies.