Ericsson Core Commerce by Appledore Research

Further compounding this challenging landscape, Gen-AI and Agentic AI have emerged as potential game-changers, promising to fundamentally transform telco operations through unprecedented improvements in operational efficiency, cost reduction, revenue generation, and customer experience. Commerce and care transformation serve as the gateway to agentic AI for CSPs, establishing the cloud-native infrastructure, unified data models, and intelligent automation layers that autonomous agents require to operate. To enable agentic AI across the OSS/BSS stack that can autonomously manage customer journeys, optimize service delivery, and resolve issues, CSPs must first modernize their core systems to create an interoperable, real-time environment.

Commerce and care solutions are critical enablers for CSPs to monetize advanced enterprise services like differentiated connectivity, which demand sophisticated product catalogs, flexible pricing models, and SLA-backed service assurance beyond standard consumer systems. This capability is especially crucial as IT-network convergence and maturing AI/automation technologies finally make it possible to bridge the long-standing gap between technical capability and business outcomes. The key is shifting focus to the intelligence layer—modern, cloud-native, AI-driven platforms that activate data, enable real-time multi-domain orchestration, and deliver differentiated customer experiences.

Legacy systems and processes represent a significant obstacle for CSPs as they work to upgrade their commerce capabilities. The incumbent multi-vendor legacy systems exist as disparate silos with proprietary interfaces, resulting in high costs, poor customer experience, and missed selling opportunities. Additionally, limitations in the catalog hinder CSPs' ability to efficiently create, manage, and sell products and services, leading to limited partner engagement, huge IT overheads, and delayed sales cycles. Furthermore, inadequate digital automated systems prevent customers from effectively managing their accounts, services, and issues without direct interaction with agents, which contributes to poor customer experience, high support costs, and lower digital sales penetration.

CSPs planning to upgrade their commerce and care systems should carefully consider three key factors:

Ericsson Core Commerce portfolio consists of three primary components (figure 2):

The Core Commerce portfolio can be pre-integrated with Ericsson's Digital Monetization Platform (DMP), which delivers end-to-end monetisation through product catalog-enabled, convergent charging and billing. Built to handle complex enterprise and partner use cases at scale, DMP enables advanced offerings such as differentiated connectivity and mission-critical networks while leveraging AI-driven automation to accelerate deployments and optimize operational efficiency.

Ericsson Core Commerce features a modular and open architecture designed to address rapid innovation cycles. This architectural approach establishes a robust single source of truth while enabling decoupled systems that facilitate faster migration and adoption of cloud-native solutions with shortened innovation cycles. The modular framework supports CSPs in rapidly adjusting customer experiences and experimenting with new monetization models, providing the agility required in evolving market conditions.

A cornerstone of Ericsson's Core Commerce value proposition is its catalog-driven architecture framework. The solution provides a feature-rich, telco-grade commercial product and service catalog that enables centralized product definitions with a "model once, reuse everywhere" approach across quoting, channels, fulfillment, and monetization throughout the quote-to-cash journey.

This architecture delivers several key benefits: zero-code offer launches that produce production ready offerings; marketing autonomy that reduces dependencies on technical teams, expediting time to market for new products/services, accelerated monetization cycles, and improved consistency that minimizes errors across sales and delivery processes.

Ericsson adopts a CRM-agnostic approach, avoiding the constraints of mandatory CRM platforms that can limit best-of-breed solution selection, create vendor lock-in, and increase total cost of ownership through extensive customization requirements. The company positions this flexibility as a distinct competitive advantage, offering CSPs freedom in CRM selection while providing telco specific core commerce capabilities that deliver enhanced agility in B2B customer experiences.

Ericsson has implemented an AI-powered commerce approach featuring no-code configuration, automated approvals, and network-aligned orchestration. Key capabilities include accelerated time to-sell through AI-driven intent translation into accurate offering configurations, enhanced quote precision via catalog-embedded SLAs and pricing rules, zero-touch orchestration with automated fulfillment requests to BSS/OSS systems, and seamless alignment with service orchestration that eliminates manual handoffs.

The Core Commerce portfolio includes pre-built AI applications designed to minimize revenue leakage, enhance marketing effectiveness, and reduce customer churn. These applications address critical use cases including churn prediction, next-best-offer, similar interest recommendations, guided selling, customer segmentation, order fallout detection and prediction, product configuration and smart pricing.

Dutch telecommunication provider Odido embarked on a consolidation initiative in 2018 after identifying critical redundancies across their OSS. The telco was running multiple systems performing identical functions, creating a fragmented landscape inherited through years of acquisitions—from Tele2 to T-Mobile Netherlands, eventually becoming Odido.

Odido's technical assessment determined that its OSS architecture required transformation to ensure future readiness. The transformation consolidates service order management into a single layer spanning Odido and its subsidiary brands—Ben, Tele2 Thuis, and Simpel—across all customer segments (consumer, enterprise, and B2B2X) in both fixed and mobile businesses.

While cost efficiency was not the primary driver, it remained an important consideration for securing long-term stakeholder support. The project scope focused on consolidating the SOM layer along with the inventory system, with the COM layer excluded from this initial phase.

Odido initiated a comprehensive vendor selection process in 2018, issuing an RFP that resulted in three shortlisted providers including Ericsson. The finalists participated in a hackathon challenge requiring them to build working solutions for real-world use cases. According to Odido, Ericsson was the only vendor capable of delivering a functioning prototype within the compressed timeframe, ultimately securing the SOM transformation project. The initial contract was signed in 2018, and Ericsson has since become deeply embedded in Odido's organization, more than doubling the team size since the start of the program.

Despite significant challenges including corporate acquisitions and the COVID-19 pandemic, the project is on track relating to its major milestones.

Odido has already realized tangible benefits: a single entry point to the network through SOM has simplified integration for IT teams and partners, reducing both time and costs. More importantly, execution speed has dramatically improved development teams that previously waited for systems to catch up can now deliver services faster, significantly improving time to market. For instance, Odido was able to launch its 5G FWA in under six months, and even then the initial sales projections were for selling 6,000 fixed wireless routers in a quarter. The company ended up moving that volume within the first week, demonstrating both rapid time-to-market and significant underestimation of market demand.

The implementation of TM Forum APIs—compliance with which was a key selection criterion—has established clear process demarcation between commerce and order management layers, while the Ericsson SOM stack continues to expand its service coverage across Odido's operations.

Appledore Research interviewed Odido to develop this case study. Overall, Odido is very satisfied with the project's progress to date and anticipates additional benefits as implementation advances.

The telecom industry faces an unprecedented inflection point. CSPs are navigating a perfect storm of challenges: eroding margins, continued infrastructure investment demands, macroeconomic volatility, and the promise and peril of artificial intelligence. These pressures intensify as CSPs pursue dual transformation agendas internally modernizing their technology stacks while externally reimagining business models, revenue streams, and ecosystem partnerships to remain competitive in an evolving digital landscape.

Ericsson's reputation as a premier telecom network provider is well established with over 85% of the company’s $26 billion annual revenue (FY24) coming from telecom. However, while networks remain the company's primary revenue engine and public-facing identity, Ericsson has steadily built substantial capabilities in its BSS/OSS software portfolio. This evolution stems from sustained R&D investments and a unique vantage point: direct engagement with CSPs across all tiers globally, providing invaluable insights into operational challenges and technology requirements that have shaped its software solutions.