Automation: Reservations Not Accepted - Why Incremental Change is the Best Route to the Closed Loop

While automation is a clear goal and has many inherent benefits such as cost savings and error-reduction, it is a goal in service of another higher goal: agility. The faster and smoother that networks can be configured and fixed, services can be created and delivered, and customer care can make customers happy—the more creative and flexible CSPs can be in bringing new services to market, and in monetizing them. That is the benefit of agility. And agility is the ultimate goal and the only way CSPs can compete and succeed going forward in today's increasingly competitive marketplace. This report focuses on how the industry has a two-pronged approach to automation: one in which individual suppliers add incremental changes, and another where these same suppliers work collectively toward more comprehensive automation. The report will look at three processes: service design and creation, fulfillment, and assurance.