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It was my second experience in the whole life to see the light board in front of the datacenter with “Beware, Gas” caption. It went on very time the automatic fire-extinguishing system was put to work. The previous experience referred to a military object. But that datacenter belonged to a software developer…
What I saw next, reminded me of the MICEX heart of hearts, its datacenter that I happened to visit once. With the only difference that I did not see any cabinets with telecom equipment at MICEX. Glowing with blue racks with enterprise level SunFire 4810 servers from Sun Microsystems, cabinets with four pairs of Sun StorEdge T3 storage systems, capable to store over 4 TB of data, backup and restore facilities consisting of several Sun StorEdge L20 tape libraries that span the whole optic-fiber network, and many more – that was one server room (what happened to be only part of the largest software developer datacenter in the Eastern Europe) belonging to CBOSS, the most famous in Russia provider of billing and other systems from Moscow. CBOSS has approximately 40% of the Russian billing systems market.
Andrey Morozov: CBOSS is the brand name belonging to SoftPro company. It stands for Convergent Business Operation Support Systems. We enter the international market and want to concentrate on the core brand. To achieve this, we registered the CBOSS company, group of companies, to be exact, that use the CBOSS trademark and constitute the same-name association.
FIT: What is your understanding of the “convergent systems” notion? What is the origin of this name?
A. M.: This notion began to crystal out back in 1993-94. Initially, it sounded as “Communications business operation support systems” and even narrower, that is “cellular business”. However, we came to understanding, that technologies should have universal character and that business rules, in different spheres, in telecom particularly, implement uniform principles and requirements. Thus, there should be universal technologies capable of meeting requirements irrespective of telecommunications standard of an operator. Consequently, it should be possible to develop serializable solutions.
Serializable solution in software is the major enabler of its success. The more serializable is the solution, the more efficient is becomes. End-user spends less per one unit of functionality, while the quality of the product per unit of cost increases.
FIT: Let me disagree with you here. As far as I know, users prefer customized solutions that cater for their individual needs. Usually, they tend to have tasks, same in principle, but a little bit different in their individual practice, etc. A serializable solution translates to universal system, a system that nobody will be able to use without customization either the system or its business process and its integration into a multi-component solution.
A. M.: You are talking now about flexibility. My point was application of the product in different spheres, its convergent character. Naturally, convergent system (that is universal, multi-purpose) should be flexible. I think you will agree with me that there is no contradiction when we say that the system should be flexible and serializable.
When we were making our first steps on the market, we often heard that there is no serializable solutions for billing and OSS. Even now, a lot of operators, even within the same standard, claim that their practices and demands are unique. Another point is whether there are any objective reasons that underlie those unique practices. Or is it about habits and ways that border whim?
Very often, during our installations we heard complaints about inevitable changes in existing business processes. And that was true. But then, we cooperatively performed assessment of efficiency of the near and dear processes. We looked at the objective requirements of the subject domain and saw only lack of tools for implementing more efficient business processes. There has never been any objective reason for “unique” demands, only a tribute to old habits.
FIT: Talking about convergence, you, actually, said that business in itself has universal character. What’s your point and what billing has to do with it?
A. M.: Ok, what is billing after all? In a broad sense, it goes beyond financial relations with subscribers. Billing includes OSS [Operation Support System] as well. One is integral part of another. In Western practices, however, there are occasions when operation support system is separated from billing mechanism itself.
Sphere of business for a telecom operator includes provision of heterogeneous services, settlements, servicing, monitoring of network elements and automation tools, as well as different layers in the above mentioned processes (for example, customer relations management, CRM). Besides, decisions should be based on data and knowledge rather than on intuition and personal preferences. This forms a demand for analytics based on these technologies. Information from OSS level should be collected, processed and presented to the decision maker in aggregated form. When a decision is made, it is important to ensure its consistent execution by every involved party. Every process mentioned above lies in the sphere of automation.
On the other hand, billing is a universal mechanism to measure heterogeneous metrics, and when we talk about “convergent billing”, it stands for the ability to measure information from heterogeneous sources, in different units, apply different rating principles and process it into a uniform monetary equivalent. Let’s look at the basic entities of cellular business: minute of airtime, SMS, data, fax, modem messages, IP-traffic, GPRS. Now rating goes beyond volume of transferred data and includes QoS parameters. Take time- and volume-based discounts and you will get quite complex tariffication models.
At the same time, any business, for example, a cellular operator as well, faces a non-trivial issue of measuring individual employee performance. Indeed, in modern hi-tech business, far from the cargo-per-mile measures the issue becomes challenging. And labor, despite its distribution, should be measured in uniform monetary equivalent too. And this is where billing comes in. With this example of two different tasks solved by billing you see that IT have universal character for business. If we are able to map business domain into automation model, we will apply this model many times, for different tasks. This yields a functional, complex, integrated approach. The tool to measure everything and get the monetary equivalent will be multifunctional. Metaphorically, it resembles a Swiss Army knife, a very handy thing.
FIT: We already touched upon cost-efficiency. This parameter has two aspects: for developer and for end-user. Why this approach (multi-functional systems in one solution) is efficient for a developer? Every system within a solution requires serious investment, and when a user purchases a complex solution, it is more affordable than several separate systems.
A. M.: I have already mentioned complex automation, and this is my strong opinion that came with bitter experience. Operation of a single-vendor integrated solution covering the whole subject domain is cost-efficient. Why? Because automation domain is very complex and it changes fast too. That’s why industrial standards ensuring effective interface between heterogeneous solutions lag behind the fast-paced telecom. With PC it is easy. We can plug in any-vendor peripheral using appropriate standard interface. In telecom it is different. We have to confine to, let’s say, corporate interfaces.
Look at Mobile TeleSystems. They have IVR [interactive voice response] system in operation, and, dialing, for example, 088011, you hear your account balance. It is natural, that such system should have interface to billing to ensure, on one hand, retrieval of information and, on the other hand, interaction that should be authorized. You can order fax delivery of itemized bill, change service subscription, suspend services in the result of self-care transaction. Besides, this self-care is possible in many ways: SMS or Internet, for example. Moreover, all systems that allow you to access IT, skipping the operator, should have interface between them. For example, the notification system can use voice, SMS, email, etc. for sending messages to subscribers.
Just imagine that all components of self-service are purchased from different vendors. Building interfaces between them is one challenge, while supporting such interfaces is another. Now consider cost-effectiveness of such solution when no industrial standards are available? Integrated solutions, on the other hand, are developed and tested to work together from the very start. Interfaces between systems are part of integrated solution. Besides, native integration of components yields end-users unmatched functional range in their solutions.
Why wide product line is effective for a developer? On the one hand, application of uniform technologies for a whole range of tasks is cost-effective. On the other hand, our total costs are lower in processing customer trouble tickets. We have specialists in hardware, system software, applied technologies and access to knowledge base. That’s why we can emulate any situation quickly and find an adequate solution.
This approach ensures reliability of customer business support. And here we come to one more aspect that shows how complex solutions are cost-effective for us as developers. The image of our company is of top importance for us. The success of our customer means our success. If our customer has problems, this creates problems for us, irrespective of the degree of our involvement. It is this approach that makes us carry out long, persuasive but firm-position negotiations with customers. A situation when a customer wants to deploy our application software on the platform provided and supported by a third-party, say locally based, integrator is very frequent. Consider a possible scenario of a failure in services, provided by the operator with our application on the third-party supported database server. They would say that his system went down, forgetting about technical details of servers and platforms.
FIT: Do you always insist on shipment of the equipment you name?
A. M.: Yes, as a rule. We have to ensure operability of our solutions from top to bottom.
FIT: You mentioned modification of customer business processes when describing your products. It is true, that the main processes of a business refer to enterprise management…
A. M.: You are absolutely right. We work in this sphere as well. It is natural, that in large companies, business is more complex and management becomes a challenge. And, on the other hand, success relies more on successful administration and management. Remember DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation, a giant of computer world? Nice name and sad final. It was cost-effective, innovative and powerful. It lost control… that’s the reason of decline.
That’s why complex automation of enterprise management became one more direction of our business. We have plenty of ideas about it. We allocate resources and stay tuned to the modern trends.
FIT: Are you talking about a software product?
A. M.: Exactly. We have a layer of technologies, dubbed CBOSS MIS (Management Information System). We have big ideas about complex automation of management process. Today we implemented about 5-10% of the required volume. I do not know if we manage to realize all our ideas and whether we have enough capabilities, time and resources for that. You know that we use other our products in our company. Specifically, we are not a telecom operator but we use our own billing to automate customer care operations with our clients. (This is another proof that any business has universal entities and requirements.) Similarly, we use management information system inside, and it yields amazing results. This makes us offer this product to our customers who use other our technologies as a free-of-charge supplement. We believe that efficient management of our customer is an important factor of his, and consequently our, well-being.
FIT: Let’s go back to your commercial products. According to your website publications, your systems are on the same level of functionality with Western solutions and “aligned to modern market trends”. Could you elaborate on this, please?
A. M.: Integrated systems are a market trend, and we already covered this subject. Comparing our systems to the Western analogs, our level is not lower, for sure. IT race of Russian and Western developers has something of a drafting phenomenon, as in cycling or swimming, when the pursuers follow the leader in the wake of low environment resistance and save 30% of energy. And making the final spurt the pursuer often comes first. If we consider IT development in Russia, we already feel such effect, or it is present as a trend.
Let’s look back. 20 years ago there was plenty of experience in development of automated systems, but not a trace of commerce in IT. Do not forget the system of public education. Our education used to be more comprehensive and less specialized, if compared with the West. And, when a person with intellect, nourished in such system, faced a task of business character, he or she was more free from obsolete development paradigms, the paradigms, most Western developers had.
Specifically, the kernel of our company consists of specialists in IT, rather than telecommunications. We came to this business with a fresh vision and grasped the complete picture that showed a burning need for complex automation. Telecom specialists, however, did not see that requirement.
Today, we can safely claim, that our solutions are more complex. I do not know any Western company that have realized the same range of functionalities and automated processes (this is not the same, however, the notions have much in common) as implemented in our technologies. Talking about the speed our products grow functionalities, the way our company grows, I do not know other precedents in business. Implementations of our products are faster. We have dozens of examples when our desperate customers had deadlines for their yet-to-be installed systems expired before they turn to us. For the record, there was not a single precedent that our solution did not work. At the same time, I know large Western providers where version upgrade of their own solution takes one year [to say nothing how much it costs].
I say that we are better, when we talk about technical support too. The quality of technical support for our systems is much better than support of western systems. The proof of my words is the customers who replaced their western systems with our products.
FIT: One more question “from the web-site”. According to web-site publications your specialists are very young and you work actively with institutions of higher education. Could you elaborate on that, please?
A. M.: Yes, we stake, we rely on the youth. Today we employ about 1,000 people, with average age 25 years. It is important, that key positions are taken by those who came to us as second- or third-year students. We give them a chance to work part-time, with flexible work hours, etc. In fact, they receive tasks that they are able to cope with, and allow longer deadlines. It is important that it is the real enterprise they work for, they learn in the field, they make unique specialists. It is impossible to find such people on the labor market. They can be only trained in conditions of high requirements of modern business.
It is bitter to witness the decline of the system, I would say of the national education system. In conditions, when quality output finds no or poor demand, the system falls apart. Being an enterprise of a new kind, a consumer of highly intellectual personnel, we have to interact with the system of education.
Our social mission is to teach the youth the know-how we possess. To make a university graduate a true specialists rather than “tabula rasa”. Last schooling year, 300 students took up our courses. We pay the lecturers that read specialized disciplines for students in several universities. This year, we expect about 1000 students to finish our courses. We created infrastructures with new workplaces and computer equipment for summer internship program that took in 230 students last year. Rather than doing faked assignments, our interns participated in real production. A lot of them decided to accept our job offers.
We provide the youth access to the most serious and modern industrial information technologies: enterprise class database servers, system software, applications. Naturally, we use IT in training process, and this is another factor to influence the system of education. Top technologies of today, rather than outdated, should be in the focus of education. We have a license for education activities, have opened a chair at MIFI, we build educational infrastructure: computer-equipped classes, lecture rooms. Our training center holds courses for our employees, including students and attracts attention of large Western IT providers. Specifically, Sun Microsystems has arrangement with us to use our training center for teaching how to operate Sun equipment and software.
FIT: Can we touch upon your personality? What’s your education background and when did you come to the industry?
A. M.: I specialized in analytical mathematics. Attended the state service until 1992, when I left to join Moscow Cellular Communications [MCC] in 1993. It was the time of joint ventures; everything was new and interesting. I started from lead programmer, then became billing project manager, and finally IT director. When we made the billing system for MCC, we saw it could be better and smarter. However, the operator showed no interest, it was outside its business interests. So we left to create our own company. We concentrated on the billing system, getting it ready for the market.
We had no sponsors, so we used our savings to purchase computers. What we had was enthusiasm and a team. At that time IT were scarce, while telecom operators in Russia were at the very early stage, having 200, 300 or 500 subscribers and could not afford to have their own billing. So we offered our services, and many operators outsourced their billing. Also, we earned money providing consulting services.
FIT: What was your first product and implementation?
A. M.: Billing, naturally. We had three installations in 1997. The first was in SMARTS (a GSM operator from Samara, with 800 subscribers at that time), the second for Primtelephone in Vladivistok and finally at Kuban-GSM. We shipped Kuban-GSM, a greenfield operator at that time, a PC-based solution for 1,000 subscribers. They made it 5,000 subscribers and the system worked OK. Today, Kuban-GSM is one of the most famous regional operators with subscriber base of almost 1,000,000.
MTS became our fourth customer. They had a system from a very prominent Western provider. And at the same time endless lines to cash desks, lost commands to the switch, etc. My deep gratitude goes to Mikhail A. Smirnov who had the courage at that time to believe that our technology is better, that we would be able to implement it. We made a hard-won decision in a company with Western co-founders. We are proud to see the success of MTS and we know that there is a modest contribution that we made.
FIT: Could you tell us about your hobbies? They say you are a true hunter.
A. M.: I think I am a true team player. So we have team hobbies too. We have a strong team that works and plays together. And no mess of job and pleasure.
FIT: I would call it friendship!
A. M.: Exactly. There is an opinion that friends and relatives (especially spouses) make poor colleagues. A manager should use administrative tools: encouragement as well as criticism. Can you punish anybody if you had a drink together? I manage to separate business and friendship. In business, my requirements are strict. I do not mix friendship and business relations. We share pastime and this makes a team stronger. We registered a hunting club and go hunting quite often: in winter, spring and autumn. In winter it is different hoofed animals that populate our places. We go after wild goose, drakes, woodcocks in spring and after waterfowl in autumn.
We like hunting itself, not the modern conveniences hunter’s cottages are equipped with now. This is what often surprises the owners of the hunter villages. We like to go on our own, settle a tent camp, preferably on an island to feel far away from civilization, and enjoy the intensive, yet short stay in the wild.
FIT: I know about a motorcycle club in your company. It was your idea, wasn’t it?
A. M.: We try to do our best to create a corporate pastime infrastructure for the youth. Sound mind lives in a sound body. We have a lot of ideas. A number of communities includes sports, tourist and motorcycle clubs. The former holds driving courses: we own two 125cc Yamahas that are ideal for training. A lot of people got driving licenses after taking our courses. There are a number of motorcycles owned by CBOSS employees, so we can arrange various events in the framework of the motorcycle club: picnics, outings, the feeling when you hit the road, you know…
FIT: What is a motorcycle for you, personally?
A. M.: It is a dream that comes from childhood. My parents say that I used to play starting the motorcycle and make sounds of the running engine before I learned to talk. When at school, I had my desk (at home) full of stickers and rare clippings from magazines featuring motorcycles. Like many boys at that age I had a motorized bicycle and a dilapidating motorcycle. I got a Java when I was a student. Gradually this hobby came to decline.
Then the wind of change came, [I was working for MCC at that time]. I found myself at the Sport and Recreation exhibition. Suddenly, Kawasaki JPZ-1100 caught my eye, and I realized that my dream was coming true. I could afford it. It became my first heavy super-bike. You know the excitement when you reach for your dream from childhood and as an adult, you make it come true.
I like the motorcycles as a phenomenon. I like the company of … I would not call them either rockers or bikers… let’s say of motorcyclists. It is very important for me. Like hunting – it is neither shooting nor getting meat for food. It is about the community.
On the other hand, a motorcycle helps to overcome stress. Suppose you are a programmer. You did your job. You feel relaxed – can have a beer or two or go to the movies. Being a manager is different. You never feel free of business. You believe me. Someone would call it poor management. But in fact, all the tasks, their volume and challenge call for 100% of your time and energy and much more. Probably that’s the rule of business. Fate of a manager. You need a means to protect you from stress, keep your head calm and not spinning, handle the overload. And you need it regularly. A motorcycle helps a lot. A half an hour evening ride brings distraction and you sleep well at night.
FIT: Do you ride your motorcycle often?
A. M.: Very often, especially in summer. Usually, I commute to work on my motorcycles in summer.
FIT: There is an opinion that family life is a taboo for interviews. As for me, I always ask such questions and let the person decide whether to answer them.
A. M.: I will answer. I have kids, but I am divorced. At some point of my family life, business demanded all my time. My spouse, at that time, did not understand my devotion to work and we failed to find a consensus. Besides, a strong leader by nature, she fought for the leadership in the family too. There were no winners. That’s life too....
FIT: Do you remember General Lebed’ saying that “No two birds will share a bear’s den”? Was it something like that with you?
A. M.: Exactly. Active character of a true leader that my wife had called for submission from my side, but diamond cuts diamond. So now we live separately.
FIT: Do you support relationship with your children? How old are they?
A. M.: Yes, of course. How old? The daughter already at school, the son still in the kindergarten. Do you want to ask whether being a parent impacts my social position? Sure, it does. Well, every parent is responsible for creating an environment children will grow in.
Someone will do savings and support children financially, other will share experience. There are still others, who try to create an infrastructure that works to develop adequate conditions for development. I think my objective is to restore the infrastructure of education in Russia. Well nice words, but let it be my contribution, my share. When we pursue our own educational infrastructure, my motivation is of a father who cares where and how his kids will study, what they will do in life, what the society they live in will be like. In this way, I agree that personal interests have impact on my social, civil position.
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