Transformation is important to us but let us do it tomorrow

This week we will start looking at the transformation process and over next few weeks we will examine hurdles and ways to overcome them. Today will look at the reasons that the transformations are delayed, even when it is clear that they are essential.

 

 

 

There are three key reasons:

They are costly: The existing equipment is catering to the services and is designed to expand to continue to support more services. The network equipment still have useful life and also “book value” so one cannot just dispose them, there are also some implications to the Balance sheet when you want to write them off. This becomes a challenge specially for the countries which have poor ARPU, finding funds to replace a piece of equipment with no incremental revenue attached becomes a problem. The person who has to seek that Capex approval is up against many revenue generating projects and hence does not usually win.

 

 

They are complex: The business is always transforming and trying to align the network with it, is more like catching a running train, one has to anticipate the future. Even if you may know the end state of the network, travelling from the present state to end state may be very challenging. One has to have in-house expertise to be able to handle complex transformations. Just to upgrade a product release in the network, it takes months of planning and execution for some operators, network growth is obviously a big challenge. Many times there are vendor dependencies too.

 

 

 

They are messy: Network transformations are messy, they are like an open heart surgery. While you are working on transformations, the “business as usual” does not stop for you. You have to find a way to support business growth and also make sure that the existing customers do not suffer. It means a carefully planned and staged process and many “night’s work”. Even after your best planning, something or the other is likely to go wrong and you will be blamed for trying to do good.

Well these are just the top three, that make decision makers to look the other direction and not be so enthusiastic of initiating transformations on their watch. They always keep on looking for the right time to start the process.

Stay tuned for more next week.