2017, The Year Telco Transformation Awakened

Digital transformation, particularly in the telco market, has the unique distinction of being both a marathon and a sprint. It’s a sprint because operators need to get to market with modern digital offerings as quickly as possible. A marathon because they need those solutions to be built to evolve with them as they move to a more agile footing. Challenged by aging IT systems that are out of step with evolving network and service portfolios, 2017 saw telcos looking outside of their traditional vendor ecosystem for innovators that can redefine their infrastructure as software-driven, digital first companies. We saw first-hand the impact.

New Customers

In 2017 MATRIXX Software announced two significant selections of its digital-first, BSS/OSS reinvention.

• With the Three Group, MATRIXX was selected as the cornerstone of BSS/OSS transformation for their operators in the UK, Sweden and Denmark. As stated by the CEO at 3 Solutions, “Three’s operations in Europe will be transformed into digital service leaders, reinventing the customer experience while benefiting from the market-changing economics of digital.”
• For the Italian market, MATRIXX was chosen by Wind-Tre, a joint-venture between VEON and CK Hutchinson, as the foundation of their Telco digital transformation. As Michiel J. Van Eldik, Chief Digital Officer at Wind Tre stated: “MATRIXX is at the center of our digital vision because it allows us to create new and exciting experiences for customers, no matter where their digital journey begins.”

These wins highlighted the widening trend across the industry for a complete disruptive overhaul. For too long Telco’s have been trying to patch their way through to digital – creating flashy front-end experiences to try and postpone and/or avoid the more holistic transformation that modern digital experience demand.

New Innovations

We don’t believe in massive, one-off customization. And we definitely don’t believe that operators should be beholden to huge service contracts. What Telco’s want (and need) is continuous innovation.

Our customers saw this first hand with the announcement of our biggest upgrade to date of MATRIXX – which has benchmarked new digital KPIs that Communication Service Providers (CSPs) expect their vendors to meet for cloud and virtualization, including: scalability, reliability, digital ecosystem support and customer engagement. More importantly, because of our software license model, new releases are available to all customers, ensuring they are able to benefit from our platform’s continuous evolution.

More recently, we announced the availability of MATRIXX on Google Cloud. By enabling a truly innovative public cloud BSS alternative, CSPs now have a deployment option that can simplify IT architecture and enable business agility while delivering a much-improved experience to customers – at a fraction of the operational costs incurred via traditional BSS.

Industry Recognition

We are relentless in our commitment to excellence in innovation, and 2017 saw several awards recognizing that commitment.

Our founder, CEO and CTO Dave Labuda was named the Silver winner for Innovator of The Year in The Best In Biz 2017 Awards and Stevie International Business Awards – both accolades recognized the success of MATRIXX. With 17+ patents to his name, Dave was awarded for his unparalleled knowledge and understanding of system design and architecture, integrated circuits, sophisticated software development, database creation and digital technology.

We also received the Recognition Award at The Global Telecom Business Awards and the IDG Digital Edge Award. In both instances, our successes with Telstra were recognized for helping them move away from traditional BSS and realize the benefits of digital transformation.

Diversity Agenda

As one of MATRIXX’s founders, I am passionate about raising the diversity agenda in the telecom sector. Of course I strongly believe  it is good for women to have equal opportunity and success as women in tech; however, for me, tech diversity is about the success of our company. As a company, we are deeply committed to diversity on our team, and it has been my great pleasure to represent our entire leadership team as it was recognized by the broader business community.

In 2017, I was recognized as a “Woman of Influence” in Silicon Valley as well as a Tech Pioneer of the Year in the Leading Light Awards, in association with Women in Comms (WiC). Most recently I was designated as one of the 50 Women to Know in MarTech by MarTechExec, in addition to being shortlisted for Entrepreneur of The Year in Information Age’s pending inaugural Women in Tech (USA) awards.

Big Things for 2018

From day one we have been focused on bringing agility and innovation to Telco’s. At first, it was only the visionary outliers that shared our belief in what was possible. 2017 was proof that Telco’s as modern Digital Service Providers is now a mainstream objective. As we head into 2018, we look forward to continuing our mission of helping Telco’s reinvent themselves into leaders in the digital economy.