By Avi Kachlon, CEO, FTS
January 2018
We read with interest the recent post by Alex Leslie on Disruptive Views asking “… has Gartner gone completely sane?”, which explores the Peer Insights filter that Gartner now provides alongside its annual Magic Quadrant for Integrated Revenue and Customer Management for CSPs.
We are in agreement with Alex that this method of being able to filter peer reviews in this way gives a much clearer insight into what a vendor’s customers think about them and whether they are happy with the products and services they receive. As Alex points out, it’s the Tier 2 vendors, FTS included, that rank better than the larger Tier 1 vendors, and we were pleased to see that FTS rates 3rd equally overall (out of 23 providers), scoring a healthy 4.5 out of 5 rating from its positive customer endorsements.
One of the reasons that Tier 2 providers are rising to the top, as Alex goes on to explore in his article, is that transformation is now an urgent issue and so the agility and responsiveness that Tier 2 vendors can provide is being increasingly valued.
We have seen that for ourselves this past year, having helped a number of our customers with their transformation needs. One example is Smart in Belize, for whom we completed a complex convergent billing project, consolidating multiple systems supporting multiple networks into a single billing platform and merging multiple lines of business. As a result, they are now able to launch new and innovative data services.
We have also developed new payments solutions for the FinTech and mobile money sectors, after recognizing that both of these fast-moving industries require flexible, dedicated and responsive solutions to support their processes, as well as making some substantial product updates.
It seems these achievements have been recognized by our customers and in turn by Gartner, as we have improved our position in the Quadrant over last year. Our position has improved on both of the Magic Quadrant axes, Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute, following Gartner’s evaluation of our telecom billing and IRCM products.
One of the advantages to doing business with us, according to our customers, is that we are able to be much more agile and flexible in the way we do business. And it’s not only our technology that is much more flexible, but the way in which we do business – a fact that is highly valued by our customers.
As transformation becomes an increasing priority, so agility, flexibility and attitude are increasingly important in the relationship between vendor and operator. It would seem that the time is right for us – and other Tier 2 vendors like us – to take advantage of this, to step up and make our mark.