Introduction

Traditional Customer Relationship Management (CRM) focuses on direct ways and means to drive customer satisfaction. These methods revolve around improving coordination among customer-focused groups (field, sales, support) by building and sharing information about customers.  

The methods with which Broadband Service Providers (BSPs) manage the quality and reliability of their services currently fall into one of two camps. BSPs either monitor their subscribers (and their end points) or monitor the equipment used in the delivery of services. Regardless of how BSPs monitor services, when one of the services being monitored becomes alarmed, BSPs expend resources to confirm and then repair the problem. What is interesting about these methods is that BSPs’ efforts to repair these problems cannot always be considered a fix. That is because a large number (up to 50%) of service problems are self-inflicted by BSP employees, contractors, and the like (rather than caused by faulty equipment). By effectively managing changes on broadband networks, BSPs can expect numerous returns including a reduction of service calls (potentially anywhere from 30-50%), accountability, and increased service reliability. 

Impact of change 

Once a broadband network is built and/or certified for a particular service the result is a relatively stable delivery transport. If left untouched, this transport can retain much of its information carrying qualities with very little BSP intervention required to maintain it. However, the reality for BSPs is that their transports are in a constant state of change. These changes come from subscribers being connected, disconnected, upgraded, and downgraded as well as equipment being repaired and upgraded. A great deal of change is also associated with the general nature of modern day delivery mechanism and transmission lines. Each change brings a number of possible negative results that can change the operational state of a particular subscriber or collection of subscribers depending on the severity. Unfortunately, since there really is no system available today that can determine the up to the minute health and availability of all services provided to every subscriber, the BSPs must piece together a number of monitoring systems to assemble some type of overall status monitoring -- albeit incomplete. 

What makes these monitoring systems incomplete is the fact that each is service specific. Service specific monitoring systems only have visibility to a particular frequency pair. For example, High-Speed Data (HSD) services consume two frequencies (one for upstream and one for downstream communications). Monitoring the quality of these frequencies provides only a glimpse of the overall spectrum of frequencies used by the BSP and thus provides an incomplete view of the overall health of the BSP’s transport. Interestingly, detecting a problem with one of these systems does not always indicate a service interruption nor does it provide information as to the source of the problem. Rather, the result is merely an alarm, many of which are simply ignored.  

Alarms are ignored because of another shortage associated with every BSP – resources. BSPs simply do not have sufficient personnel to address each and every alarm, thus alarms get classified into different levels of severity so as to permit BSPs to prioritize each alarm depending on the scope of services and number subscribers that have been effected (if known). In doing this, higher priority alarms get assigned resources immediately where as lower priority alarms either get ignored or are addressed as time and resources permit. For economics reasons, some alarms may also get ignored. These alarms barely impact subscribers (e.g. small amount of static in certain content) however if it does not generate calls into the BSP call center it may be ignored until it becomes worse or a certain number of subscribers complain about it. When the time comes for a problem (or alarm) to get repaired, some change is necessary. This change could be as simple as tightening a coaxial fitting. However, it could also be much more complex in terms of the amount of change that is required to repair the problem. For example, the drop may need to be replaced, fittings replaced, wiring in the subscriber’s home reworked, or in drastic cases the transport altered. Any one of these changes can cause a chain reaction that could result in impacting the quality of other services delivered over the transport. For this reason more drastic changes (e.g. those to the transport) often require approval from one or more individuals.  

Change also occurs as a result of more simple operations such as activating new subscribers or deactivating subscribers as well as upgrading and down grading subscribers. These operations frequently cause some kind of change to the transport. Since any such change can also cause other problems, BSPs run the risk that any change performed on their broadband transport may result in an additional service call. 

Change Management Creates Accountability 

By effectively managing change, BSPs make their employees accountable for each change (be it service call, install, etc.). The advent of accountability results in a dramatic change for most BSPs since the work of today’s field technicians is gauged mostly by how much work was completed (e.g. how many installs or how many service calls are completed – this is determined by quota and how much work is checked in as complete). If these completion numbers were combined with data from change management, BSPs could then gauge their employees’ work by a combination of quantity and quality. Change management would have the capability to access all jobs performed by each technician (installer, plant, headend, etc.) and determine where they have been and what (if any) they have changed. If problems are found, they can be quickly tracked back to the previous technician(s). Technicians with a history of poor work quality (or trouble with certain types of jobs) can be provided additional guidance and training -- all in an effort to capitalize or maximize the presence of a BSP technician on a subscriber site as well as maintain a highly skilled workforce. 

Change management can also leverage network management data, check-in information, support call information, and service history. Adding real-time network management data can provide information back (on certain jobs) to the change management system so as to verify that the work completed (change invoked) falls within operational guidelines established by the BSP. If installation/service work does not meet specifications the technician may not be allowed to proceed to their next job until it does – or perhaps the dispatch person is made aware of this information (discrepancies) and relays this on to the technician so the problem can be resolved correctly. 

Check in information will provide the change management system with data related to the technician’s ability to not only complete the paperwork properly but also potentially to sell other services to the subscriber. As the technician installs and confirms that everything the subscriber has ordered is now working they are also answering numerous questions, bonding with the subscriber, and educating the subscriber on the services ordered as well as the capacity of broadband. This is a unique selling opportunity where if installers were given sufficient power and incentives (bonus, etc.) they are in a unique spot to sell the subscriber additional services with no installation costs. However, because installers are gauged only on completion rates a rare opportunity is lost that would enable the BSP to obtain even more revenue from each subscriber. The result of this practice requires the BSP to staff additional resources to contact their subscribers in order to sell them additional services and then roll another technician to install these services. However, while the service person is on site and has the full attention of the subscriber is the best time to provide the subscriber with alternative choices. Changing the subscriber’s selected services on site would also close the loop between what subscribers want, what is delivered to them through the network (and demonstrated to them in their home), and how much they will be billed.  

Change management can also leverage support call information. For example, if a subscriber has called one or more times wanting information about an additional outlet or wanting help installing something on their computer and the BSP sends a technician out to this subscriber’s home to troubleshoot a problem with their television reception these other items could be listed on the trouble ticket or accessed by the technician from the subscriber’s site. Answering these questions or performing some simple tasks as requested by the subscriber in the past will limit future truck rolls and calls by the subscriber to the support center to obtain the help they have requested while increasing their overall satisfaction with the service and the BSP. Support history could also provide information as to the amount and level of education and training the subscriber requires. If the subscriber insists they don’t want instruction yet they frequently call support for questions about the service, this would allow the BSP installer to address the issue of educating/training delicately but sufficiently to reduce the number of calls by the subscriber. 

Combining service history with change management provides tremendous economies of scale to each service call. This enables BSP technicians to address nagging subscriber problems or more professionally deal with difficult situations. If the subscriber has repeatedly changed their wiring that has resulted in service calls in the past, the BSP technician could offer to do additional wiring while on site for the subscriber so as to avoid future problems of the subscriber taking matters into their own hands. 

Many of the same change management techniques that are used for field technicians with direct contact with subscribers can be applied to technicians who only work on transports or within hubs/headends. Change management can be applied to sections of the plant or even individual components involved in the delivery system. An effective example is a certain piece of equipment that has received service from a number of individuals. Since numerous hands have touched it, it is unlikely that any one person is aware the component is faulty. However, change management would provide an operational history on who worked on the equipment, what was done, etc. This would allow the next individual called upon to repair the equipment to evaluate whether the equipment should be repaired or replaced. Change management could help in this evaluation over time. 

Change Management Requires Integration 

In today’s business world Change Management is normally thought of in terms of business changes (like two companies merging). In the technical world, change control is used to mange changes to networks, computer administration, and developing software.

Figure 1.0 – Change Management System Components 

In the broadband space, change control is translated into workforce management. However, workforce management focuses on optimizing the use of resources and is void of the more broad interpretation used in this document. Once more, change control is not often (if ever) discussed in relation to network management, check-in information, support call information, and service history. When these areas are combined with change control a more complete view or status of the system is possible. The resulting view produces a more management aspect of change control – thus change management. 

The change management system is pictured (see Figure 1.0) with some of its major components. The change management system obtains a bulk of its information from the information resources shown to the left of the diagram with additional information also coming from each of its many outputs shown to the top, right, and bottom of the diagram. These information resources will be explained below: 

·         Network Management System (NMS) – Monitors the status of network elements involved in the delivery of service. Authoritative over network management data for static network equipment (less areas where dynamic addressing is used). Using the NMS provides an opportunity to capitalize on its capability to collect this information and consolidate it. In instances where the NMS cannot monitor certain equipment, the change management system could provide this capability. However, the change management system will emphasize the use of existing operational components such as NMS while limiting the number of systems polling devices of interest.

·         Subscriber Relationship Management (CRM) – Tracks most aspects of the subscriber acquisition process. Authoritative over all subscriber interactions, transactions, visits, etc. CRM products are varied and geared for sales, marketing, and management within a particular company. No emphasis is placed outside business processes (such as obtaining technical information, monitoring, or integrating these systems to provide a combination of gauging quality and productivity).

·        Billing System – Holds most fundamental information regarding each company’s subscribers. Authoritative over all subscriber contact, subscription, and billing information. The billing system provides facilities for BSPs to schedule subscriber visits, manage workforce, vary or package service offerings and prices, and generate detailed reports on various relationships for management. The billing system also represents a majority of the interfaces used by BSP employees to interface with their services.

·         Workforce Management – Tracks nearly all aspects of the workforce including installs, service calls, call center, etc. Authoritative over most aspects of the workforce touching the subscriber. Workforce management enables BSPs to monitor employee performance as it relates to business, sales, and marketing related metrics. Quality of these individual’s work is only a factor of the business, sales, and marketing metrics. As a result usage quota for installs and service calls as well as repeat workforce management watches service calls within 30 days of install very closely. If the nature of the work performed is technical or can only be measured in terms of some other applications (e.g. an NMS), this is not currently supported in today’s workforce management systems.

·         Network Operations Center (NOC) Trouble Ticket (TT) System – Tracks service events and alarms that occur over various types of networks (telco, wireless, cable, etc.). The NOC TT system is authoritative over most events of a technical nature that happen related to any service. These events are tracked from start to completion in order to provide a record of what happened and how it was resolved. Some NOC TT systems make their increasingly growing knowledge base available to field staff as well as NOC employees to speed resolution of problems that can be deemed related or similar. Although the NOC falls under the operations organization it often does not have access to other operations systems or databases (e.g. billing, subscriber care trouble ticketing, workforce management, etc.). This prevents them from being able to optimize the use of a limited number of resources devoted to field service.

·         IP Address Management – Tracks and oversees the allocation, assignment, and management of IP addresses and subnets across networks big and small. IP Address Management “can be” authoritative over all IP addresses (used and unused) as well as all subnets in use (or under authority) depending on the capability of application(s) used. IP Address Management ultimately oversees one of the most important resources in IP networks however it is rarely guarded as such and not currently part of any CRM, NOC, Billing, or Workforce Management system. 

The remaining components of the Change Management System represent both a resource (input) for the system as well as a benefactor of its output. These components are described below: 

·         Installation Technicians – Field technicians responsible for connecting, disconnecting, and servicing subscribers. Change management allows these individuals to be more productive by making them accountable for their work, certifying various (or all) aspects of their work through external monitoring, and sharing of data between subscriber and change control system. On completion of the install, the installer’s work will continue to be measured (relative to each of their installs) through subscriber feedback, trouble calls, requests for additional services, check-in, etc. A weight can be given to each positive and negative response type to help formulate an overall grade for each install as well as their overall work to date. Installers can have access to this information to help them correct problems moving forward and improve the performance and quality of their work. Without change management, installs can vary between excellent and poor – all of who can slide by unnoticed until conditions change sufficiently enough to impact the subscriber. The issue in going out to repair these subscribers is you don’t actually fix the “real” problem – a certain field employee’s need for more training and accountability.

·         Line Technicians – Specialized field technicians who maintain the health of the service delivery transport. Change management allows these individuals to be more productive by tracking their work (what/when they have been assigned and when/how it was repaired or installed). This tracking of assigned work can also tell them what equipment they have worked on and when. If any routine service causes an outage or an outage is detected, the equipment in question can be accessed to determine who last worked on it and quite possibly what was changed (if any). Tracking all changes to the transport permits trending along with the fastest possible response and time to recover. Without change management, each problem must be troubleshooted independently with little if any available history on the problem or the device in question. Fixing these problems using historical information will produce different results over just repairing the problem – for example history may dictate that a device that loses a power supply will fail again within 6 months – thus it is cheaper to just replace the whole unit rather than replace one defective component.

·         Headend Technicians – Specialized field technicians who build-out and maintain equipment within Headends. Change management impacts these individuals similar to that of Line Technicians.

·         Network Operations Center – Network operations center constantly looks at the big picture of how the overall transport/network is behaving. They have visibility into all aspects of the network health and maintenance and are ultimately in charge of insuring stability and reliability through requesting various field technicians to perform service. They report to operations and subscriber care and are responsible for keeping these organizations in the know regarding transport/network health. Change management allows the NOC to be much more knowledgeable regarding its assignment of resources to repair problems. Problems involving particular devices can be accessed within the change management system to determine what if anything has been changed regarding the device – whether it will require configuration, replacement, etc is recommended (based on device history). They can also provide information back into the system regarding problems encountered in route, things that should be done differently, etc. Change management is used to track these outage events as well as the number of subscribers impacted so as to maintain actual service availability numbers.

·         Training Center – Service operators typically have their own training centers to teach their new employees (as well as existing employees) about new areas of the service or advanced skills. Learning and Development (as it is sometimes called) attempts to help the operator capitalize on every employee. Change management can help training centers to understand where existing employees struggle in the field. What areas they should emphasize or perhaps even new classes they should create to help existing employees increase productivity or the quality of their work. The training center can have immediate access to this data and even run case studies on its products (students) such as employees who have taken their training and how well they have done (or improved, if any) as a result of their efforts. The change management system provides a wealth of this type of data that previously did not exist without extensive manual efforts from training center staff. Interestingly, the change management system can tell the training center what are the leading field personnel and thus who can provide them with the most valuable information regarding creating new material or asking for guest appearances.

·         Operations – Operations is responsible for keeping the service delivery system running reliably and efficiently. Operations can either be a separate, smaller organization focused on the service delivery system(s) or represent a larger organization of which multiple operational units are part of (installation, subscriber care, service, NOC, dispatch, etc.). Regardless of how BSPs handle operations internally, the objectives/success of this organization are critical to the maintaining service reliability to all subscribers. This somewhat differs from the objective of the NOC who is mainly concerned with the reliability of the service and the delivery mechanism. Operations main focus is the subscriber.

·         Check-in – Check-in is responsible for committing the details of completed work orders into the billing system. Change management can provide opportunities for operators to track what the field technician used (parts, etc.) during the install, what was performed, and what (if any) was changed on the subscriber’s order for service(s). By collating this information with individual field technicians the change management system knows which field employees do the best job of up selling, who optimizes

·         Management – Management is responsible for various parts of the overall operations of services and the personnel who support it. Tracking accountability allows management to aid their review process by helping them keep tabs on employee’s progress, where improvements/training is needed, and where they excel.

·         Planning – Planning is responsible for collecting data from each of these outputs and analyzing them for possible trends. For example, Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) can summarize on all equipment entered into the change management system, potentially other trends that are evident relative to each device type. In the end, this area provides long-range feedback for management to make informed decisions on future purchases or to supply critical data back to vendors on possible enhancements. Change management could categorize outages and equipment failures to help technicians and management figure out the cause and perhaps even suggest preventative measures – replacing/upgrading certain equipment before it is likely to fail. 

The integration of these components can yield an extremely useful understanding of all the service applications, hardware, delivery equipment, field personnel, and subscribers. By combining all this information both tactical and forward-looking knowledge bases will evolve through its increasing use. Service management creates this wealth of information not out of the box, but rather over time. Tactical knowledge bases become the immediate benefit where as the forward-looking knowledge base evolves over time (perhaps within 4-6 months of use). 

The key to building successful change management system is to capitalize as much as possible on interfacing with existing components, eliminating double entry, and building easy to use access points that can be customized for the multitude of users that will want to use this information. This information must be readily available, intuitive to the user accessing it, and be secure. Optionally, designated pieces of this information could be made available to other interested parties of BSP. For example, this information could be shared with BSP vendors to better help them improve their product(s) or address new areas of development/functionality. Figure 2.0 shows how change management could interface with interested parties (such as vendors). Having this feedback loop between BSPs and interested parties could help evolve the broadband industry by making generic information available for those interested in creating new/innovative products for the industry. This would also be an opportunity for BSPs to see an additional return on their investment for the change management system by selling access to certain integrated data to outside parties. 

Figure 2.0 – Change Management Interfacing with Vendors and BSPs. 

Business Case for Change Management 

One of the most ugly statistics held by BSPs is their failure to successfully install data service for their subscribers the first time! Install failure rates range from 15-20% that are common among BSPs. Each failed install costs the BSP a minimum of phone call to the subscriber and an additional service visit to correct the problem – which could result in a many of the same tasks as a traditional install. Based on industry accepted numbers: 

$13.20 subscriber care phone call, $68.00 truck roll, The worst case is that the failed install delays a possible new install another day. Using a conservative price of $39.00 per month for data service and a 31-day month, this translates into missed revenue of $1.26 per instance. 

Average cost of a failed install per instance: $82.46 

Based on a conservative growth rate of data subscribers year to year of 5%

The number of failed installs per year would be 0.75% of the growth rate (based on 15% install fail rate). 

To determine the associated costs, lets use an example: 

100-subscriber system

5 adds (or 5% growth)

105 total number of subscribers at end of year

0.75 installs failed (or 15% failure rate of the 5% growth rate)

$61.85 cost of failed installs (0.75 * $82.46)

Cost $12.37 per new subscriber ($61.85 / 5) -- adds

Cost $0.59 per subscriber (61.85 / 105) – total number of subscribers 

Based on these calculations thus far, a change management system that only provided the capability to eliminate failed installs would at best save the BSP $0.59 per data subscriber (based on total number of subscribers) or $12.37 per subscriber (based on number of new subscribers added). However, accountability, a by-product of change management, goes beyond the savings associated with failed installs. Change management will increasingly force installers into a standard install procedure. Standardizing installs creates savings that span into the far reaches of the operations and subscriber care organizations. 

Again using industry accepted numbers: 

Each subscriber generates approximately 1.547 calls into the call center per year related to email and computer. Based on the $13.20 cost per phone call, this translates into costs of around $20.42 per subscriber per year to support their email and computer.  

It is estimated that implementing change management will result in a 15% reduction in support calls of this kind as each call reflects back on the installer who visited the subscriber and is responsible for keeping them happy and well informed. A savings of $3.06 per subscriber per year is reasonable to expect out of partially addressing this issue. 

One could charge anywhere from $0.36 to $0.72 per sub for this capability (this range could further increase depending on what else was added and the resulting cost savings it would yield) for what would be a $3.65 savings for the BSP. Thus the BSP could see anywhere from a 10-1 or a 5-1 return on their investment. 

If this product were to successfully gain access to 20% (or 8 million) of the broadband subscribers that would yield about $2,880,000 in possible revenue just for the first revision of the change management system.  

There is also a lingering fact that all newly deployed software must deal with. Existing subscribers are not impacted by any change in installation techniques or automation. Why? Because they are already installed! Thus the impact of this automation will only impact new subscribers moving forward. While the numbers explained above do take this into account, they are expressed in terms of the total number of subscribers because BSPs readily know this number where as the number of new subscribers changes month to month. 

The first revision must seek market penetration and forgo initial revenue projections to achieve widespread acceptance. To do this the initial licensing costs must be cheap say $0.01 to $0.05 per subscriber. In this way a system with 10,000 data subscribers would only need to pay $100 to $500 for a yearly license, initially! Keeping costs for these systems under the magic $1000 mark is important in avoiding red tape that is required for major purchases – especially those from an unknown company with an unproven product. Once more, charging only $0.05 per subscriber would add extra insurance that the change management software will save the BSP money as per the numbers discussed earlier this software would now provide them with a 73-1 return on their investment. 

Market for Change Management 

The need for change management spans all areas of broadband data services. However, essentially any service-related industry could potentially be a candidate for a change management system. While each service industry may require its own unique treatment of change management data in terms of reports and data entry, many of the processes and rules used for broadband data services apply. 

Change Management Architecture 

One possible way to build a change management system would be to combine the components described in Figure 3.0. Here a number of high-level pieces described previously as part of the proposed change management system are joined together to show how they may interface with external components. Note this diagram represents a more mature change management system with a number of possible functions and their required components included.  

Figure 3.0 – Change Management System Architecture 

The initial change management system would be significantly less complex than this diagram and would support perhaps only one function that is of immediate value to BSPs. The following represent possible function(s) that may serve as initial change management functionality: 

·         Install Change Manager – A simple tool that checks and tracks various aspects of each install to ensure it is completed correctly (within specification) and that each installer is held responsible for each install s/he completes. This tool will provide benchmarks for installer capability and track installer productivity for management and training centers to review.

·         Equipment Change Manager – A tool that tracks changes to each piece of equipment used in the service delivery system, keeps tabs on how its operating, and provides feedback to help suggest the most cost effective and operationally reliable method of handling repairs and changes.

·         Application Change Manager – A tool that checks and tracks various aspects of each service application to ensure it is running and maintained properly.

The resulting build that is dictated by BSP demand, may contain any ONE of these functions or possibly all or none of them. Since the initial build must address a hot button of the BSP that will permit it to be field tested, one can only suggest possible functions related to change management that the BSP may find interesting enough to trial. In terms of the possible functions listed the first function seems to be something that would be of value to BSPs and yet relatively easy to build compared to the other functions. This function will be explained further. 

Install Change Manager 

The install change manager may follow the sequence of events as shown in Figure 4.0.  Here the install change manager works with field organizations to ensure installs are completed per some defined criteria. 

Figure 4.0 – Install Change Manager Workflow 

The defined criteria may include such things a power levels, software install, drivers, etc. Since the installer and subscriber are joined as a result of this process, the installer becomes responsible/accountable for the installing/activating their subscriber. Anything not completed as part of the install can show up relative to the installation technician who was assigned the work. The installer may actually type in his/her technician number and password as part completing the install to avoid any last minute substitutions in the assigned work that is sent to the change management system. Once this relationship is created, each subscriber becomes a product of his or her respective installation technician. 

Deployment Options 

It may be difficult for a BSP with 500 data subscribers to find value in purchasing the change management system. This is because the change management software license would cost a mere fraction of the hardware it would require to run on. Ideally, there should be at least two deployment options available for BSPs. The first deployment option would resemble more traditional software licensing where the software is shipped to the customer location and installed and configured on hardware they provide. 

Smaller BSPs would find that model expensive. To address the needs of smaller BSPs a deployment option should exist that would allow them to take advantage of this software without having to purchase hardware and support it locally. For these BSPs a remote (e.g. centralized) hosting model will be supplied. The remote hosting model will allow BSPs to access all the capability of this software remotely in exchange for a slightly lower return on investment. These BSPs for example might pay $0.25 per subscriber instead of $0.05 for a locally installed model. 

Creating some type of centralized model may well provide other capability as well. In the case of hardware reliability information, it may be more useful if it was summarized across multiple BSPs. This would allow a BSP who just signed on to immediately leverage the forward looking data store containing this information where as if they went entirely with the locally stored model they would not have any useful information in the forward looking data store for several months. 

One other possible configuration that could also be considered a deployment option would be to apply some form of distributed computing to this software. Using this technology would alleviate the need for a central hosting model, as each additional instance installed would add to the effective capability of the entire system. Smaller BSPs would then leverage the installed base of change management systems installed elsewhere negating the need for the change management software company to purchase the resources to host this for the smaller BSPs and perhaps even eliminating the need for advanced fail-over or redundant configurations. The current cost structure of this system seems poised to leverage this model. 

Centralizing some aspects of the data could provide a double return. First it would provide immediate troubleshooting knowledge base for newly signed on customers (while continuing to deliver increasingly useful information to long time customers). Second it could be used to provide extremely valuable information back to vendors. This is likely information that they would normally not have direct (certainly not easy) access to. While it is likely there would be issues to collecting or assembling this information from customer entries, if the security (and other concerns) were address this would become an extremely valuable (and profitable) function. Since this would likely represent future functionality it should be explored during initial talks with prospective customers on how receptive they would be to the idea and what ways it could best address their concerns.

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