Ovum Decision Matrix-Selecting A Real-Time Convergent Billing and Charging Solution

Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting a
Real-time Convergent Billing and

Charging Solution, 2016–17
Publication Date: 20 Jul 2016 | Product code: IT0012-000172
Chantel Cary
Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting a Real-time Convergent Billing and Charging Solution, 2016–17
Summary
Catalyst
Service capabilities and customer needs have evolved at a rate that has outpaced the capabilities of
telcos' legacy BSS systems. In order to support and monetize the new technologies emerging in the
telecoms industry and serve changing customer needs, telcos are investing in upgrading their
revenue management systems. Central to the improvement of the state of revenue management in
the telco organization is the upgrading of billing and charging systems. In Ovum's 2016 ICT Enterprise
Insights survey of more than 500 telco CIOs, 80% of telcos stated that they plan to make some type of
upgrade to their billing and charging systems in the next 12–18 months, with nearly 45% undertaking
major transformation projects or completely replacing these systems.
In light of these facts, Ovum has produced this Ovum Decision Matrix to identify how the market's top
billing and charging vendors compare against one another across technical capabilities, execution of
strategy, and market impact.
Ovum view
As telcos aim to compete in an increasingly online and digital market, meet customer expectations,
and improve revenue growth, it is growing more evident that they must first upgrade their revenue
management systems. Legacy and multiple revenue management systems have created a bottleneck
for telcos as they attempt to evolve operations. According to Ovum's most recent ICT Enterprise
Insights survey of more than 500 telco CIOs, 60% of telcos stated that they had 50 or more revenue
management systems supporting the business. Hosting this many systems is not only costly, but also
hinders the telcos' ability to execute large-scale changes efficiently. In response, the industry is
undergoing a wide-scale transformation, with a large number of telcos focusing on billing and charging
transformation projects.
As telcos award new billing and charging contracts, they are seeking out vendors that can improve
business agility, have configurable systems that can be quickly deployed, and also support them as
the telcos develop new business models to compete in the market.
The telecoms vendor space has become quite competitive over the last decade. As telcos' financial
situations have worsened, telcos have changed their criteria for awarding new contracts. As a result,
telcos have moved away from awarding to "best of breed" vendors for a single system component
(such as just rating engines) and have increasingly begun to award contracts to vendors with a
comprehensive or "best of suite" product and service portfolio.
Key findings
 More than 80% of telcos plan to upgrade their revenue management systems over the next
18 months, according to Ovum's ICT Enterprise Insights survey.
 Telcos are upgrading billing and charging systems in order to improve operational agility and
support new and digital business models.
 Improving pricing tariffs, adding convergence, and improving real-time capabilities are among
the top priorities for telcos that are upgrading billing and charging systems.
© Ovum. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. Page 2

 Network equipment providers (NEPs) and vendors with an end-to-end BSS portfolio, are the
vendors of choice for telcos upgrading their billing and charging systems.
 A vendor with a strong billing and charging solution will offer several pre-integrated
components, have a complete BSS portfolio, strong services revenues and capabilities, and a
fully virtualized solution with low latency.
 The market leaders in this Ovum Decision Matrix – Amdocs, Ericsson, Huawei, Netcracker,
and Oracle – have technically strong solutions, have demonstrated innovation in the
development of the product, and have varied global footprints.
 AsiaInfo, CSG International, Comarch, Redknee, and ZTESoft are the market challengers and
all offer unique and differentiating capabilities, but fall short of the market leader category
because their capabilities are not as deep.
Vendor solution selection

Inclusion criteria
Ovum defines billing and charging as a subset of processes occurring within telco revenue
management systems. While typically delivered as two separate products, the two systems and
processes are closely linked and are evolving as a result of recent changes in the telecoms market.
In order to be included in this Decision Matrix, vendors had to meet the following criteria:
 The vendor must offer both billing and charging solutions, and those must be convergent. For
the purpose of this report, Ovum defines convergent as being capable of supporting prepaid
and postpaid subscribers, multiple service types, online and offline charging, multiple service
provider types (i.e. consumer, wholesale, and enterprise), and network types (e.g. LTE, IMS).
 The vendor's solution must be in commercial use, and have at least one operational telco
customer using both the convergent charging and convergent billing solutions.
Vendors included in the Decision Matrix were evaluated not only on their technical strengths and the
execution of their solutions, but also their market impact, which includes the opinions of their
customers. Ovum's Decision Matrix diagram, vendor assessment, and overall positioning are based
on information and data shared by the vendors through the completion of a technical worksheet,
demo, and briefing discussions. Ovum does not make any assumptions regarding information not
disclosed by participants (such as specific revenue breakdowns), therefore the final positioning is a
representation solely of the information provided by the vendor to Ovum. To understand the
competitive dynamics in the billing and charging market, Ovum evaluated and profiled the following
ten providers:
 Amdocs
 AsiaInfo
 Comarch
 CSG International
 Ericsson
 Huawei
 Netcracker

 Oracle
 Redknee
 ZTESoft
Exclusion criteria
Ovum excluded vendors' solutions if the vendor
 did not meet the deadline to return all required information.
 could not provide customer references or case studies.
 does not actively sell a component of its core solution (i.e. charging or billing).
Methodology
Technology/service assessment
Ovum analysts assign vendors a score from 1 to 10 for each of the assessment criteria, and the
scores are averaged to determine each vendor's overall technology assessment rating. The four
technology assessment criteria used for the real-time convergent billing and charging ODM include:
 Product development: Assesses how and to what extent the vendor invests in developing
and evolving its solution, and how well aligned it is with industry frameworks.
 Platform capabilities: Assesses the features and functionalities included in the standard
solution.
 Usability: Assesses the ease of use of the solution for business users.
 Completeness of solution: Assesses the extent to which the solutions are fully functional,
and capable of supporting next-generation business models and challenges, while also
evaluating the degree to which the vendor brings new ideas, features, and services to the
market.
Execution
In this dimension, Ovum analysts review the vendor's ability to deliver the solution for an array of telco
types, focusing specifically on the following six areas:
 Maturity: The stage that the product is currently at in the maturity lifecycle is assessed here,
relating to the maturity of the product relative to the market.
 Interoperability: In this element we assess how easily the solution can be integrated into the
organization's operations, relative to the demand for integration for the project.
 Innovation: Innovation can be a key differentiator in the value that a telco achieves from a
software or services implementation, and this is assessed in this criteria.
 Deployment: Referring to a combination of assessed criteria and points of information, Ovum
provides detail on various deployment issues, including time needed for deployment,
industries covered, services offered, and support.
 Scalability: Points of information are provided to show the scalability of the solution across
different scenarios.
 Enterprise fit: The alignment of the solution is assessed in this dimension, and the potential
ROI period identified.

Market impact
The global market impact of a solution is assessed in this dimension. Market impact is measured
across four categories, each of which has a maximum score of 10.
 Revenue and growth: Each solution's global billing and charging revenues are calculated as
a percentage of the market leader's. This percentage is then multiplied by a market maturity
value and rounded to the nearest integer. Overall global revenue carries the highest weighting
in the market impact dimension.
 Telecoms reach: Ovum determines each vendor's revenues in four regions: North America;
Latin America and the Caribbean; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA); and
Asia-Pacific. These revenues are calculated as a percentage of the market-leading solution's
revenues in each region, multiplied by 10, and then rounded to the nearest integer. The
solution's overall geographical reach score is the average of these three values.
 Vertical penetration: Ovum determines each vendor's revenues in the following verticals:
energy and utilities; financial services; healthcare; life sciences; manufacturing; media and
entertainment; professional services; public sector; retail; wholesale and distribution;
telecommunications; and travel, transportation, logistics, and hospitality. These revenues are
calculated as a percentage of the market leader's revenues in each vertical, multiplied by 10,
and then rounded to the nearest integer. The solution's overall vertical penetration score is the
average of these three values.
 Customer sentiment: Vendors were asked to provide no fewer than three customer
references to participate in a survey. References were surveyed and asked to evaluate the
vendor's billing and charging solution's capabilities, including ease of use, pricing, and
innovation. Participants also ranked the top three perceived market leaders, preferred vendor
type, and buying preference. Customer sentiment is captured in four categories: vendor's
charging solution, vendor's billing solution, vendor-type preference (e.g. telecoms-specific
vendor, large software vendor, or NEP), and vendor portfolio preference (e.g. best of breed,
BSS only, or best of suite). Each section within the customer sentiment category has a
maximum score of 2.5, with the maximum score for overall customer sentiment being 10.
Ovum ratings
 Market leader: This category represents the leading solutions that we believe are worthy of a
place on most technology selection shortlists. The vendor has established a commanding
market position with a product that is widely accepted as best-of-breed.
 Market challenger: The solutions in this category have a good market positioning and the
vendors are selling and marketing the products well. The products offer competitive
functionality and a good price-performance proposition, and should be considered as part of
the technology selection.
 Market follower: Solutions in this category are typically aimed at meeting the requirements of
a particular kind of customer. As a tier-one offering, they should be explored as part of the
technology selection. (In this Decision Matrix, no vendors fell into this category.)

Market and solution analysis

The telecoms industry is undergoing a unique period of change. New business models, technologies,
and customer expectations are forcing telcos to invest in improving systems across the business;
revenue management, particularly in improving billing and charging systems, is one of the first areas
of investment.
Billing and charging systems are central to telcos' ability to operate and generate revenue. However,
over the years, billing operations have become neglected. Through mergers and acquisitions, and in
support of new product launches, telcos have accumulated dozens of billing and charging systems,
which have in turn greatly hindered their ability to evolve. According to Ovum's 2016 ICT Enterprise
Insights survey of more than 500 telco CIOs, 60% of telcos stated that they had 50 or more revenue
management systems supporting their operations, with 12% stating they had more than 1,000.
Housing this many legacy, siloed, and rigid systems is not only expensive, but also stifles telcos'
ability to innovate and keep up with fast-changing expectations. As a result, telcos are increasingly
opting to transform and, in many cases, completely replace their billing and charging systems.
In the same Ovum survey, 80% of telcos stated that they plan to upgrade their billing and charging
systems over the next 18 months. Among the top priorities were improving pricing tariffs to gain more
agility in charging parameters, introducing convergence in the billing and charging processes, and
improving real-time capabilities. These features are crucial for telcos as their business environment
becomes more digitally driven; they are required to operate in near-real time, charge for (and
monetize) new services as new technologies emerge, and charge and bill for multiple services on a
single bill. Additionally, telcos are facing pressure to provide a more personalized customer
experience and so require close integration of billing and charging with systems such as CRM and
policy. Having these capabilities is at the top of the minds of telcos as they seek new billing and
charging solutions and vendor partners.
Our analysis shows that vendors with comprehensive "best of suite" offerings are favored over those
with niche, "best of breed" solutions. Moreover, network equipment providers (NEPs) and
telecoms-specific vendors are seen as more favorable providers than large software vendors,
according to an Ovum survey of 30 vendor customer references. This shift in preference from "best of
breed" solutions to "best of suite" is attributed mostly to the need to lower capex and opex, but is
reinforced by the need to also closely integrate billing and charging systems with other systems such
as product catalogs, service activation and provisioning systems, CRM, and policy control.
Ovum Decision Matrix: Real-time Convergent Billing and

Charging, 2016–17
The billing and charging space has fully matured and competition among vendors has become
extremely competitive, as Figures 1 and 2 show. As a result of the technology being mature, vendors
must differentiate their offerings by developing new and innovative features and use cases. They must
differentiate themselves through pricing and deployment time and by offering an array of products
beyond just billing and charging. Additionally, to be considered strong, a vendor's solution must be
capable of supporting existing telco business models with enough agility and use cases to support
next-generation and digital business models. Key capabilities and features that a vendor's solution
should possess include:
 real-time charging

 convergence across customer types (i.e. prepaid, postpaid), service type (e.g. fixed, mobile),
and network type (e.g. 2G, 3G, LTE)
 ability to charge for any instance or thing
 ability to issue bills in multiple formats including HTML and apps
 real-time analytics engine
 reporting system with insight into revenue performance, billing process status, etc.
 billing operations management portal to enable users to bill on-demand, roll back to the
previous step in the billing process, and generate alerts for issues in the billing process.
In addition, a strong billing and charging vendor will offer an array of additional products across a BSS
and OSS portfolio. According to an Ovum survey of telcos planning to upgrade their billing and
charging solutions, CRM, analytics, and policy were the products that telcos prefer to have
pre-integrated into their billing and charging systems.
Finally, a strong vendor will have an array of services and support capabilities that spans from
professional services (e.g. consulting) to varying SLA options, systems integrations, and SaaS.
Figure 1: Ovum Decision Matrix: Real-time Convergent Billing and Charging, 2016–17
Source: Ovum

Figure 2: Expanded view of Ovum Decision Matrix: Real-time Convergent Billing and Charging,
2016–17
Source: Ovum
Table 1: Ovum Decision Matrix: Real-time Convergent Billing and Charging, 2016–17
Market leaders Market challengers Market followers
Amdocs AsiaInfo n/a
Ericsson CSG International
Huawei Comarch
Netcracker Redknee
Oracle ZTESoft
Source: Ovum
Market leaders: Amdocs, Ericsson, Huawei, Netcracker, and

Oracle
Vendors in the leader category have excelled in each of the three assessment categories: technical
ability, execution, and market impact. More specifically, vendors in this category:
 offer a technically superior solution
 demonstrate innovation in the product development process and use cases
 have a clearly defined roadmap that aligns well with client and market needs
 have strong revenues across varied regions and telco tiers
 offer a complete BSS portfolio with at least some OSS components
 show strong revenue growth
 have strong service revenues – particularly in BSS transformation
 offer an array of pre-integrated components
 scored high marks from customer references

 scored high marks in the perceived market leader section of the customer reference survey
 have live use cases, proof of concepts, or both that prove their solution's ability to support
next-generation technologies.
To be clear, Ovum does not make any assumptions regarding information not disclosed by
participants (such as specific revenue breakdowns), therefore the final positioning is a representation
solely of the information provided by the vendor to Ovum (see the earlier "Inclusion criteria" section for
more detail).
Amdocs is a telecoms software vendor, and its solution is technically strong. The vendor has
developed a wide array of use cases to address telco needs and market challenges specifically. The
vendor also performed well among all customer references, with telcos identifying Amdocs as the
clear market leader in the billing space and as one of the top two vendors in the charging space. This,
in addition to the vendor's strong service revenues, overall revenue growth, and commitment to
continuous innovation for telecoms specifically, makes Amdocs a leader in the market.
Ericsson is a network equipment provider (NEP) with an extensive portfolio spanning both BSS and
OSS. In addition to its comprehensive product portfolio, the vendor's understanding of and ability to
provide telco networks bolster its position as a market leader. According to two recent Ovum surveys
with telcos executives, NEPs are seen as the most desirable group of providers for billing and
charging solutions due to their ability to evolve the products to support network capabilities.
Additionally, Ericsson's strong revenues, large number of BSS transformation project wins, and focus
on aligning its product roadmap with the market and its customers' immediate needs help it stand as a
market leader.
Huawei is also an NEP with a portfolio that includes a full suite of products across BSS and OSS. The
vendor's numerous BSS transformation project wins, along with early investments into offering a
next-generation, digital-ready BSS solution in its BES product, has cemented the vendor's positioning
as a market leader.
Netcracker is a telecoms software vendor but, as a subsidiary of NEC, also possesses the ability to
partner with its parent company to provide network equipment. The vendor has a technically
advanced solution that includes pre-integrated products across BSS and OSS. Netcracker's strong
revenues, increasing number of BSS wins, and 20+ BSS transformation project wins over the last 12
months are just some examples of how the vendor has been able to emerge as a market leader.
Oracle is a large software vendor with a strong presence across multiple industries. While the vendor
has a technically competent solution with a wide portfolio of BSS and OSS that can be pre-integrated
or included as add-ons, the vendor must improve on telecoms-specific product innovation in order to
improve its overall market position.
Market challengers: AsiaInfo, CSG International, Comarch,

Redknee, and ZTESoft
Vendors in the challenger category have excelled in two of the three assessment categories. Market
challengers have a solution that is technically competent. They also show some product innovation
and have a product roadmap that is aligned with the industry. Vendors in this category may be lacking
in minor areas. For example, they might have minimal footprint among telco types or regions; the
majority of their total revenues or investments may be in an area outside of BSS or telecoms; and
they might have limited industry use cases and a less established record of innovation (compared to

the market, other vendors, and/or as indicated by customer references). Vendors in this category can
become a market leader by improving in one key area.
AsiaInfo is a software vendor operating mainly in the Asia-Pacific region with a technically strong
solution that includes an end-to-end BSS offering. The vendor has invested significantly in developing
a billing and charging solution that is well aligned with telco needs and ahead of its competitors in
terms of technical capabilities. Investments into developing a quickly deployable BSS-lite solution and
a public cloud-enabled BSS solution have allowed AsiaInfo to differentiate itself in the market. To
move into the leader category, however, the vendor will need to expand its global footprint and claim a
larger market share and brand presence in more regions outside Asia.
CSG International is a telecoms software vendor with a strong presence in the enterprise space. The
vendor has made great strides to align its product with its customer's needs and offer flexible pricing
options for telcos. Growing the consumer business will allow CSG to improving its overall position.
Comarch is primarily a telecoms software vendor with BSS and OSS products and capabilities in
additional industries. While the vendor offers a solution that meets telcos' technical needs, the vendor
must further develop its product roadmap, introduce innovative industry use cases, and expand its
global footprint in order to improve its overall positioning.
Redknee is primarily a telecoms software vendor with a strong, though incomplete, BSS portfolio. The
vendor has made significant investments into enhancing its solution both through mergers and
acquisitions, and organic R&D. The vendor has made significant strides to improve its overall market
position but will need to show steady revenue growth before it can be considered a market leader.
ZTESoft is a telecoms software vendor and subsidiary of network equipment provider ZTE. The
vendor offers an array of products that span BSS and OSS, in addition to providing network
equipment through its parent company. While the vendor has a product roadmap aligned with industry
trends, the vendor must develop more innovative use cases and expand its global footprint, and
emerge as a leader in at least one region to improve its overall positioning.
Market followers
Market followers, of which there were none in this Decision Matrix, have excelled in one of the three
assessment categories. Market followers have a product that meets the standard technical
requirements for telcos, but have demonstrated minimal product innovation or do not have a product
roadmap that aligns well with industry trends. Vendors in this category also have not yet developed a
strong presence in a particular market or penetrated a telco subset.

Market leaders
Market leaders: technology
Figure 3: Ovum Decision Matrix: Real-time Convergent Billing and Charging, 2016–17 – Market
leaders – technology
Source: Ovum
The technology section assesses the vendors' ability to meet the technological requirements for telcos
to address current challenges, such as an inability to charge for multiple services on a single bill, while
also evaluating the vendors' ability to support evolving telco business models. Areas evaluated in this
section included how the products are developed, their capabilities, usability, and the overall
completeness of the solution.
Amdocs, Netcracker, and Huawei all demonstrated high competency in these areas, with each vendor
offering several pre-integrated components with its billing and charging solutions. Additionally, the
vendors demonstrated a commitment to developing products in line with industry standards,
developed systems with a strong ability to speak both to technical and business (such as marketing)
users throughout the telco, and showed a commitment to evolving their solutions to support emerging
technologies and business models.

Market leaders: execution

leaders – execution
Source: Ovum
The execution section evaluates how effectively a vendor's solution can be deployed within a telco,
regardless of telco type. Areas assessed in the execution section include: the maturity of the solution,
how well aligned the solution is with market needs (from an architectural and capabilities standpoint),
the scalability of the solution, and how effectively the solution can be deployed.
Amdocs, Huawei, and Netcracker separated themselves as leaders in this category. Each of the
vendors have developed mature solutions that are well aligned with the needs of the telecoms
industry and have invested in developing product roadmaps that include innovative and differentiating
features or capabilities.

Market leaders: market impact

leaders – market impact
Source: Ovum
The market impact section assesses vendors' ability to penetrate the larger telecoms market and
adjacent markets. Elements assessed in this category include telecoms reach (including markets and
telco tiers that the telco has penetrated), and revenue and revenue growth. Additionally, the customer
sentiment section assesses the overall perception of each vendor by its customer references,
including understanding: who the perceived market leaders are for each solution, the customer's
satisfaction with the vendor's solution, and the customer's preference for procuring billing and
charging solutions. Finally, vertical penetration assesses the vendors' presence across multiple
industries, and their level of dedication to the telecoms industry, as represented by the total
percentage of revenue generated in each vertical industry.
Amdocs, Ericsson, and Netcracker all emerged as leaders in this category. Not only do these vendors
have strong revenues within the telecoms market, but also have a strong global footprint, and were
identified as market leaders in the customer survey.

Vendor analysis
Amdocs (Ovum recommendation: Leader)
Figure 6: Amdocs radars
Source: Ovum
Ovum SWOT assessment

Strengths
Strong solution with aggressive focus on supporting next-gen: Amdocs is a clear market leader
within the billing and charging space. Its product is widely recognized and regarded as an all-round
leader in the industry by both telcos and competing vendors. Amdocs' market positioning has been
solidified not only by large contract wins, but likewise by the vendor's commitment to proactively
address the market challenges (both existing and future) to telcos' revenue management systems in
the development of its product roadmap, including a clearly defined roadmap for a fully virtualized
BSS stack. Over the years, Amdocs has enhanced its billing and charging solution to incorporate
features such as pre-integrated analytics, mediation, and partner management, and has increased its
focus on the networks domain in order to incorporate additional components such as network quality
of experience (QoE) and other elements of the OSS. Additionally, the vendor supports the delivery of
its billing and charging systems in a virtualized environment (with low latency and high availability),
complete with the support of its extensive services offerings, which are bundled into the software
contracts. The vendor has also done a superb job at following market technology trends and
anticipating their impact and challenges on telcos' billing and charging systems, and building

out-of-the-box solutions built off its core billing and charging offering, such as its recently launched IoT
monetization and digital platforms.
Strong global footprint: As a result of differentiating its products in the market, Amdocs has been
able to capture a significant portion of market share in the telecoms market. The vendor has more
than 250 telco clients spread across 80 countries. Additionally, several recent BSS transformation
project wins have allowed Amdocs to strengthen its geographical footprint and overall market impact.
Weaknesses
Limited footprint among smaller telcos: Although Amdocs has strong relationships with tier-1 telcos
and has demonstrated an ongoing dedication to supporting the next-generation telco, the vendor has
a limited footprint within the tier-2 and smaller telco space, which has left a large addressable market
on the table. Specifically, 55% of the vendor's revenue came from North America in 2015, with AT&T
accounting for approximately 33% of the revenue in North America. While the vendor offers Amdocs
Compact Convergence – a solution targeted at the small telco and MVNO space – its core focus
remains on building out the capabilities of its Amdocs CES solution, which has performed better in the
tier-1 telco market. Furthermore, as the vendor invests in developing new capabilities such as a fully
virtualized billing system, it will find that larger vendors will be more hesitant to adopt these
technologies, while the smaller players will be more willing. Gaining these smaller wins and
developing market use cases, albeit with smaller telcos, will allow Amdocs to not only increase its
market footprint, but also provide practical market use cases, which it can use to grow the business
further.
Opportunities
Grow emerging markets presence to capture new opportunities: According to Ovum's most
recent Telecoms IT spend forecast, global IT spend in emerging markets in Latin America, Central and
Southern Asia, and Africa is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.9%, 6.4%, and 5.0%, respectively, over
the next five years. Telcos in these regions are urgently undertaking substantial transformation
projects to keep up with – and in many cases, leapfrog – the competition. While Amdocs has a strong
market presence in mature markets such as Europe and North America, only 25% of its total revenue
comes from the Asia-Pacific and Latin American markets. Focusing on securing deals with smaller
telcos in these regions will enable the vendor to better penetrate the emerging markets and capture
the increasing IT spend from these regions.
Threats
NEPs seen as the favored provider: According to a recent Ovum survey of telco executives, 45% of
telcos stated that NEPs (network equipment providers) were the vendor type of choice when selecting
a new billing and charging solution. As the industry moves closer to rolling out 5G networks and live
deployments of NFV and SDN, telcos will need to also invest in upgrading their billing and charging
systems to support and monetize these new technologies. It is also likely, as we have seen in the
past, that the NEPs will bundle in billing and charging software to support these rollouts, thus cutting
out non-network vendors such as Amdocs. As a result, Amdocs will see the competition for billing and
charging contracts become fiercer and will need to have several clear, innovative use cases available
in order to justify telcos seeking out a "best of breed" option for billing and charging over a bundled
deal with a NEP.

AsiaInfo (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)

Figure 7: AsiaInfo radars
Source: Ovum

Strengths
Product usability is a core focus: AsiaInfo's billing and charging solution, as a part of the larger
Veris portfolio, was designed with both business and end-user usability in mind. The vendor has
developed its product and made ongoing improvements by developing its solution starting from the
end-user's perspective. This is evident not only in features such as its product catalog tool, which
enables business users to quickly create and configure pricing for new products and services, but also
in visualization capabilities created for its end-user self-service portals, all of which are powered by
the billing and charging solutions.
Fully committed to the cloud: AsiaInfo has demonstrated its full commitment to the cloud by
providing telcos with a fully virtualized version of its BSS solution. In February, the vendor announced
its strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deliver Veris Cloud Core as a fully
public cloud-enabled version of its entire Veris BSS suite. This partnership is somewhat ahead of the
market. AsiaInfo was the first vendor of its kind to announce such a strategic partnership. On the other
hand, while telcos are keen to adopt cloud delivery models (Ovum's ICT Enterprise Insights survey
reported 63% of telcos plan to use some form of cloud to host their revenue management systems
over the next 12 months), the industry has yet to see any large-scale adoption of public cloud for
revenue management systems. However, it must be recognized that AsiaInfo's partnership with a

proven, secure, and trusted public cloud provider such as AWS puts it in a favorable position to win
business down the line as telcos begin to adopt public cloud for BSS.
Weaknesses
Limited global footprint: Although AsiaInfo offers an end-to-end BSS solution that is technically
strong with high usability, the vendor falls short in its ability to capture global market share and expand
its footprint. Ninety-nine percent of AsiaInfo's billing and charging revenue comes from Asia-Pacific,
while only 1% of its revenue comes from the EMEA region. Though the vendor began expanding into
EMEA three years ago, this lack of global penetration limits its ability to be seen as a global market
leader and severely limits the vendor's revenue potential. Though it has proven itself as a leading
vendor within the Asia-Pacific market, AsiaInfo will need to secure more deals and distribute its
revenue across more regions to improve its positioning and be seen as a leading billing and charging
vendor in the overall telecoms market.
Opportunities
Address digital pain points to win big: As telcos undertake BSS transformation projects they must
find a balance between appreciating that true IT transformation is a long-term, multiyear commitment
while also finding the means to support digital services today. AsiaInfo's Real Time Charging solution
allows the vendor to go after this segment by providing a BSS "lite" solution, which includes online
charging, policy, and product catalog. The solution can be quickly deployed to enable functions such
as e-commerce and other capabilities to support digital business models. This approach will allow
AsiaInfo to:
 secure revenue from those telcos that have already committed to long-term transformation
projects but that are looking for immediate solutions
 penetrate smaller to medium-sized telcos who have not yet committed to full transformation
projects
 position itself favorably to win larger transformation projects and expand its footprint.
Threats
Recent security breaches call cloud security into question: AsiaInfo has placed a big bet on
telcos buying into public cloud for BSS. While this is a bold, forward-looking move, telcos are still
hesitant to adopt public delivery models for fear of security breaches. Moreover, the showdown
between Apple and the US government calls into question more concerns around cloud security. After
the US government was able to successfully hack into the iPhones of two terror suspects, the
question has become, "Just how safe is cloud security?" Although AsiaInfo has the backing from a
trusted cloud provider in AWS, this development is likely to make telcos more hesitant to invest in
putting business-critical systems like billing and charging into the public cloud.
Competitors are strengthening their positioning in AsiaInfo's key market: The competition in
AsiaInfo's key Asia-Pacific markets is becoming more intense. Huawei and Ericsson have both
announced their own strategic partnerships with cloud providers to offer public cloud versions of their
respective solutions. These vendors, because of their ability to supply the network, services, and
cloud capabilities, in addition to offering both BSS and OSS, will have a competitive advantage when
going up against AsiaInfo. The increased competition in this market reinforces the fact that AsiaInfo
needs to continue to expand its footprint to secure and improve its market impact and overall
positioning.

Comarch (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)

Figure 8: Comarch radars
Source: Ovum

Strengths
Simplified BSS solution: Comarch is a homegrown European vendor with a strong presence in
Eastern Europe and competent technical credentials. Its Comarch BSS solution is a pre-integrated
platform that combines billing, charging, CRM, product catalog, and service activation. The solution,
which is available out of the box, is also supported by Comarch's extensive services offering, which
includes managed services and BSS transformations, among others.
Cross-industry expertise: Comarch's reach extends across 12 industries, including banking, utilities,
education, retail, and others. This multi-industry experience provides Comarch with a competitive
edge as more telcos search for ways to expand into new industries. Despite this multi-industry
presence, Comarch's focus and core revenue driver remains within the telecoms space. Owing to its
expertise in multiple industries, Comarch is also well positioned to win deals with telcos looking to
support IoT and cloud services, or expand into new industries.
Weaknesses
Little market differentiation: Although Comarch offers a solid billing and charging solution with
multiple industry use cases, the vendor has not yet developed any differentiating elements to
competitively separate its solution from other competitors in the market. The billing and charging
market has already matured and it is important for vendors to develop differentiating capabilities and

unique use cases to win new telco business, especially as telcos set out to innovate and compete
against new market players such as OTT providers. Furthermore, because Comarch operates in
industries other than telecoms, the vendor is well positioned to develop new products or features
aimed at addressing the challenges of telcos trying to open revenue streams in new industries.
Limited footprint: The majority of Comarch's market share (85%) comes from the EMEA region. It
has a limited footprint across the Americas and Africa, and no market share in Asia-Pacific. Its market
share comes mostly from smaller tier-2 and tier-3 telcos. It is important for Comarch to expand its
footprint more evenly across multiple regions, and secure deals with larger telcos to improve its
market impact and overall market positioning. The vendor has begun focusing on expanding into new
regions, however, and has recently established local business development centers throughout the
world, including in Benelux, Brazil, Chile, Dubai, Italy, Malaysia, Spain, and the UK. By opening offices
in these countries, Comarch intends to ramp up sales and support activities in these regions and
improve its global footprint.
Opportunities
Expand footprint by going after telcos expanding into new industries: As a vendor with expertise
in 12 industries, Comarch is well positioned to become the vendor of choice for those telcos seeking
revenue opportunities in new industries. It is important for Comarch to develop relevant solutions
based on its experience in other industries, yet it must also make sure these solutions translate to the
telecoms industry. Experiences with the challenges of the retail industry, which accounts for 17% of
Comarch's revenue, can be used develop relevant solutions for telcos planning to expand into this
area. Securing wins from telcos expanding into new industries will allow Comarch to improve its
market impact and overall positioning.
Threats
Product innovation from competitors is threatening market share: The telecoms vendor space
has become highly competitive over the last several years. Even more so is the BSS and revenue
management space, as this is an area that has seen very little change over the years. As a result of
changing market conditions and telco needs, vendors are investing significantly in incorporating
differentiating capabilities and developing unique use cases for their billing and charging solutions.
Additionally, small, niche digital billing vendors are emerging in the market, attempting to disrupt the
vendor space and provide telcos with low-cost, quick-deployment, digital solutions that center on
online charging. As these small vendors begin to win business from telcos looking for a quick,
short-term solution for digital, and as the larger vendors win bigger multiyear contracts and
transformation projects, Comarch will need to find new ways to differentiate itself in the market or risk
its positioning.
Services revenue has remained flat: Globally, we have observed a gradual shift in BSS revenue
away from software revenue and toward services revenue. This is the result of large transformation
projects being attributed toward managed services revenue, as well as an increase in cloud services
for BSS. During this same timeframe we have also observed vendor services revenue increase
throughout the market. Although services revenue accounts for 44% of Comarch's total revenue, this
number has remained flat over the last couple of years. The vendor must find a way to show growth in
its services revenue to improve its overall market positioning.

CSG International (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)

Figure 9: CSG International radars
Source: Ovum

Strengths
Highly pre-integrated solution: CSG's Singleview platform is a pre-integrated solution that includes
billing, charging, and customer management. The vendor also offers mediation (Intermediate),
interconnect billing (WBMS), and digital commerce (Ascendon) solutions, which are typically
purchased as add-ons by many of its customers. Singleview was designed to allow telcos to run both
their enterprise and consumer operations on a single platform. The solution is deployable out of the
box, with major updates released every 12–18 months. As new releases and minor updates are made
available, customers have the option to upgrade the entire platform or choose to upgrade individual
modules that best suit their needs.
Weaknesses
Small share of consumer market: While CSG has more than 200 customers, the consumer market
only makes up 30% of its overall contract wins. This suggests that the vendor has not gained the
confidence of the larger consumer market where conditions are sparking unprecedented needs and
buying habits that are driven by motivations that differ from those in the past. The lack of consumer
business also shows that the vendor's solution may not be as strong or have as much of a market
impact as expected.

Opportunities
Leverage positioning to win IoT business: As a result of the majority of CSG's revenue coming
from the enterprise space and its thought-leadership on IoT, the vendor is well positioned to become a
leading vendor for IoT monetization solutions for telcos. CSG not only has a strong understanding of
the challenges telcos will face with monetizing IoT, but is working on developing relevant use cases
for how its billing and charging systems can help telcos open up more revenue streams for IoT. This
forward-thinking approach to IoT puts the vendor in position to secure early wins from telcos entering
the IoT space, which should improve CSG's market share and overall market positioning. Many of
CSG's competitors have a limited view of IoT and thus are not improving their billing and charging
solutions or developing relevant use cases for IoT. Thus, CSG is in a favorable position to capitalize
on this weakness in the industry.
Expand enterprise success into consumer market: Telco interest in improving enterprise
operations is increasing; however, the consumer space is facing unprecedented challenges and is in
dire need of transformation. CSG states that its Singleview platform is capable of supporting both
enterprises and consumers on a single platform; this is a strength that it must play up to further
penetrate its existing client base and secure more wins on the consumer side of the business.
Improving its market share on the consumer side of the business will help CSG to improve its overall
market positioning.
Threats
Competitors have the consumer business and the networks: CSG sees its biggest competitors as
being large telecoms vendors and NEPs such as Amdocs, Netcracker, Huawei, and Ericsson. While
the vendor has many strengths in its platform capabilities and overall portfolio, telcos are tending to
award contracts to vendors that can offer more of a "best of suite" solution with pre-integrated
components of the BSS and OSS stacks. Furthermore, in an Ovum survey of telcos' preferred
vendors, 45% of telcos stated that NEPs were the vendor type of choice when selecting a new billing
and charging provider. This poses the biggest threat to CSG's market position.
Growing presence in the consumer market is challenging without use cases: Another threat to
CSG's market positioning is the lack of consumer telco clients. This is unfortunately a vicious cycle
that will be a challenge for the vendor to break. As the industry approaches a breaking point where
telcos move beyond conjecturing about digital transformation and start to award contracts to vendors
to complete these transformations, CSG will face a double-edged sword as a result of a limited
number of consumer telco clients. Telcos will be awarding contracts to trusted vendors with proven
industry use cases for the consumer sector and CSG will struggle to win new contracts due to its lack
of use cases in this area – potentially compromising its current market position. The vendor must find
a way to leverage its existing enterprise customer base to secure small wins on the consumer side of
the business. This will allow the vendor to develop use cases so that it can begin to improve its
consumer and overall market position, with the eventual goal of winning larger deals on the consumer
side.

Ericsson (Ovum recommendation: Leader)

Figure 10: Ericsson radars
Source: Ovum

Strengths
Strong next-gen-ready solution: Ericsson has three versions of its core billing and charging
solution. The first, CBIO (Charging & Billing in One), was developed from the Charging System and
BSCS iX Billing products created over more than 16 years through a combination of organic R&D –
with the support of the vendor's 14 global R&D centers – and M&A activity. The second is its
Enterprise and Cloud Billing solution, which was developed for enterprise customers and incorporated
into Ericsson's portfolio after acquiring MetraTech in 2014, and the final one is its Revenue Manager,
which was recently launched as a new solution and was developed in-house to support the
next-generation digital telco. As the industry trends towards new business models and needs,
Ericsson will continue enhancing its Revenue Manager solution to meet the evolving requirements of
the industry, including planning a future release to enable enterprise support on the platform. Though
the vendor plans to evolve its solution and make it more efficient (in terms of offering a single solution
for both enterprise and consumer customers), Ericsson has also guaranteed its customers that it will
continue to support its Enterprise and CBIO solutions until at least 2022. The key factor that makes
the Revenue Manager platform a strong solution is its end-to-end approach at BSS. The solution
includes a combination of billing, charging, partner and customer management, and analytics.
Revenue Manager also allows business users to create new business logic for potential products and
set up and test new rating and charging scenarios before launching them in the market. Furthermore,

the platform has high usability for business users, and enables telcos as well as enterprise partners
(such as OTTs) to have visibility into unbilled revenue. The solution also allows users to gain insight
into the revenue generated from partners, marketing campaigns, and promotions, as well as see
customer conversion rates.
Closed-loop feedback system aligns products with customer needs: Customer feedback is
central to Ericsson's ability to develop its billing and charging solutions. The vendor has developed a
closed-loop feedback system which assesses the larger trends and needs in the market, while also
incorporating and prioritizing customer feedback. The vendor holds customer events and strategy
sessions to gain an understanding of telcos' challenges – both overall and with Ericsson's solution.
Additionally, the vendor takes in feedback on which features and capabilities the telcos would like
added to the solutions. Once feedback has been gathered, the vendor sends out a list of the recurring
features and capabilities mentioned by telcos, at which point telcos have an opportunity to rate the
most important features. After the feedback is gathered, the vendor creates a prioritized list of features
and capabilities that its customers need. Using this information, Ericsson then incorporates this
feedback into its product roadmap, adding more complex capabilities as future product roadmap items
and easily addressable features as system updates. This thorough feedback process allows Ericsson
to not only ensure that it spends its R&D dollars wisely, but also ensures the vendor's solution remains
relevant and aligned with its customers' needs. This closed-loop feedback system has become a
differentiator for Ericsson, with its clients listing its well-aligned and clearly defined product roadmap
as one of the top benefits of working with the vendor.
Weaknesses
Limited footprint in Latin America: Although Ericsson has a strong global footprint overall, its
presence in Latin America has been somewhat limited, with only 9% of its revenue being generated in
the region. This is despite the fact that the region is experiencing a significant amount of growth;
Ovum predicts Latin America will generate $6bn in IT spend in 2020, growing at a CAGR rate of 3.9%.
Although Ericsson recently announced a transformation deal with Entel Chile and Peru, overall a lack
of penetration in this region means that the vendor is missing out on an opportunity to diversify its
footprint and capitalize on an increasing number of transformation projects being awarded in the
region. An increasing presence in Latin America is especially important as the competition in more
mature markets is reaching a saturation point.
Opportunities
Offer out-of-the-box digital solutions: Ericsson engages well with its client base and understands
the challenges and immediate needs of the telco. This enables it to align its products with market
trends and challenges. The vendor also states that a great deal of education and consulting is
required to provide customers with an understanding of the market and best practices. There is still a
huge learning curve for telcos trying to compete in the digital space and many will look to leading
vendors like Ericsson to provide them with guidance for what to do next. Ericsson has an opportunity
to leverage the insights gained from these client interactions, and offer prepackaged solutions based
on its billing and charging systems that also speak to specific use cases for the digital telco.
Threats
Competitive Asia-Pacific market biggest threat to Ericsson's market share: While Ericsson is
considered a leading vendor in many markets, its efforts to break into the Asia-Pacific market mean
that the vendor will be going up against Huawei, who has secured a large market share in the region.

While Ericsson can be a real contender to Huawei in this region, it should also focus on strengthening
its position in markets such as the Americas, where Huawei has little to no market presence.
Huawei (Ovum recommendation: Leader)

Figure 11: Huawei radars
Source: Ovum

Strengths
Shifting the paradigm of BSS: Huawei has forged ahead in the realm of BSS and taken a bold
approach with respect to how telcos procure and leverage the BSS. With its BES solution, Huawei
has adopted the motto of "changing business support systems (BSS) to business enablement
systems (BES)"; this reflects a change in strategy from the vendor and its bold attempt to continue to
differentiate itself in a mature market. Huawei's BES includes a combination of traditional billing and
charging, with pre-integrated CRM, service activation, product catalog, and other components, which
allow the vendor to deliver what it call a ROADS (real-time, on-demand, all online, DIY, and social)
experience. The BES solution is executed in three layers: the front end focuses on being customer
experience centric, the middle layer enables business agility, and the back end focuses on operational
efficiency. These qualities, which Huawei has incorporated in its solution, will enable telcos to meet
current and future demands as they evolve their business models and become digital service
providers. BES is well aligned with the needs of the industry, while Huawei's dominance within China
provides the vendor with a unique perspective and advantage. Consumer behavior in China is
drastically different from that in other parts of the world. As a result, Huawei is at an advantage, and

has been able to incorporate an array of features into its solution that its competitors have yet to
develop. Capabilities incorporated into the solution, such as supporting C2C business models, speak
specifically to the Chinese market. These capabilities also hold relevance in other markets and yet are
clearly ahead of the competition. The vendor has done an excellent job at leveraging its position as a
leader in the Chinese market, to develop capabilities and use cases that are relevant and
thought-leading throughout the industry.
Growing revenues suggests telco confidence: Huawei reported revenues of $60bn in 2015, with
$1bn estimated to be attributed directly to billing and charging. This boost in revenue and market
share suggests that telcos have growing confidence in Huawei's solution and its ability to support their
businesses as they make strategic upgrades to the BSS. Specifically, the vendor has been able to
secure a large number of new transformation projects and other large wins in the billing and charging
space over the last 12 months.
Weaknesses
Little emphasis on the impact of next-gen technologies on billing and charging systems:
Huawei has committed itself to becoming an enabler of next-generation technologies such as 5G,
NFV, SDN, cloud, IoT, as well as in other areas. However, the vendor's focus on next-generation
capabilities remains mainly on the network and connectivity aspects of these technologies. Its
roadmap currently lacks a plan to develop its billing and charging solutions to support and monetize
these next-gen capabilities, leaving the vendor in a vulnerable position as other vendors begin to act
on evolving their solutions.
Government restrictions in North America hinder global market share: Though Huawei's 2015
revenues were impressive, government restrictions in the Americas region, particularly in North
America, dilute the vendor's overall market impact.
Opportunities
Prepare billing and charging to support next-gen technologies: As Huawei continues to work
toward enabling next-generation technologies such as IoT and NFV and collaborating with telcos to
develop PoCs (proof of concepts), the vendor is in a strong position to concurrently invest in evolving
its billing and charging solutions and test them alongside its existing PoCs.
Develop use cases for BES: Although BES is a very strong technical solution, Huawei admits that it
requires telcos to undergo a paradigm shift. After launching BES in 2015, Huawei has been able to
deploy the solution with four telcos, with more contracts in the works. However, because of the
relative newness of the solution, Huawei will need to develop its customer use cases to prove the
effectiveness of the solution on the market. By building on its existing client base and recruiting
customers undergoing transformation projects, Huawei can easily win new contracts for BES.
Developing multiple use cases with compelling data will also allow the vendor to validate the success
of the solution.
Threats
Competitors are evolving the BSS: While Huawei offers a technically strong billing and charging
solution, its closest competitors are working on evolving their billing and charging solutions and
preparing proof of concepts to ensure that its systems can support the demands of emerging
technologies. Unless Huawei commits to a product roadmap for billing and charging that aligns with its
roadmap for its other business areas (such as in the networks and in IoT), the vendor will lose its

market share and will be adversely impacted in terms of its positioning as a billing and charging leader
in the coming years.
Netcracker (Ovum recommendation: Leader)

Figure 12: Netcracker radars
Source: Ovum

Strengths
Strong end-to-end offering: Netcracker has developed a strong end-to-end solution for telcos. The
vendor's history as an NEP and OSS provider, as well as the backing it has from parent company
NEC, have all worked in Netcracker's favor and aided in its ability to provide a full suite solution
across BSS and OSS. Netcracker's billing and charging solution is incredibly fit for market. The
vendor has incorporated standard features such as real-time analytics, a unified product catalog, and
customer management into the solution. Capabilities such as dynamic pricing and quote bidding –
which allows end users to bid on the price they want to be charged for consuming data or minutes –
allow Netcracker to differentiate its solution in the market. Netcracker has continued to grow its BSS
footprint, winning a large number of new BSS contracts over the last 12 months, including 30 BSS
transformation projects.
Thought-leader on the next-gen telco: Netcracker's ongoing focus on being a thought-leader for
telcos puts it in a strong position to not only forge new relationships with telcos, but also allows the
vendor to focus on improving its billing and charging systems to support new requirements as they
emerge in the industry. The vendor has taken the lead on topics such as billing in the cloud, billing for

NFV, and other areas. This focus on looking ahead to next-generation capabilities provides the vendor
with foresight to make early improvements to its billing and charging solution and secure key wins
very early on as the market shifts towards new trends.
Weaknesses
Still establishing itself as a major player in the BSS domain: Netcracker's history and deep roots
within the OSS sector, as well as its backing from parent company NEC, have naturally put OSS and
networks at the forefront of the vendor's business. However, over the last eight years, the vendor has
begun increasing its focus on developing its BSS solution. The vendor entered the charging space in
2008 when it was acquired by NEC, and began offering its billing solution in 2012 after it acquired the
Convergys billing solution. As a result of entering the billing and charging space relatively late
compared to its competitors, Netcracker has had to work at establishing itself as a competitor in the
market. However, recent billing wins and BSS transformation project wins are helping Netcracker to
improve its overall standing as a billing and charging vendor.
Opportunities
Leverage PoCs to improve solution: Netcracker is doing extensive work with telcos to develop
PoCs around NFV and SDN. The vendor is in an excellent position to develop relevant solutions and
use cases with its billing and charging solutions for NFV and SDN. Netcracker can leverage the PoCs
it is running for NFV and SDN to test new billing and charging enhancements and capabilities at the
same time.
Threats
Competitors are focusing more on BSS: Netcracker's biggest competitors, such as Amdocs and
Huawei, are focusing more on evolving the billing and charging solutions to support next-generation
technologies such as IoT and payments, and new business models. To ensure it can remain
competitive in the market, Netcracker will need to continue to develop new and innovative use cases
for its billing and charging solution. The vendor is well positioned to provide relevant use cases of its
billing and charging solution to support its NFV and SDN efforts, and can easily leverage these
capabilities and become a market leader.

Oracle (Ovum recommendation: Leader)

Figure 13: Oracle radars
Source: Ovum

Strengths
"Smart" features allow telcos to fully monetize data: Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue
Management (BRM) is the vendor's pre-integrated billing and charging product. BRM includes billing
and charging along with settlement, partner management, interconnect, and data management, and is
also available as a fully virtualized product. Within BRM, Oracle has evolved its solution and Pricing
Design Center (i.e. product catalog) to include "Smart" features known as "Smart Add-ons." The
Smart Add-ons feature allows telcos to create relevant customer offers in real time to fully monetize
customer data. The Smart Add-ons feature includes an array of use cases such as speed boosters,
data sharing, roaming packs, and social media packs, among others. Specifically, the feature
addresses a challenge that many telcos are facing with low ARPU rates, and provides a single
platform for them to monetize data by creating contextual pricing and offers in real time.
Weaknesses
Limited product differentiation: While Oracle has developed a series of "smart add-ons" to help
telcos monetize data, this feature has become a common and standard offering among billing and
charging vendors. Additionally, while BRM can complete as many as 3 billion charges per hour, the
product itself has few other differentiating capabilities. As a large software vendor with market share
across several industries, Oracle has the cross-industry insight that should afford it both the foresight

and ability to make more innovative improvements to its billing and charging products. Oracle states
that its approach is to develop products from a horizontal perspective so that they can be used in any
industry; however, this type of development goes against the preferences of many telcos. Telcos are
showing preference to telco-centric solutions, which are developed with the telco industry's specific
pain points in mind. Furthermore, in a recent Ovum survey, only 11% of telcos stated that large
software providers were likely to be their vendor of choice when selecting a new billing and charging
solution. Thus it is imperative for Oracle to incorporate differentiating capabilities in its solution to
continue to win telco business.
Opportunities
Leverage cross-industry expertise to enhance telco offering: As a large software vendor serving
more than 20 industries, Oracle has an opportunity to leverage its cross-industry expertise to
strengthen its positioning in the telecoms space. While the vendor has an extensive partner
ecosystem, it also relies heavily on these partners to leverage BRM and offer industry-specific
solutions to telcos. As telcos explore new opportunities in other industries and seek out new vendors
to award contracts to, Oracle will need to demonstrate its ability to provide off-the-shelf and
prepackaged options that telcos can quickly leverage to address a business challenge. Oracle's
competitors are creating off-the-shelf products to specifically address telcos' pain points, such as IoT
monetization platforms, digital BSS platforms, and other solutions. By leveraging its cross-industry
experience and offering prepackaged, off-the-shelf solutions for telcos, Oracle can fight off the
preconceived notions about large software vendors competing in the telecoms space and improve its
overall market positioning.
Threats
Telcos prefer telco-centric vendors: According to an Ovum survey of telco vendor preferences and
a customer feedback survey, nearly 90% of telcos prefer to award contracts to vendors whose core
focus is within the telecoms industry. For Oracle, whose roots are not inherently within the telecoms
industry, this poses the biggest threat to the vendor's overall positioning. As such, it is important for
the vendor to continuously invest in evolving its solution and develop innovative use cases to maintain
its position as a market leader.
Competitors are experiencing revenue growth: While Oracle boasts a solid billing and charging
solution, its declining revenue poses a large threat to the vendor's positioning. While Oracle does not
break down its reported revenues by industry or by product, the vendor's overall revenues were down
5% year on year in 2015. This casts an unfavorable light on the vendor, particularly as vendors within
the telecoms space are reporting significant growth. Regardless of what the vendor's actual telecoms
revenues are, the perception that Oracle's revenues are declining suggests that the vendor's market
impact is waning. Telcos will look to partner with trusted vendors when awarding new contracts,
particularly those for long-term BSS transformation projects.

Redknee (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)

Figure 14: Redknee radars
Source: Ovum

Strengths
Unified at its core: A significant part of Redknee's strength as a billing and charging provider is the
vendor's focus on having a unified BSS portfolio. Redknee's solution relies on the support of a unified
product catalog, a real-time engine, and analytics all being tightly integrated to provide telcos with a
more efficient billing and charging system. Additionally, Redknee's unified portfolio includes CRM,
policy, settlement, mediation, inventory management, and service activation. Having these elements
tightly integrated with the billing and charging solutions is an increasing priority for telcos. As business
models evolve and telcos are expected to operate in real time, these pre-integrated features have
become a requirement for telcos as they seek out new billing and charging vendors.
Expanding footprint: Redknee has made a strategic decision to grow its business through strategic
acquisitions. The vendor sees M&A as a way to both enhance its product offering and expand its
footprint, as evidenced by its 2012 acquisition of NSN's BSS assets and the 2015 acquisition of Orga
Systems. In both instances the vendor was able to enhance its BSS portfolio to improve its customer
list and order book and improve its overall position and capabilities for the billing and charging
solutions. It was also able to gain many net new customers in these acquisitions, expanding its
footprint in regions such as Latin America and Europe, while the Orga Systems acquisition allowed
Redknee to expand into new vertical markets such as the utility and transportation industries. As a
result of the NSN acquisition, the vendor now has a dedicated department and template for managing

future M&As. This reiterates that Redknee is committed to using M&As to maintain its positioning and
make strategic improvements to its offering.
Weaknesses
Limited overall growth: Redknee's overall revenue is down year on year at $223m in 2015, down
from $258m in 2014. This decline could be a cause for concern as telco IT spend and vendor
revenues are trending upward. It is also important to note that this initial decline in revenue can likely
be attributed to the vendor's acquisition of Orga Systems at the beginning of 2015; a similar dip in
revenue occurred after the acquisition of NSN in 2012 and the vendor was able to recover. While this
acquisition may have adversely impacted the vendor's revenues for the year, the acquisition was seen
as a strategic move made to enhance the vendor's overall BSS offering and market positioning. The
vendor will need to recover its revenue and show organic growth during the 2016 fiscal year in order
to improve its market positioning.
Opportunities
Develop use cases for Smart Pricing: Redknee's Smart Pricing feature, which incorporates big
data, customer behavior, and other factors to provide personalized pricing on the fly, is a
differentiating feature to its charging system and has the potential to give the vendor a competitive
edge. While the solution is innovative, Redknee has yet to secure a contract to launch the capability
within a telco. Securing wins for this feature and developing use cases will allow Redknee to
differentiate itself more within the billing and charging space.
Threats
Holes in BSS portfolio make it vulnerable against larger players: As telcos award new contracts
to BSS vendors they are moving away from "best of breed" and niche vendors in favor of those that
can provide a more comprehensive offering across the BSS stack. While Redknee's billing and
charging solution makes it well suited to win telco business, its BSS portfolio is lacking in key areas.
For example, while Redknee hopes to play a role within IoT, it has yet to develop a partner
management system. These capabilities are becoming increasingly essential for telcos as they
undergo BSS transformation projects and hope to compete in the digital landscape. While billing and
charging are central elements of the BSS, telcos now understand the importance of having tightly
integrated partner management systems at the core of these changing operating models, especially
as business models shift more toward revenue share models and strategic partnerships with OTT
players.

ZTESoft (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)

Figure 15: ZTESoft radars
Source: Ovum

Strengths
Business-user-ready product: ZTESoft's cvBS 8.0 was built with usability at its core. The biggest
strength of the vendor's product is its ability to simplify the interface and create layers to enable
everyone from business users to the technical user to monitor and manipulate billing operations. The
system's UI is configurable by job title, enabling departments from marketing to IT to have visibility
into billing processes. This allows telcos to break down departmental silos through leveraging a single
platform to gain insight into different segments of the business.
Able to play up parent connections: As a subsidiary of ZTE, ZTESoft is well positioned to win key
deals in the billing and charging space. As telcos award new contracts to vendors they will favor those
large vendors that can offer networks, OSS, and BSS products. Being a part of the larger ZTE
organization will continue to work in the vendor's favor down the road, particularly as the industry
moves closer to 5G deployments.
Weaknesses
Little product differentiation: While the vendor has a technically competent solution that is fit to
address the current needs of telcos, the vendor falls short in offering differentiating capabilities or use
cases for its solution. The billing and charging space is one that is mature and extremely competitive,
and those vendors with differentiating product features and capabilities will be best positioned to lead

the market. Additionally, though ZTESoft has a clearly defined product roadmap for the next two
years, it is likely to fall behind its competitors in product capabilities. To improve its overall position,
ZTESoft must incorporate unique features and use cases that will separate it from the competition.
Limited footprint: While the vendor boasts revenues in excess of $100m, only 1% of its revenue
comes from the Americas, with no presence in North America. In order to improve its overall impact in
the market, ZTESoft will need to secure wins in the Americas and expand its global footprint.
Opportunities
Develop use cases for Digital Ecosystem Enabler Platform (DEEP): ZTESoft's DEEP offers telcos
a solution for both consumer and enterprise customers. However, the platform is still in the trial phase
and has not yet been fully rolled out to the market. Once the solution has been rolled out, it will be
important for the vendor to secure strong use cases in support of the solution in order to differentiate
itself in the market.
Threats
Competition is getting creative: The BSS space, and especially the billing and charging space, is
becoming more competitive. The market is seeing a high degree of M&A activity in efforts to enhance
product portfolios and gain differentiating features and capabilities. At the same time, a new wave of
niche vendors is entering the market to offer telcos digital-focused solutions that overlay existing
billing and charging systems. ZTESoft must find a way to differentiate its billing and charging solution
or risk losing market share.
Competition is becoming fierce in Asia-Pacific: Competition throughout Asia-Pacific has intensified

as vendors compete to capture revenue in emerging markets, such as Indonesia, while also
differentiating their product portfolios and services capabilities to capture the business of more
established players in markets such as China, Japan, and Australia. With new competitors entering
the market, such as Ericsson, and established players, such as NEC and Huawei, investing heavily in
differentiating their offerings, ZTESoft will need to both continue to innovate and differentiate its
product offering and expand its presence in other markets to remain competitive in the larger billing
and charging space.
Appendix
Methodology
Vendor positioning is based on the analysis of a number of subcriteria for each of three primary
criteria: technology, execution, and market impact. A breakdown of each vendor's scores across each
dimension is provided within each vendor profile. Based on the combined scoring, Ovum evaluates
the top vendors that telcos should shortlist, consider, or explore in a customer billing and charging
solution-selection process.
This assessment is based on the following methodology:
 Based on our initial assessment of the billing and charging solutions market for telcos, we
invited a number of vendors to respond to a detailed RFI that asked them to provide data and
supporting documentation around three primary criteria: market impact, solution technology,
and execution.

 In addition to the RFI responses, Ovum invited vendors to provide solution briefings and
product demonstrations.
 Analysis of the three primary criteria was based on a scoring assessment exercise
undertaken for a number of subcriteria. For each response within the RFI that aligned to the
respective subcriteria, Ovum rated vendors on a scale of 0–10 based on a consistent set of
best practice standards or benchmarks defined by Ovum. We then aggregated these to
provide a score for each of the three primary criteria.
 Ovum does not make any assumptions regarding information not disclosed by participants
(such as specific revenue breakdowns), therefore the final positioning is a representation
solely of the information provided by the vendor to Ovum.
Further reading
Telecoms Billing Market Landscape: Challenges and Priorities, IT0012-000152 (January 2016)
Author
Chantel Cary, Analyst, Telecoms Operations and IT
chantel.cary@ovum.com
Ovum Consulting
We hope that this analysis will help you make informed and imaginative business decisions. If you
have further requirements, Ovum’s consulting team may be able to help you. For more information
about Ovum’s consulting capabilities, please contact us directly at consulting@ovum.com.
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Publication Date: 20 Jul 2016 | Product code: IT0012-000172

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Vendor solution selection

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Market and solution analysis

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Amdocs AsiaInfo n/a

Ericsson CSG International

Market leaders: Amdocs, Ericsson, Huawei, Netcracker, and

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Market challengers: AsiaInfo, CSG International, Comarch,

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Market leaders: execution

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Market leaders: market impact

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Ovum SWOT assessment

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AsiaInfo (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)

Ovum SWOT assessment

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Comarch (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)

Ovum SWOT assessment

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CSG International (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)

Ovum SWOT assessment

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Ericsson (Ovum recommendation: Leader)

Ovum SWOT assessment

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Huawei (Ovum recommendation: Leader)

Ovum SWOT assessment

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Netcracker (Ovum recommendation: Leader)

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Oracle (Ovum recommendation: Leader)

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Redknee (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)

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ZTESoft (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)

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Competition is becoming fierce in Asia-Pacific: Competition throughout Asia-Pacific has intensified