In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Interview Series, I was joined by my colleague here at Futurum Research, Ron Westfall, and Jason Keane, Head of Digital BSS Product and Solution Line at Ericsson for a conversation around moving BSS journeys to the cloud, and what to consider from the platform prospective with insights from our recently released research report The BSS-to-cloud journey: Powering innovation across the digital value chain

Ericsson on Moving BSS Cloud Journeys Forward – The Platform Perspective

This is the second of two events connected with that recent research into BSS-to-cloud journeys. Ron and I were joined a few weeks ago by Ericsson's Head of Product Domain BSS Customer & Partner Engagement, Rick Mallon and BSS Senior Solutions Marketing Manager, Miriam Deasy for a conversation about cloud transformation and digital engagement — you can watch (or listen) to that conversation here: The BSS-to-Cloud Journey: Powering Innovation Across the Digital Value Chain.

Our discussion was far-reaching and included the following:

• Why BSS journeys to cloud are underway, what's in it for customers, and the complexity of the cloud journey. Jason shared insights on the increased pace of demand, faster time to market, as well as the closer alignment between the commercial and technical reality of legacy systems that aren't agile enough to do what's needed today. We then moved into customer benefits as well as the complexities of cloud journeys and how to think about most effectively starting down that path.
• The diversity of cloud approaches across the Ericsson customer base and the nuances of how Ericsson caters to this massive amount of variation and how that impacts software development as well as deployment of BSS-to-cloud journey initiatives.
• Cloud and cloud native, Ci/CD pipelines, and what level of readiness needs to be in place on the customer side for cloud native software, as well as what's involved in supporting customers' success.
• Myth-busting the hype surrounding cloud and what impact, if any, that has on cloud transitions and digital transformations to live up to their promises.
• The advantages to a multi-vendor strategy using different cloud providers versus using all services of just one provider, and how to think about that as organizations are strategizing their BSS-to-Cloud journey, including key considerations like avoiding vendor lock-in.
• Some day-to-day challenges customers experience and how integrating BSS with OSS and packet core are essential and how to think about measuring success as it relates to the BSS-to-cloud journey and what 'completion' really looks like.

It was a terrific conversation and if you're exploring migrating your BSS to the cloud, one you won't want to miss.