Challenge

The decision to merge the two leading MSOs was bolstered by the expectation that the combination would drive hundreds of millions of dollars to the bottom line as a result of the cost savings and revenue gains to be realized from migration of several legacy billing systems to a single, multi-service operations support environment. Decision makers were advised these benefits could be achieved within two years, which meant the timeline for completion of the OSS integration project would be just 18-20 months from inception. This is an extraordinarily aggressive schedule for so large and complex an undertaking.

The project required that three systems and all related OSS components used by one MSO in various combinations across different service categories in different geographic areas be migrated to a newly installed billing/mediation solution. This program was designed to accommodate back-office requirements for all services in the product portfolio of the other MSO, including a mobile service that was yet to launch. Thus the project entailed not only a migration of three systems encompassing a service base of millions of households into another system serving millions of other households. It also required oversight of performance assurance in the post-launch phase of the new platform and management of the implementation of back-office functions associated with adding a new mobile service to the existing mix of voice, video and Internet services across both MSOs’ footprints.

There were no points of compatibility among these billing platforms, which had been introduced and refined over time in the context of previous mergers and acquisitions. The larger of the two MSOs was the one with three disparate systems in operation. It used one commercial billing system to serve the company’s voice and video customers in some service areas, another for voice and video support for both residential and commercial customers in other areas and an in-house-developed system to serve broadband and narrowband Internet service customers in those regions as well as to serve residential customers in all three service categories in still another region. None of these legacy systems was designed to serve the needs of the new wireless service that the two MSOs were to launch.

TMNG Global Solution

TMNG Global contracted with the newly merged MSO to manage all aspects of this complex systems conversion process within the allotted timeframe of 18 to 20 months. Specifically TMNG was asked to accomplish the following:

• Develop a project and implementation plan, including budgetary requirements, to support migration of all legacy systems into the new one;
• Work with end user groups within the merged MSO’s organization, including consumer, customer care, business, operations and logistics, networks and finance, to develop the business rules for systems migration;
• Define the business and functional requirements for the data migration software to be supplied by an outside systems vendor;
• Review and approve the migration software design;
• Develop business and technical rules for data cleansing and migration and identify the business impact of all data migration and cleansing activities;
• Develop mitigation plan for all migration strategy risks;
• Develop solutions to mitigate all gaps between the two MSOs’ product sets and their attendant functionality requirements;
• Identify and specify all interfaces and functionalities, including all customization requirements, that must be implemented within the new core system to accommodate migration of legacy systems and closing of all functionality gaps between MSO product sets;
• Review and approve all customizations by the supplier of the new system.

With regard to complexity and scale, this is a one-of-a-kind project that required a high level of innovation in planning and executing the systems migration. In effect, the time allotted for migration of all three systems and their satellite components, customization of the new system, closing of all functionality gaps between MSO product sets and accommodation of requirements for the new mobile service launch is about the same amount of time that is typically consumed in a single-system migration project. To meet this aggressive schedule TMNG had to devise a game plan that combined management activities across the three disparate system migration paths wherever possible while ensuring that all the unique requirements of each migration path were fully addressed. Because there is no set template for devising and running such a project, virtually every decision bearing on design and execution required a careful weighing of the tradeoffs between time saved and risks incurred. As important as meeting the timeline was, meeting the quality of performance targets for the completed system was the overarching priority with respect to every step in the planning and execution process. 

TMNG was chosen to manage this project because of its extensive experience in overseeing OSS migration projects and its depth of expertise in cable operations.  The 13-member TMNG team assigned to this project, consisting of the senior program director, senior data migration analysts, senior project managers and senior business analysts, each bring between 15 and 24 years of experience in telecommunications processes to the project. These team members work closely with both the IT and OSS segment groups within the MSO and the sizeable team of experts assigned to the project by the vendor supplying the new comprehensive solution.  The client executives and functional leadership with which the TMNG senior program director interfaced included the CTO, CIO sponsor, the CEO, the COO and the CFO.

To ensure fulfillment of all goals TMNG’s leaders organized the project under several work teams, starting with the program management team to which each individual team reports. These teams include the following:

• Business Solutions – responsible for identifying all functionalities associated with all lines of the MSO’s business and mapping those to the new OSS platform, ensuring that all functional deficiencies in the new platform are identified.
• Business Readiness – responsible for identifying organizational staffing needs and training all parties in operational details of the migration strategy and the new operations platform.
• Technology Architecture – responsible for identifying and designing all interfaces essential to data extracts in the migration of the legacy systems to the new one and for ensuring that data extracting performs as required.
• Satellite Systems – responsible for implementing the technology architecture across all OSS components that link into the system, including provisioning, mediation, customer care, records, etc.
• Telecommunications Satellite Systems – responsible for redesign of the call mediation and telephony provisioning processes at the network elements level to ensure proper integration with the new OSS platform.
• Data Cleansing – responsible for cleansing 1.3 million data records and accurately formatting them to the new system as well as for fixing all weaknesses that impede performance at the highest levels of revenue assurance.
• Testing – responsible for testing of the platform across all operational interfaces and for reconciling any problems.
• Implementation and Cutover – responsible for managing the physical cutover, including software upgrades to all desktops.
• Link and Merger – responsible for overseeing final merger of all operations processes into the new platform and for assuring that operational cost savings goals have been met.

Benefits to the Client

Through careful management and coordination of these teams and direct interface with the MSO’s IT department leadership, the TMNG Global team met all performance targets at the end of the project. The team has successfully managed a very complex program, met all of the delivery dates and delivered the project on time and to budget, which is an extremely rare accomplishment in today's world of complex IT projects.

The following briefly summarizes the achievements of the team:

• Migrated six disparate legacy billing systems and 3.5 M accounts to ICOMs.
• Migrated another 3 disparate legacy billing systems involving 50K business accounts and 500K lines to IRB.
• Migrated legacy Offnet (UNE) billing system involving 2.9M accounts to ICOMs.
• Implemented new interconnect billing system and migrated all new interconnect billing accounts.
• Implemented new, integrated provisioning system for broadband and telephony provisioning.
• Implemented new integrated mediation platform for the entire company.
• Implemented interim Workforce Management system for operations.
• Data-cleansed over 11M billing and provisioning related records.
• Defined and documented new set of business processes for all business operational organizations.
• Trained 8K end users.

To date, the program has delivered annualized savings of over £30M in IT operating costs alone.

In a letter to TMNG Global’s project leader at the completion of Phase I, the client offered the following assessment of our work:

“The program, under your expert leadership, has delivered millions of annualized savings in IT operating costs, just from Phase I. These facts are remarkable, but what makes the program most satisfying is the fact that you have met all of the dates and have delivered the program on time and on budget this is an extremely rare feat in today’s world of large, complex IT projects. We are proud to have worked with you on this project.”