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The 4 key reasons 70% of Telco
Digital transformations fail and
how to prevent them
A whitepaper by

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Content
Summary 2
Structural change in customer behaviour and expectations 3
Why 70% of all transformations fail? And what to do about it 5
Scope and goals not clear 7
Lack of understanding of real customer needs 8
Not changing the internal culture 9
Giving up on quality over budget and time 10
Which strategies do operators typically use? 12
Best of suite approach, digital solution embedded with BSS vendor 13
Tier 1 Digital platform as baseline 14
In house build, open source, solution 15
What has proven to be the most successful strategy 16
The OpenCloudBSS Digital solution 16

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Summary
Digital transformation has been on the agenda of operators for over a decade now. But till date
many operators have still not completed or in some cases not even really started to execute a
successful shift to a great online customer experience.
Many, other industries have managed to successfully transform their business, leading to
increased expectations from customers for their digital interactions with any company. Operators
will no longer only have to at least match their direct competitors but also understand the wider
digital experience and expectation of their customers to stay relevant.
Knowing that digital transformation is crucial for operators to maintain and grow their market
share, why do we see so many operators making little progress.
Perhaps because 70% of all transformation programmes fail to deliver the expected results?
If the stakes of a successful digital transformation are high, then why can operators not get this
right? I believe that this is mostly because of a set of common mistakes that are made in failed
projects, which could be prevented:
1. Scope and goals not clear
2. Lack of understanding of real customer needs
3. Not changing the internal culture
4. Giving up on quality over budget and time
In this white paper I will give you more background information on why these reasons lead to
failure and what to do to prevent them from happening.
With the conditions to run a successful programme in place, the next question is, what strategy
and solution to use to implement and deliver the benefits of a successful digital transformation.
Operators in general, use 3 different strategies:
1. Best of suite approach, digital solution embedded with BSS vendor
2. Tier 1 Digital, cots, platform
3. In house build, open source, solution
You can find the different options and the pros and cons per approach that can help you to decide
which option would work best for your organisation.
At the end of this white paper I will tell you the approach I have seen being the most successful
way operators can achieve great results.
Thank you for reading this white paper and hope it helps you to start AND complete your Digital
transformation journey
Martin Kievit
CEO OpenCloudBSS

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Structural change in
customer behaviour and
expectations
“If there is one thing that has changed customer behaviour and expectations
during the pandemic, then this is around the digital savviness of consumers in
almost all age groups”

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Structural change in customer behaviour and expectations
Discussions around digital strategies and customers moving more and more towards the use of
digital channels as websites and mobile apps have been around for over a decade.
Personally, I got involved in the first digital transformation in 2009 where the operator I worked
for at the time implemented a new BSS platform and one of the programmes KPI’s was to move
people from the call centre to using the self-service website.
The key driver at that moment was cost reduction. Any customer using the web instead of calling
the call centre was a direct cost saving of 5 Euro per call. Of course, we also had some NPS
improvement KPI’s as you would expect, but cost reduction was our main driver.
Over time the drivers for digital transformation programmes have shifted from mainly cost saving
to much more focus on Customer Experience and NPS improvements.
Effectively from reducing cost to increasing revenue and customer life time value which I believe is
a much better way to approach business.
The real change moving from off line (retail, call centre) to
online (web and mobile app) is for most operators a long
and slow process.
Online sales still account for only 10 to 20% of total sales
numbers for many operators and the use of self-service
web and mobile applications is also small compared to the
number of customers still calling the call centre or visiting
shops.
In a time where most customers are getting used to buy and service themselves online in other
industries, when it comes to Telco, customers still under utilise the online channels.
If there is one thing that has changed
customer behaviour and expectations
during the pandemic, then this is
around the digital savviness of
consumers in almost all age groups.
Online purchasing has become the new
normal and customers are expecting
easy to use sales journeys that help
them to make their decisions.
Operators that get this right have a
clear advantage over their competitors.
“Online sales for many
operators account for only 10 to
20% of total sales”

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Why 70% of all
transformations fail? And
what to do about it
“This is not because operators are not trying to get their digital strategy right.
Many operators have invested large sums of money in Digital transformation”.

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Why 70% of all transformations fail? And what to do about it
So, if this topic of digital transformation is on the agendas of operators for over a decade, what is
stopping them from successfully completing this. Why do they struggle to match the experience
they deliver with other, more successful industries or companies?
This is not because operators are not trying to get their digital strategy right. Many operators have
invested large sums of money in Digital transformation
But, a quick search on the internet will tell you that a staggering 70% of all started digital
transformation programmes fails. From the remaining 30% that gets completed a large number
does not reach the goals that were set at the start of the programme. This leads to no material
increase from a customer experience perspective.
I believe this comes down to 4 things
Luckily a percentage of the programmes does reach and, in some cases, even exceeds the
expectations set at the start. What is it that these companies get right?
In the next chapters I will go through the 4 reasons mentioned above and provide insights in how
to prevent these common pitfalls.
Scope and goals not clear
Giving up on quality over
budget and time
Lack of understanding of
real customer needs
Not changing the internal
culture

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Why 70% of all transformations fail? And what to do about it
Scope and goals not clear
Typically, a digital transformation programme covers at least a few of the following areas:
For any programme to be successful it is important for the programme goals and outcomes to be
made crystal clear. Preferably in measurable results. Like: improve NPS with 10 points, reduce
Time To Market for new offer launch to 1 day, reduce cost with 10%, increase online sales with
20%, clear sales target structure supporting Omni channel approach cross online and retail sales.
Once the programme success criteria have been defined it is essential that they are validated and
signed off by the senior management team.
Digital transformation programmes will impact
the entire company, it is therefore essential that
senior management buys in to the programme
and provides full support to it. That includes that
they might have to take short term pain into their
own organisation / department to achieve the
longer-term success the programme can deliver.
Once the goals have been validated and are supported by the complete organisation a roadmap
on how and when to deliver specific results can be created. It is important that a programme
delivers incremental success and benefits for it to maintain priority and support. Typically, the
attention span of an organisation is 3 to 4 months, if no results are delivered in a period like that
programmes typically loose priority and attention. Delivery plans should take that into account.
The goals set before the programme really starts must be used by both the delivery team as the
Steering Committee to make their decisions along the way.
Goals set should never be compromised to ensure the outcome is protected.
“For any programme to be successful it is
important for the programme goals and
outcomes to be made crystal clear,
preferably in measurable results.”

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Why 70% of all transformations fail? And what to do about it
Lack of understanding of real customer needs
Many companies start their Digital transformation journey as an internally focussed programme.
The programme has its goals set and people are trying to deliver towards these goals without
validating if this is what their customers are expecting.
Before the programme is started it is important
to consider what it is your customers are
expecting. What does your competition offer in
your industry, which should be your baseline
bench mark, what do other industries offer
that are operating within your country or to
your customer segment, that is your customers
baseline bench mark. What are trends in other
countries you can learn from. And of course,
ask your customers what they would like.
This last question could be raised as part of a standard NPS survey which would give you great
insights not only before you start your project but would also work as direct feedback loop on any
change implemented.
The following model could help to create a holistic view of your customer needs to ensure that
your programme delivers to and beyond their expectations
When it comes to the
deployment and roll out of
your solution it is again
important to create a roadmap
with incremental change and
improvements that allows
your customers to gradually
get used to the change and
allows you to directly act and
steer based on customers
feedback on your changes.
I suggest you start with aligning with your direct competitors as soon as possible, then bring
yourself on par with the digital leaders in your country and perhaps after that start introducing
more advanced features, all depending on your customer needs.
What is the experience provided by your
direct competition & other industries in your
market?
This sets the bench mark that you will have to
reach as baseline.

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Why 70% of all transformations fail? And what to do about it
Why 70% of all transformations fail? And what to do about it
Not changing the internal culture
Digital transformation is not just a technology change. I know this is (or at least should be) an open
door that everyone is aware of, but this is where it still goes wrong in so many cases.
Source: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/human_resource_management/human_resource_management_organizational_culture.htm
To successfully change a culture a plan covering all elements in the picture above must be in place.
In reality however, the IT department is replacing all systems supporting the digital experience to
customers, but Marketing, Sales and Customer Care teams are too busy with their day to day
activities that they do not have the time or interest to get engaged. Once IT is finished with their
activities, they have delivered a solution that is not in line with what the business was expecting to
get. Sounds familiar?
Or operators introduce Omni Channel sales capabilities, so customers can order online and pick up
in store or start in store and finish their order online or any other combination but forget to align
their sales target and commissioning system with this.
Once the capabilities are introduced the incentive for the sales teams to use them are not there.
Arguments start on who gets the commission for which order.
The last and most common example in this category is forgetting that running a new agile
platform can only work if all internal processes and the mind set of people working within these
processes are aligned with this new way of work.
Rigid ITIL processes around Release Management will hamper the ability of the agile teams to
deploy their releases to production. Long Product Life Cycle Management processes will still
prevent the company from releasing new products within the aspired 1 day.
Making changes to all processes and policies involved and changing the environment and mind set
of the people are key to reap the success the programme has delivered.
Without these changes the capabilities might be there, but they will not be utilised.

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Why 70% of all transformations fail? And what to do about it
Why 70% of all transformations fail? And what to do about it
Giving up on quality over budget and time
All programmes come under pressure. Unforeseen things happen either inside or outside the
programme. Business requirements change due to new insights from competitors or technology
changes along the way. Things are more complicated than expected and therefore take more
time, cost more money and many other reasons.
This is the time where the programme and its support in the organisation gets tested.
Effectively there are 3 things any programme can do to cope with this pressure:
1. Increase programme cost
2. Extend programme time lines
3. Reduce programme quality / outcome (remove features)
These are always hard decisions.
There is never more budget available, everyone is under pressure already. Extending the
programme time lines might lead to missing important deadlines, incur even more cost or loosing
interest and priority in the organisation. The easiest and most chosen option therefore is often to
sacrifice features and reduce the programme scope.
Although this is an easy way from a programme
management perspective this is also a very
dangerous way to go. Once you start reducing
the features the programme will deliver you
directly start impacting the value that will be
delivered by the programme.
Any feature in scope should contribute to your
goals set at the start. Therefore, if you sacrifice
one of these features there will be an impact on
the results the programme will deliver.
For this reason, I strongly suggest to not go down this route because although it might get you to
the finish line within the time and budget which are of course great, missing out on the benefits of
the programme might have a much larger impact on the bottom line of the company.
How to solve this dilemma?
Programmes should be run based on a business case. Not only at the start of the programme to
justify the programme to even start. But actively throughout the complete delivery of the
programme and evaluation of achieved results at the end.
How to balance between quality, cost
(budget) and time?
This is typically one of the key questions in
any project that can influence the result and
success considerably.

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Why 70% of all transformations fail? And what to do about it
By running your programme in this way any change to the programme can be evaluated. Not only
from a time and cost perspective but also from a bottom line perspective.
This means that once a change has passed some initial evaluations from a technical perspective
and is seen as a valid change the impact of the change on the business case needs to be assessed.
Does this change positively impact any of the original programme goals (or prevents negative
impact if not implemented)? What is the impact on the business case of this change, both from a
cost and revenue perspective? It is possible to relate NPS increase to churn and with that quantify
the expected Customer Experience increase
In the same way any decision to drop or swap a feature from the existing scope should be
evaluated on its impact to cost and revenue.
This will allow the Steering Committee to make an informed business decision beyond the
simplified view of cost and time lines.

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Which strategies do
operators typically use?
“On high level there are only 3 routes chosen by operators.
Leave it to the BSS vendor, follow a Tier 1 digital platform
operator or in house-build”

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Which strategies do operators typically use?
Over the years I have seen operators taking different approaches to their digital transformation
execution. On a high level they come down to 3 main strategies that are being followed.
In the next chapters I will zoom in on these different approaches
Best of suite approach, digital solution embedded with BSS vendor
This approach is usually only taken if the digital transformation programme runs together with a
BSS (CRM and Billing) replacement programme. To be able to take this approach, if desired, timing
is important.
Within this approach the operator selects a BSS vendor that does not only provide the CRM and
Billing back end applications and internal user interfaces but also asks the BSS vendor to take the
responsibility to deliver the digital channels consisting out of eCommerce, web self-service and a
mobile app.
One of the key drivers behind this approach are typically moving as much responsibility of this
large, complex project to a single point, the BSS vendor.
Over the last few years BSS vendors have invested heavily in fully pre-integrated digital solutions
they can deliver together with their BSS platform.
Best of Suite approach
Tier 1 digital platform
as baseline
In house build solution

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Which strategies do operators typically use?
The benefits of this are clear:
• Single vendor solution from commercial and delivery perspective, reduced programme risk
• Pre-integrated solution delivers fast initial results, all available features can be launched
from the start
• Commercially this often also looks more interesting at the start
But next to these benefits there are also some downsides on this approach
• BSS vendor solutions are often not mature, digital native solutions. Lacking the flexibility
digital teams require to improve the journeys, look and feel and content
• Integration to 3rd parties like Campaign Management for Next Best Offer and Next Best
Action or to external content providers to for example enrich device data information are
not flexible or sometimes not even possible
• Journeys are hard coded and limited flexibility for the digital teams to for example make
small tweaks in the check-out process to improve conversion rates
• Introduction of new features must follow the BSS vendor release process and cannot be
done in an agile way
• The time to market for these types of solutions is typically long because of the dependency
of the overall BSS programme. The digital solution can only go live when the BSS platform
goes live
The success of this approach is mainly strong around the moment of go live. Full functionality is
available at the moment of go live and usually a big improvement compared to the as is situation
is achieved.
After going live digital teams struggle more and more to improve the customer experience and
journeys to address their specific market requirements.
Tier 1 Digital platform as baseline
Within this approach operators select a tier 1 digital platform as for example Liferay, Adobe
Experience Manager or Magento.
Well established digital platforms that support a wide variety of use cases in multiple industries.

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Which strategies do operators typically use?
These solutions can be deployed together with the replacement of a full BSS platform but can also
be deployed completely independent as a programme on its own that has clear focus and goals.
This approach comes with its own set of benefits as:
• A rich set with out of the box available templates and digital features
• Training material available to get teams up to speed in a short period of time
• More influence on actual look and feel and journeys for the operator compared to the best
of suite approach from the previous chapter
• Good availability of SI’s that have experience in delivering the selected platform
But like with all things in life where there is an upside there is also a down side.
For this type of solutions these typically are:
• Platform is industry agnostic and does not cater specifically for the Telco industry which
leads to a lack of Telco specific capabilities
• To be able to support different industries the platform is big and heavy with many features
in the platform that are not required and used negatively impacting the performance and
complexity to maintain
• Rigid CMS data model
• Limited possibility to tweak the page rendering beyond making changes to templates
In many implementations we see operators building workarounds to handle some of these
limitations either during the initial project or once the first changes after going live must be
applied.
In house build, open source, solution
This approach is typically used by companies that have digital transformation as part of a wider
transformation programme. Not so much a BSS transformation programme in this context but
more a business model transformation, with focus on extending the types of services sold to
customers, building a layer on top of different back end systems covering for example mobile and
fixed or transforming themselves into digital service providers.

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Which strategies do operators typically use?
Which strategies do operators typically use?
As part of this approach operators typically start building in house (agile) teams and take control
of their own digital future with less limitations then in the other 2 approaches.
Instead of selecting readymade full solutions the teams are separated into CMS, integration /
business logic layer and presentation layer teams. Every team gets the freedom to select their own
solution they want to work with to drive the best result for the overall project.
They can decide to get a cots product and develop on that in case of for example a headless CMS
or business logic layer or can decide to start developing their own component from scratch.
With a true agile approach, epics and use cases are defined and planned into sprints. The teams
work closely together in small iterations to develop and integrate their components into an overall
solution.
The benefits of going this way are:
• Full flexibility and control over capabilities and user experience
• Fast time to market once solution is launched
• Close cooperation between business and IT development teams using product owners for
the different components
• Influences company culture positively with inhouse team and agile way of working
Just as with the other 2 approaches there are of course also down sides on this approach:
• Starting with less or none Out of the Box assets requires more in-house knowledge as to
what to build and how to structure for example CMS data
• Initial project will take more time to deliver a full set of capabilities
• Increased responsibility on the operator side to deliver
Taking on the responsibility to deliver digital channels in house requires full dedication and
support of the complete C-level team to make this a success. It takes upfront commitments and
cost to change the organisation and invest in building up the capability to deliver long term change
using incremental growth and improvement.

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What has proven to be the
most successful strategy
“Successful companies become successful not because they have their strategy
100% right at the start but because a flexible architecture and organisation that
allows them to learn, adapt and grow at the same time they bring instant,
incremental improvements to their customers”

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What has proven to be the most successful strategy
After talking to and observing the results of dozens of operators we see the companies that
transform not only their customer experience but successfully transform their own organisation
into an agile, customer experience focusses company are the ones that drive real success.
This typically comes with building up in house capabilities to not only define the strategy but also
implement this strategy with focus and success.
Successful companies become successful not because they have their strategy 100% right at the
start but because of a flexible architecture and organisation that allows them to learn, adapt and
grow at the same time they bring instant, incremental improvements to their customers.
It is this learning fast and flexibility that allows the successful operators to achieve their success.
Large “set in stone” programmes setup in waterfall over a 12 to 24-month period are destined to
fail in this arena.
A combination of building up the in-house
capability while working with a flexible, agile
solution provider or solution integrator that
can help to quick start the initial phase
increases the chance of success. The initial,
new, team can work with the partner and
learn from mistakes made in other
programmes.
The programme can delivery quick results to maintain momentum in parallel to strengthening the
in-house capability.
While choosing the partner it is important that the technology provided will not lock the operator
in moving forward.
The technology selected should provide enough flexibility for the in-house teams to progress the
solution into the required direction for your brand and customer needs.
“Successful companies become successful not
because they have their strategy 100% right at
the start but because of a flexible architecture
and organisation that allows them to learn,
adapt and grow”

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The OpenCloudBSS Digital
solution
“As baseline we have taken the in-house build approach focussed on a solution fit
for purpose for Telco’s”

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The OpenCloudBSS Digital solution
Based on what we learned, looking to what does and does not work we have developed our
OpenCloudBSS Digital platform.
As baseline we have taken the in-house build approach focussed on a solution fit for purpose for
Telco’s.
We use an opensource, headless CMS from Strapi, which allowed us to build our own data model
and structure. It also provides us with the possibility to manage all content for any webpage and
the mobile app in a single place.
Our middleware is in-house build and handles all business logic and integrations that require
coordination of collecting the information before it is submitted. This is usually the case with data
required for BSS systems, Campaign Management (Next Best Offer) and Payment providers.
The online component takes care of the rendering of the pages in the correct format for the
device used by the customer to ensure a great experience on any device.
With our solution we enable operators to get the benefits from the most successful approach
faster. We provide 3 different cooperation models:
1. Our team works as your internal team and delivers the Digital transformation based on a
combination of our platform and experience
2. Our team works closely with your team to start the digital transformation journey and as
we go along, we hand over the solution and activities completely to your team.
3. Your team uses our solution as baseline to start their digital transformation journey. This
helps them to kick start the project, benefitting from the Telco specific assets and data
models we have already build as part of our solution.
If you are looking to kickstart your digital transformation and would like to brainstorm on how to
best achieve your results, feel free to reach out!

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Martin Kievit
Chief Executive Officer
martin@opencloudbss.com
+44 75 77 644 992
About us
We are passionate about providing a great Digital Customer Experience!
In our view the importance of the Digital Experience for customers is ever growing. Expectations of
customers about what they can do themselves and the experience provided to them when servicing
themselves are increasing, driven by new technological opportunities implemented by direct and indirect
competitors of your company.
Finding a great balance between providing a great Digital Customer experience and changing the focus and
mindsets within the organisation while actually achieving results is always a challenge.
We love being part of that process!
Our team is a great mixture of people with a background in Marketing and Sales within service providers
and great, creative technical engineers that love to make simple to use solutions. This allowed us to build a
platform that your customers will love to use.
We’re always looking forward to new business opportunities!
Interested in our platform, services or looking for more information? Feel free to drop me a message or give
me a call!