Toronto, Canada. September 25, 2012 — Today Ericsson announced the acquisition of the Canadian company ConceptWave in an all-cash transaction for an as-yet undisclosed sum. The company was founded in 2000 and has developed operations and business support software primarily for telecom operators.
Acquiring ConceptWave is designed to complement and strengthen Ericsson’s (NASDAQ: ERIC) offering in the area of operations- and business support systems (OSS/BSS), and comes barely a year after its purchase of OSS specialist, Telcordia, based in New Jersey. ConceptWave’s order management and product catalogue systems support network operators as they personalise end user offerings and build revenue management solutions.
Elisabetta Romano, head of OSS in Business Unit Support Solutions, Ericsson, says: “There is a trend towards more personalisation of services where end users want to purchase communications services meeting their individual needs. This puts high demand on telecom operators to be able to offer flexible product bundles with customised pricing packages. In this area ConceptWave’s solutions and employees’ expertise adds considerable value to Ericsson’s portfolio.”
Zarar Rana, president and CEO of ConceptWave, says: “Our products and solutions help maximise telecom operators’ assets through the creation, implementation and automation of service fulfillment processes for new and differentiated offerings. Joining Ericsson today adds great value to ConceptWave, as we become part of their global organisation and leverage their industry-leading technology and services competence.”
ConceptWave is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with a staff of 170. The company’s customers, primarily telecom operators, are located in Canada, USA, Latin America, Europe and Asia. The transaction closed at signing.
Speaking exclusively to M2M Now on condition of anonymity, a senior ConceptWave executive said: “We are excited about the opportunity. The product fit will be good for Ericsson, and we are looking forward to more exposure in the market. The Ericsson backing will allow us to compete better in the space.”
With the integration of previously acquired Telcordia, Ericsson — once viewed largely as a hardware player — now claims to have the industry’s most comprehensive OSS/BSS portfolio, a key element of any operator’s network strategy. Ericsson has built a strong position in key areas such as charging and billing (through the acquisition of Germany-based LHS). Ericsson now serves 1.7 billion people with its services and solutions.
Order management, a lynchpin of ConceptWave’s growth, is the discipline of handling and optimising complex fulfillment flow by scheduling and orchestrating tasks, materials and activities over time. It includes, for example, orchestration of a customer order that contains software activation, hardware orders and delivery, as well as contractor work and installation, where the different parts of the order should be synchronised to one service date despite different lead times.
A product catalogue is a system that defines all the detailed components that a product consists of, including price, eligibility rules and interdependency with other products. Surrounding systems use the product specifications in the catalogue to perform activities such as product bundling, campaign packaging and related revenue management. The product catalogue is imperative to dynamically cater for more personalisation of services for end users.
