Improvement of Software Delivery Process in the Telecommunications

Improvement of Software Delivery Process in the Telecommunications Industry Xian Sun xian. sun@ericsson. com

About § Carried out at Oy LM Ericsson AB, Finland § Supervised by Prof. Heikki Hämmäinen § Instructed by Petri Haapanen © Ericsson AB 2007 2 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Content § Introduction – – – Background Scope Research Problem Research Method Stucture of the Research § New Reorganized Processes – Advantages – Challenges § Conclusion § Future Studies © Ericsson AB 2007 3 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Background Network operators’ relative investments over last 20 years (Accenture) © Ericsson AB 2007 4 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Background § Software production is time consuming, expensive and brings the most value and functionalities to the current network elements. § As a result, network suppliers want to sell hardware, software and services as separate products. § Operators still want to see network supliers as hardware vendors and are reluctant to pay for software separately. © Ericsson AB 2007 5 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Scope Money Operators Suppliers of Telecom Network Suppliers delivers network elements and services End-users Operators provides services to end-users Network Element Media Gateway Delivery process The red ellipse illustrates the scope of thesis © Ericsson AB 2007 6 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Research Problem § The main research problem: – How to productize the network element software by changing the software delivery process? § This question can be further divided into the following sub-questions: – How do the current software delivery processes function? – What similarities, differences and challenges are in the current processes? – How can the current processes be reorganized to productize the software? – What kinds of advantages and challenges there are in the new reorganized processes? © Ericsson AB 2007 7 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Research Methods § Literature studies -books, academic , documents, § Interviews -initial interviews, target interviews, § Observation -process, entry meetings, closing meeting etc. . © Ericsson AB 2007 8 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Structure of the Research Discribes the current software delivery processes Examines the target processes Purpose the new reorganized processes Examines the purposed processes © Ericsson AB 2007 9 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

New Reorganized processes § Software delivery process – Delivers a new software into new nodes § Feature delivery process – Activates features in the existing nodes § Software maintenance process – Provides maintenance services to the existing nodes © Ericsson AB 2007 10 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Advantages § § § § Filling the strategy Simpified cummunication Risks reduction Cost reduction for customer Maintenance cost reduction for the case company Automated update system Reduction of prallel processes Other affections © Ericsson AB 2007 11 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Challenges § The biggest fear of the customers is the loss of average revenue per user § Reliability § Technological challenges § Change resistance © Ericsson AB 2007 12 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Conclusion § Three new processes were developed § They support the new strategy of the case company. – Selling components of the software separately. – By establishing different delivery processes for software and features this is fulfilled. – Serves the goal of software productization. © Ericsson AB 2007 13 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

Future Research § More specific measurement tools § The same process model could be expanded to other product lines § Studies on the economical impact of the changes § Benchmarking the software delivery processes with other companies – – – © Ericsson AB 2007 To gather numerical statistics of the new reorganized processes Company wide studies of broader changes of delivery processes to better fulfill the strategy of the case company Marketing strategies Pricing of the new separate products Economical effect on suppliers and customers 14 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06

© Ericsson AB 2007 15 Improvement of Software Delivery Processes 2007 -02 -06