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May
13, 2004
CBOSS ready for Indian summer
Geetanjali
Wadhwa & Pradeep Chakraborty
MOSCOW,
RUSSIA -- Founded in 1996, CBOSS Association is an innovation-driven
provider of IT solutions for telecom. It has 730+ installations
in 18 countries worldwide. The subscriber base served
by CBOSS technologies counts 40+ million and is constantly
growing. The Association focuses on the development
of integrated, scalable solutions for telecom enterprises.
In 2003, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems performed
benchmark tests of Convergent Business Operation Support
System (CBOSS). The solution showed outstanding performance
when backing communications of 25 million subscribers
on both deployment platforms. This far exceeds the needs
of the majority operators today.
CBOSS
also benefits from partnerships with global leaders
such as Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Sun, Excel Switching,
Hitachi Data, Intel, Brooktrout, Avaya, Microsoft and
Xerox. For three years running, CBOSS received the best
Oracle ISV award in Russia as well.
Convergence
plus recently met up with Andrey Morozov, who is the
President and CEO, CBOSS Association. With an analytical
mathematics background, Morozov worked at government-oriented
information systems before 1992, when he joined the
first mobile carrier in Moscow (Moscow Cellular Communications,
MCC). Having started as a leading programmer and gradually
promoted to R&D department manager, he was guiding
the in-house development of the MCC billing system.
Subsequently, Morozov became one of the founders of
the CBOSS company. In many respects thanks to him, a
small CBOSS enterprise turned into the first-rate international
provider of IT solutions for telecom business. Excerpts
from an interview:
Convergence
plus: Please elaborate on CBoss's activities, including
your various partnerships?
Andrey Morozov: With 2000 employees and 44 products
CBOSS Association is an innovation-driven international
provider of IT solutions for telecom. CBOSS's main products
are convergent prepaid and postpaid billing and customer
care, intelligent services, analytical systems, Internet
solutions, and more. Founded in 1996, CBOSS implemented
730+ installations for telecom operators, servicing
in sum 40 million subscribers in 18 countries on four
continents, and takes pride in having 140 customers
around the globe. In Russia and CIS, CBOSS is an undisputed
leader in OSS/BSS sector at the same time topping the
list of all Russian software developers.
The
company's strategy is to generate premium-quality, integrated
"turnkey" solutions. Its alliances with internationally
renowned firms positions CBOSS as a pre-eminent systems
integrator. We cannot underestimate partnerships with
other IT-market players in our business, where integration
and universality of technologies play the most significant
role. In this sense, multi-vendor collaboration is not
only means to gain access to customers, but the only
way to success. Offering the complex, flexible and --
in the true sense of the word -- universal solutions,
CBOSS is working closely with other vendors as Hewlett-Packard,
Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Excel Switching Corp., Hitachi
Data Systems, Intel, Brooktrout, Avaya, Microsoft, Xerox
and others. These partnerships have brought us success,
and we obtained a status of "honor partner"
by these companies. Obviously, they profit from it as
well. For example, we recently signed a bilateral OEM
agreement with HP, according to which its equipment
will become the platform for CBOSSrtb, our flagship
solution positioned for telecom enterprises. HP will
render comprehensive support to solutions provided by
CBOSS. This is the highest level of HP's strategic partnership.
Earlier, Alcatel, Nokia and Motorola signed similar
agreements with HP.
CP:
You recently obtained several new customers in Europe
and Asia. Please elaborate on these wins?
AM: During 2003/2004, we negotiated some important
contracts with foreign customers. These include the
supply of our solutions to carriers from Norway (Teletopia
Mobile Communications), Jordan (XPress Telecommunication),
Laos (Lao Telecommunications and Lao-Asia Telecom State
Enterprise). The strategic acquisition of online billing
solutions (OBS) from Fujitsu Services was extremely
beneficial for us. This deal opens more than a window
to Europe, rather a doorway to the world for CBOSS.
It positions the Association as a world class IT provider.
CBOSS's products are used by 140 companies across four
continents, including operators such as O2 (the UK),
MTS (Russia), TeliaSonera (Finland), Optus (Australia),
ROGERS (Canada), Azercell Telecom J.V. (Azerbaijan),
ONE GmbH (Austria), and COLOMBIA MOVIL (Columbia). A
special diploma was awarded at the 3GSM Congress to
this Columbian company, acknowledging it as the most
fast-growing operator. Among CBOSS customers are Kar-Tel
(Kazakhstan), Yuzhno-Uralskiy Sotoviy Telefon, NSS,
Volgograd-GSM, New Telephone Company (Russia), Voxtel
S.A. (Moldova), SMARTS and Enisey-Telecom (Russia).
The total subscriber base, served by CBOSS solutions,
tops 40 million.
Due
to the OBS acquisition, CBOSS obtained a perfect base
in Finland for economic expansion in the foreign markets.
New assets include highly qualified employees, the infrastructure
required for further operations and all intellectual
property rights. CBOSS inherited the successful development
and implementation experience of real-time billing,
known on the global market under the rtBilling brand.
Successful operation at large telecom enterprises, including
configuration for 10 million active subscribers, proven
reliability and supreme functionality of the solution.
The product extends the high-end CBOSS solutions line
in the segment of scalable high-performance prepaid
systems and will ship under CBOSSrtb name, preserving,
however, its rtBilling brand as well. Our Association
profits from the access to the new market segment, namely,
that of high-end prepaid systems. The deepening of our
collaboration with HP is also an important consequence.
HP plays an essential role in promoting rtBilling, as
a system integrator, equipment supplier, and professional
service provider.
Besides,
I must mention that there has been a significant enhancement
in CBOSS's prestige by the winning the tender, in which
some serious players of our market have participated
and which made strict demands on the competitors.
CP:
What is your focus for the Asia Pacific region? How
do you see yourself going forward?
AM: The Asia Pacific region is of a particular
interest for our Association. Co-operation and partnership
with the businesses in this region is one of the priority
directions of CBOSS. As a growing ICT market, Asia Pacific
has a great development potential and we have multiple
options to offer here. We plan to increase our presence
in Asia Pacific and are optimistic about acquiring new
customers. This strategy comprises an increased sales
activity in the region, entering into new partnering
arrangements with local market players, including outsourcing,
financial and technological investments, and active
participation in Asia Pacific conferences and exhibitions.
Our delegation recently took part in Elitex 2004, New
Delhi.
CP: How do you perceive the Indian telecom market and
what is your strategy going to be?
AM:
The Indian IT and telecom market is rapidly moving toward
new technologies. However, there are some temporary
difficulties. What we see in India is an increasing
potential subscriber base, demand for more complex telecom
services, and emerging new market sectors requiring
telecom solutions on the one hand, and a certain lack
of operating carriers, sufficient infrastructure and
technologies suitable to the demands on the other hand.
However, the dynamics of development of this market
stuns the ICT specialists.
Taking
into consideration the fact that current telecom problems
don't remain unnoticed by the authorities and governmental
structures of India, I'm sure that in closest future
we must expect fast growth of the local telecom market
and as a result extension of the telecom services coverage
area and gradual improvement of their quality. Offering
state-of-the-art and approved solutions and having experience
of successful co-operation with different operators,
CBOSS Association is ready to play some significant
role in this development.
CP:
How do you perceive the billing and customer care market
in Asia and specifically, India?
AM:
Currently, it is the fastest-growing OSS/BSS
market in the world. India, with its huge territory
and large population, appears to be the country where
the progress of the ICT market will be the most significant.
According to a Gartner Report, the Indian telecom services
market will touch GBP10 billion by 2006, and the cellular
segment is likely to be the key growth driver. Taking
into the consideration the will of the Indian government
to push forward the ICT sector, proved by recent merging
of the IT and telecom ministries to speed up reforms
and tabling the important bills regarding telecoms in
the Parliament, issuing new carrier licenses, and maintaining
the lowest prices for mobile services in the world,
we must really expect progressive growth of Indian billing
and customer care market. However, there are still lots
of things to do. With just 43 million basic phone lines
and approximately 30 million cellular subscribers, the
Indian OSS/BSS market requires more investments, more
technologies and more market players. I suppose, we
must expect the entrance of new carriers in the ICT
market. This will, on the one hand, help cover more
market segments and noticeably increase the number of
subscribers in Indian telecom services. On the other
hand, it should strengthen competition, thus improving
quality of services and diversifying them. CBOSS comes
to India fully realising the difficulties the carriers
face and should be able to solve them.
CP:
Today the OSS/BSS problem domain suffers from a barrage
of demands and requires great flexibility and reaction
time? What are these problems and how are you addressing
those?
AM: The ICT and specifically OSS/BSS is a dynamic
business. The demands are rapidly growing, the technologies
are dramatically changing, and the competition is getting
extremely tough. Operating within multiple standards
and offering diversified services, modern carriers require
convergent solutions able to suit literally any need
of the subscriber. A developer must be able to say so
to get involved in these needs, to feel both as an operator
and as an end-user. Only this approach can lead an ISV
to success. That's the main issue the OSS/BSS developers
face.
Of course, it is not easy to survive and grow in our
business sector. Facing tough competition in a fast-paced
environment, the only way to success is a flexible policy.
This includes:
- Working
with the intellectual capital within the company.
CBOSS devotes a lot of attention to it and has developed
a special human resources system, which allows us
to optimally use the intellectual potential of the
employees;
- Convergent
and complex technologies that are able to meet any
market requirements and change rapidly; and
- Active
collaboration with other vendors and search for new
business and technology partners.
This
approach will bring us success in the future, as it
did before. The market situation seems to be quite favorable.
Our segment grows fast, technologies progress and their
value grows as well. Carriers are looking for modern
solutions and we are ready to provide them.
CP: How appealing are pay-as-you-go solutions with telcos
vis-a-vis the traditional, license-fee based offerings?
AM: We are extremely flexible in pricing models
and have multiple examples of successful collaboration
with carriers within totally different schemes of investments
in IT. Being a developer of billing systems that allow
using different tariff models we realise that tariff
flexibility can be a great marketing tool. We use this
knowledge in managing our relationships with customers
offering multiple choices for them. Although we are
not a telecom carrier, we use our own billing system
for settlements with our customers. This allows us to
automate using different models. As far as the carriers'
preferences are concerned, they are varied. In fact
they are as varied, as those of their subscribers.
CP: What is your roadmap going to be like over
the next couple of years?
AM: To my mind, we must expect new contracts,
new markets, new technologies and new implementation
spheres for us. Our products will eventually be called
for not only by telecoms sector. This offers fantastic
challenges, and we are eager to accept them.
Contact:
CBOSS
Tel: +7-95-755-5655
Fax:+7-95-974-6388
www.cbossbilling.com
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