Less than half of all new product launches made by telecommunications companies actually provide a sustained improvement to their revenues and market share, or their business results. Most new products don’t fulfill the expectations of the company’s management.  

Complex product innovations increase the complexity of the processes 

Weak product ideas don’t carry all the responsibility for this failure. In many cases it is the extreme complexity of the new products targeted at consumer or business markets, the lack of innovation due to their pure ‘me-too’ character, an unsatisfactory cost-benefit relationship, error rates that are simply unacceptable, or too many complaints following launch that lead to disaster.  But then again it’s not just poor quality in the primary product that plays it part. Failings in associated processes such as provisioning, service assurance and billing may cause the flop too. This is because increases in the complexity of the product innovation will also lead to increasing complexity in the implementation processes – and to negative effects on the competitive parameters time-to-market and cost. What are needed are best practice examples to help guide us on our way to new product launches which soar rather than flop.   

Two examples make it clear that product innovations in telecommunications are becoming increasingly complex: Through the combination and integration of services from different telecommunications disciplines – such as for example voice, data, Internet services or entertainment – there is a trend towards combined and converged products. In the case of the implementation of such complex innovations both the market side and the supply side play important roles. The commercial and technical service provisioning processes owned by a number of input product suppliers have to be coordinated to ensure that the customer receives a complete and seamless service.