A Better Question

As we’ve discussed here many times, the interconnect voice market is continuing to undergo massive changes from market, regulatory, and technology forces. As a result, many carriers are cautiously looking at their interconnect voice business and asking themselves: Is it worth it?

The short answer is, “yes”. The long answer is, “Of course it is, what other levers can you pull to generate millions in revenue within 30, 60, or 90 days?”.

But that is not the question that carriers should be asking. A better question is, “How can I lower costs and maintain traffic in my interconnect voice operations?”. The answer to this question is surprisingly simple: Invest in a next generation interconnect OSS & BSS platform.

The breadth of functionality these platforms offer encompasses many of the labor-intensive tasks performed on a day-to-day basis. The automation these platforms provide leads to cost reduction, and we aren’t talking 1, 2, or 3% cost reduction like typical plans. We believe the cost reduction floor is a minimum of 8% and can be as high as 30% in carriers with lots of people allocated to interconnect voice.

Really, if you spend some time thinking about the interconnect voice industry and today’s technologies (Big Data, A.I., iOT, etc.), there really isn’t a need for a large number of employees in a carrier’s interconnect voice operations. With the platforms available today, carriers doing a few hundred millions of minutes per month probably don’t need more than 10 people to manage the business. And the scale to get you a billion minutes of voice per month are, at most, 20 people. Think about the trapped value then that carriers can create by adopting a next gen interconnect voice platform, embracing the automation and speed to market that these platforms provide. Carriers can repurpose people into growth areas or just simply reduce the cost of operating this portion of the business.

This is how voice will be managed going forward. Carriers who delay are simply spending more money and delivering less value to shareholders and stakeholders alike.

What other ways can a carrier generate this type of efficiency while reducing operating cost and cost of goods sold?

What do you think?