Ericsson calls BS on its full-stack BSS

Kit vendor Ericsson has started the year by writing down almost $700 million to account for the fact that its latest BSS efforts have turned out to be a non-starter.

Its Q4 numbers will feature costs of around SEK 6.1 billion related to the ‘reshaping’ of its BSS (Business Support System) business, half of which will be customer compensations and write-downs, and half of which will be restructuring charges. It looks like Ericsson has concluded this is the only way to get its struggling Digital Services division back on track.

“The company’s past BSS strategy included pursuing large transformation projects based on pre-integrated solutions, including development of a next generation BSS platform, the full-stack Revenue Manager,” said the announcement. “The strategy has not been successful and to date the full-stack Revenue Manager has not generated any revenues.

“The anticipated customer demand for a full-stack pre-integrated BSS solution has not materialized. Delays in product and feature development has also made the full-stack Revenue Manager less competitive. R&D resources in BSS have been focused on full-stack Revenue Manager, causing further delays in product releases of the established platform. In addition, certain complex transformation projects experienced delays and cost overruns.”

No revenues at all? Damn! You have to question the due diligence that ‘anticipated customer demand for a full-stack pre-integrated BSS solution,’ when none whatsoever materialised. Furthermore another SEK 1.5 billion will need to be accounted for over the course of this year, taking the total bill to around $860 million. Ericsson does still see value in its established platform, Ericsson Digital BSS, which apparently has a decent installed base, so it’s not pulling out of BSS entirely.

A big part of Börje Ekholm’s strategy since he took over has been to dial back some of the over-reach that characterised the Vestberg era. “Ericsson is applying a selective approach to large transformation projects focusing on projects based on available products,” said the latest announcement, and it’s clear that Revenue Manager was just such a project. Ekholm deserves some credit for continuing to look facts in the face and take decisive action.