Eric Nowak

I inherited an existing product team and reexamined market opportunities and credibility. (The company had previously decided to exit the business). I reversed the course by establishing a partnership with an upstart i3-compliant vendor and redefined the roles for success. I then obtained IT funding and leadership sponsorship to build a new product and develop a business unit focused on public safety. I also oversaw an agile development program to integrate third-party solutions with internal operational models and built an industry-leading metrics dashboard.

In an opportunities bid (we were not the incumbent provider), our revamped messaging and solution architecture allowed us to displace the long-standing providers.

The challenge was two-fold: (a) build a replacement service for 400,000 existing SMB customers on traditional voice services and (b) find a way to transparently migrate them with minimal/no disruption.

I led the core team as a product owner while championing business cases prioritized by leadership. I worked with developers and Agile tools like Rally/Jira to develop the Engage product. Along with creating and presenting messaging to industry analysts, I developed marketing content for sales and end-customers. I also held focus groups to refine the UX prior to launch and most importantly, engaged and eventually got strong support from engineering teams to solve any migration issues. Those teams had initially rejected the original vision as impossible.

Traditional industry billing models for network services are either (a) flat rate per port or (b) usage (95th percentile). Both models are disincentives for customers to upgrade and don’t truly support a pay-for-what-you-use plan—especially if locations span multiple time zones.

I introduced a unique concept of a virtual port (VPort), which—for the purposes of billing—allowed all locations to be consolidated into a single virtual usage meter for the entire corporate network. It creates a win-win situation for the service provider and customer who now can cost-effectively upgrade bandwidth at corporate locations. The bigger the VPort, the lower the per-Mbps cost.

The implementation required billing and IT data collection system development and creation of new dashboards. However, the result was a differentiated model that was significantly difficult for competitors to copy due to the complexity of the internal systems to collect, rate, tax, and invoice.

Existing private network solutions continued to be extremely profitable for service providers (SPs) but on the downside of the technology lifecycle curve. As customer comfort with using the internet to connect to public cloud resources increased, an opportunity for a software-defined network emerged. SD-WAN allowed organizations to securely use public networks to connect locations—with better economics, at higher bandwidths, with more redundancy and resiliency.

As part of this project, I built a business case, gained executive sponsorship and prioritizations, conducted a technology bake-off, incubated solution, completed IT development, and brought the MVP to market in 15 months.

While it seems obvious now, it was a tough sell at the time because of radical change for the service providers.

Specific Project Challenges:
• Integrated (brokered) connectivity from other cablecos and internet providers vs. requiring all locations to be connected to the service provider’s network;
• Required new operational models that used AI methods to manage connections from multiple providers;
• Shifted the primary view of the network from routers and fiber operations to overlay management via software controls.

I created an HW/SW/management bundle to connect locations to LTE internet the same day. Used as part of a DR/business continuity planning or as temporary connectivity as location is built out. The bundle included an unlimited data plan at the highest speed available at the location (could also support dual connectivity from multiple providers).

Project Requirements:
• Negotiated wireless access deals.
• Sourced network cards/dongles.
• Developed the IT system ordering, billing, and usage tracking.
• Designed the engineering architecture as if integrated as DR/BC.
• Developed replacement/recovery processes.
• Created marketing program/content.
• Messaged analysts.

Tasks:
• Investigated and created position papers.
• Provided legal/regulatory teams with subject matter expertise.
• Participated in negotiations that successfully resolved disputes with other telcos involving FCC and non-FCC interpretations of traffic/intercarrier compensation designations.