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Episode 10: Fiber Optic Closure Specs Explained…

Food for Thought from Our 2022 ICT Visionaries

Collaboration in the Build-Out Process

Data silos are the bane of executives, project managers and workers alike. Like most organizations, CSPs have department data silos, each with unique budgets, objectives, personnel, etc. As well, their engineering firms, lead construction companies and subcontractors, backhaul suppliers, and other vendors, have their own silos.

The challenge service providers have is to bring these disparate business processes from within and outside of the organization together so there is a single system of record that supports the processes. These environments enable the project managers to extract financial, operational, scheduling, and various other data from respective information silos into coordinated systems so everyone follows the same North Star.

When you have a network management ecosystem that allows project teams to create a software bridge between all of the collaborating partners, the output from a planning activity is immediately available as part of the design activity. Engineers, contractors, and subcontractors, can work from the same system of record where all the project data resides.

With it, they are supported with mobile apps tethered continuously to up-to-the-minute scheduling, design, marketing, shipping, financial, and other, data. Conversely, every documented text, photographic, and video activity, is captured in the field, delivered back to the platform, and relayed to the appropriate department.

This is critical because when looking for opportunities to streamline cost through collaborative efficiency, 10% of the overall project cost is in the engineering, and 90% is related to construction.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving: Data

As CSPs turn their focus to breakdown data silos that create inefficiencies and disrupt managerial visibility, they are looking to their vendors to collaborate more to help them meet their strategic goals. CSPs aim to leverage their data assets in order to create competitive advantages for their network expansion opportunities.

The tools needed for this should be able to:
• LEVERAGE GIS capabilities throughout the entire technology environment.
• OPTIMIZE with accurate designs created with automation.
• MANAGE change risks through real-time field updates.
• ESTABLISH the single source of truth based upon flexible API data integrations.
• BREAK DOWN data silos by entering data once and letting it flow to all the stakeholders.

CSPs need to create an environment where multiple vendors collaborate to bring their best-of-breed products to address a single mutual business goal, such as speed-to-revenue. In terms of constructing and deploying a fiber network, a unified goal can be reached quicker when all vendors work with the same data.

By looking for every opportunity to have systems speak to each other, the company and its partners will be able design faster, build faster, and manage data more efficiently. All of these efforts will help network operations reach its transformation goals. This multi-vendor collaboration results in increased project velocity.

Authentic collaboration means the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The value of multi-vendor collaboration is that the collective data from the entire build-out process is available for downstream applications: provisioning, service assurance, and much more. When CSPs can share their data with all stakeholders, their network management ecosystem will be ready to generate long-term ROI.

Co-Authored By Michael Measels, Justin Reid, and Kevin Wynne

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