Featured Article from Software Monetization

Viavi Solutions may not be a familiar name. However, the company formerly called JDSU (News - Alert), has been an important networking solutions vendor for communication service providers (CSPs), enterprises, governments and network equipment manufacturers for many years. With over 4,000 customers, its portfolio of products and services is extensive. It covers such areas as: wireless and wireline infrastructure, cloud, performance management, unified communications, network security forensics, virtualization, structured cabling, workflow optimization, testing and development, data center optimization and WAN connectivity. And, that is just the short list.  

The company’s roots date back to the 1980s with their emergence as a major supplier of optical fiber and a myriad of other hardware-based solutions. As a result of dynamic organic growth and multiple acquisitions, the company needed an agile IT environment. Indeed, as more and more of the company’s value-added revenue and profits are shifting toward software driven and virtual solutions.

 What this meant is that Viavi had to deal with a complex set of legacy and/or purpose-built licensing and entitlement management systems and processes that were either on-premise or, increasingly, in the cloud. It meant coming up with a way to achieve greater visibility, control and security over its entire software environment –including upgrades and integration with associated back office systems. A way that would deliver optimized monetization of the software as workflow optimization and enhanced customer experiences.  It also meant systems and processes that would be future-ready. 

To meet the above objectives Viavi turned to Gemalto’s software monetization solutions for licensing and entitlement management.    

As Will Brouwer (News - Alert), Lead Operations NPI Project Manager, Viavi Solutions highlighted at the recent Gemalto webinar, for Viavi the transformation from a hardware company to a virtual software solutions company has been both a journey as well as a destination.

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Viavi’s challenges while obviously unique to their market also are universal in many important aspects in a world where almost “E”verything is becoming virtualized and value is recognized in software. It is a world where having the best “E” tools to accommodate change and people who are skilled at using them is not a nicety but a necessity. 

Rather than spoil the joy of reviewing in detail why Brouwer’s observation that software monetization is a journey as well as a destination, as an inducement to watch and learn, here is a teaser.  He covers the motivations and goals as to why Viavi felt compelled to upgrade its software monetization capabilities. This includes why the first project was centered on enhancing its customer service portal, the complexities of doing so in the licensing area, which had to be simplified in order to move ahead, and the salesmanship needed internally to justify moving ahead on the transformation.

He also points out the cultural and business dependencies needed to achieve success. These include those integrations with business support systems, obtaining upper management sponsorship of the project(s), and business workflows ranging from R&D to marketing and sales, etc.  

The destination is for Viavi to use Gemalto’s (News - Alert) Sentinel EMS and other capabilities to further improve the customer experience through back office integration and optimization with the goal of offering on-demand licensing activation and touchless entitlement to anticipate its customer’s needs, making its software available to them as quickly as possible.

Brouwer also provides some nice guidance on how to proceed if you are about to embark on a similar transformational journey.  He advises IT professionals looking at software monetization projects that they need to:

• Clearly define goals and pain points
• Spend time setting priorities
• Win the stakeholders – over and over again
• Start with a minimum Viable Solution – create value quickly
• Build on what you started

The list above has universal applicability as we rush faster and faster into the software-based world. The interesting thing is that customization is also a key part of being agile, which is a critical reason why Viavi chose to rely on Gemalto’s software monetization licensing and entitlement management solutions.