Gartner defines communications service provider (CSP) customer management and experience (CM&X) solutions as commercial off-the-shelf software solutions that address all customer-facing operational requirements of CSPs. These include managing customer channels, customer information, incidents, products, pricing, quotes and offers, orders, customer care and partner relationships. CM&X solutions are part of business support system (BSS) solutions for CSPs and often work together with revenue management and monetization solutions as part of a complete BSS stack. Delivery options may include license and SaaS-based models.
Gartner defines communications service provider (CSP) revenue management and monetization (RM&M) as a part of a business support system (BSS). These are commercial off-the-shelf software solutions with functionality that enable CSPs to execute their revenue management (rating, charging, billing, payments, collections, partner settlement, revenue assurance and fraud management), and billing and payments associated customer care and monetization initiatives. Monetization here refers to revenue growth initiatives and activities using levers, such as solutions for mobile banking or any other new vertical, supporting as-a-service propositions and analytics enabling new business models.
Gartner defines the data center outsourcing (DCO) services market as a comprehensive suite of services that support deployment, consolidation, optimization, modernization and managed services. These services primarily cater to data centers, private clouds, edge computing, ERP hosting, mainframes or legacy systems, midrange systems, infrastructure modernization, network and security. Organizations with such environments engage with DCO service providers to enhance efficiency, improve agility, optimize costs, strengthen security — physical, data and cyber — and realize substantial modernization benefits. Data center outsourcing refers to the strategic decision by organizations to delegate data center operations to a third-party service provider. Adopting this approach assists organizations with prioritizing their core business activities while capitalizing on the advanced technologies, operational expertise, best-in-class performance metrics and cost-efficiencies offered by vendors, compared to insourced best efforts.
Digital banking multichannel solutions enable banks to deliver banking services through various digital channels, via customer-owned self-service devices. The solutions are also commonly referred to as “online banking” or “mobile banking.” Multichannel solutions enable banks to digitalize the account servicing, customer support and transaction origination capabilities of financial products. They are commonly provided as the customer experience component of a digital banking platform. Digital banking multichannel solutions address the growing demand for convenient and accessible banking services outside of the traditional branch delivery model. They solve the business problem of fragmented customer experiences by providing a unified solution that integrates various digital channels, like online banking, via websites, mobile banking apps, text banking, digital wallets and social media platforms. This ensures that customers can perform banking transactions, access account information and receive support consistently across digital channels.
Gartner defines document management as the tools and practices used to capture, store, process and deliver documents and information in support of personal, team and enterprise needs. Gartner estimates that 70% to 90% of enterprise data is unstructured, posing a significant challenge for organizations that need to unlock its potential using AI and also mitigate the risks of poor information governance. Document management platforms are critical to enterprise application strategies that require AI-ready, unstructured data (aka enterprise content).
Gartner defines field service management (FSM) as modular software that manages work and commercial interactions for organizations whose workforces travel to remote locations. These workforces install, inspect, maintain and repair consumer, commercial or industrial equipment, assets and systems. FSM software may also help manage, maintain and monitor these under a predefined service or maintenance contract. FSM software is delivered primarily as cloud-based services and mobile apps; however, some FSM vendors also provide the option to deploy some or all components on-premises.
An operational support system (OSS) is a set of programs that help a company in monitoring, controlling, analyzing and managing a computer network. OSS software is specifically dedicated to communications service providers and mainly used for supporting network planning, network provisioning, service fulfillment, and service assurance from a common core of service and resource management. Other functionality includes embedded analytics, correlation and aggregation, reporting, product life cycle management, multichannel support, resource and asset planning. OSS data is of strategic importance to measure the impact of operational technical processes on customer and business goals.
Gartner defines the source-to-pay (S2P) suite market as an integrated set of solutions to source, contract, request, procure, receive and pay for goods and services across an enterprise. These solutions typically are sold as cloud-based software as a service. Source-to-pay suites allow organizations to manage all of their sourcing and procurement activities within a single integrated solution. These solutions are modular in nature, allowing customers to activate/implement the functionality that is relevant for their needs, and are ERP/financial-system-agnostic. The integrated nature of these solutions allows for data to easily flow across the source-to-pay process, providing needed visibility to upstream and downstream information. For example, users can view a purchase order alongside its related contract, the sourcing event that led to the contract, and connected downstream documents like receipts, invoices and payments.