In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Interview Series, we’re taking the conversation to LinkedIn Live, and focusing on the BSS-to-Cloud journey that so many communication service providers (CSPs) are currently exploring. I was joined by my colleague here at Futurum, fellow analyst Ron Westfall, and also joined by Miriam Deasy and Rick Mallon from Ericsson. In our conversation, we focused on the findings of a research report that our team at Futurum partnered with Ericsson to develop: BSS-to-Cloud Journey: Powering Innovation Across the Digital Value Chain.

For CSPs, embracing customer-centric business operations and digital engagement allow them to monetize on improved customer experiences and support business models for current or future innovations. But sometimes all of that is much easier said than done and knowing where to start can be challenging — thus the impetus for our research.

From a strategic perspective, CSP decision-makers must recognize the most important considerations that are driving the BSS-to-cloud journey, and that’s what we set out to both map out in the research report, as well as to have a discussion around on this episode of our Futurum Tech Webcast Interview Series show.

Miriam and Rick introduced themselves and shared a little about their roles at Ericsson, and we then jumped in. Here are some of the things our discussion covered:

• What the Ericsson team is seeing, from their vantage point in Ericsson Digital BSS across their customer base in terms of challenges customers face.
• What different approaches they are seeing on the customer side (and what can be learned from this).
• How Ericsson manages to cater to this massive amount of variation across their customer base and prospects, as well as in product development.
• What advice and insights can be offered to customers as they progress through their cloud journeys.
• The reality of continuous improvement/continuous development (CI/CD) play, and the role it plays for overall success.
• The top goals and objectives customers have identified, either to achieve or fix, as they progress in their cloud journeys.
• The top challenges customers shared that they face in their BSS-to-cloud journeys and what can be learned from that.

We wrapped up our discussion with a look at what the Ericsson team feels is working well for their customers, as well as a conversation around how CSPs can increase the likelihood of successful outcomes, and we closed our show with thoughts on what CSPs can do and/or focus on as they progress on their BSS cloud journeys.