Pipe Dreams

Terry likes selling bandwidth pipes. It's something he can understand because selling bandwidth pipes is pretty similar to selling circuits and Terry has been selling circuits his entire life.

However, Terry needs to stop just selling pipes and start to sell services. Pipes are a commodity business with low (and ever decreasing) margins. Services are where the revenues are, pipes are just a means to deliver the services.

If Terry doesn't start to sell high margin services as well as pipes then someone else will be selling the high margin services and keeping the revenue to themselves leaving Terry with just his low margin pipes. In fact it's already happening and Terry is at risk of being left behind before he even starts.

Technology as a service

Terry doesn't sell services, he sells technology. This leads to a proliferation of service specific platforms, a migration nightmare for Terry's customers and additional costs for Terry as it makes platform closure more difficult than it should be.

What customers want is service, they don't (generally) care what the underlying technology is as long as their service requirements and SLAs are met.

Services should be decoupled from the technology used to deliver them. This has a number of advantages including:

- The ability to deliver the same service over a range of delivery technologies/networks (including ones that Terry does not own).
- The ability to change the delivery technology/network without having to change the service definition.
- The ability to offer converged services even if the underlying technology/network platforms aren't converged.
- Etc.

Terry is trying to decouple his services from the delivery technology but it requires a holistic approach and this is a new concept for Terry and one he is struggling with. By the time he gets there will it be too late?

I was only following the project plan

Terry doesn't think for himself. Terry doesn't question his 'orders'. Terry doesn't or can't consider the big picture. All Terry cares about is ticking off the tasks in his project plan and delivering his project on time (which he frequently fails to do).

The result for Terry: An inability to offer truly converged services as each service is defined and delivered in isolation (on separate, often incompatible, platforms) without any consideration for the other services that Terry offers.

The result for Terry's customers: Frustration and confusion!

The solution: Terry should be held to account for his telecommunications crimes.