As network operators, particularly in the mobile industry, increasingly outsource management of their networks to major vendor partners, we're beginning to see interesting shifts in the telecom workforce--not only regarding whom people work for, but also how they are allocated by their new organizations to serve various missions.

Outsourcing network management isn't a new trend. When Germany's E-Plus Mobilfunk said this week that Alcatel-Lucent is taking over responsibility for several of its network divisions, it was only the latest such announcement connected to an ongoing trend.

The fact that about 750 E-Plus employees will leave their employment at E-Plus and now work for Alcatel-Lucent isn't atypical of these deals, either. The vendors in these arrangements are selling management capability and trust more than their own people, so it makes sense that they adopt the people most familiar with the network for which they're accepting responsibility.

But, there could be some of the long-term implications of this trend, and we should watch carefully for their development:

1. Telecom, like so many other industries, is becoming so focused on singular opportunities that we could see a workforce economy based on specialists. Vendors increasingly will hire carrier staffs to manage the networks in their charge, and these employees, unlike a previous generation of vendor folks, seem suited for one particular mission. It remains to be seen how or if they can be recycled and redirected based on need within the overall vendor organization. Though service organizations inside big vendors are often separate from their hardware groups, this would seem to radically change the how vendors manage their own human resources.

2. What about the future of the carrier organization? They are outsourcing network management to improve their customer focus, so maybe they don't mind losing some of their network knowledge base. But network technology will continue to progress, upgrade directions and timing will need to be chosen, and technology choices will need to be made. Will that be the responsibility of a much smaller core group within the carrier, spending a lot of time communicating with the network specialists who now work for the outsource vendor? Could important future network decisions be heavily influenced by an outsource vendor managing a network that may not even contain its own equipment?

3. This has been pointed out by many analysts already, but as revenue related to managed network services becomes a bigger piece of the overall pie for vendors, their traditional profit margins stand to shrink. How prepared are vendors to respond to that likelihood?

These aren't necessarily negative or positive assumptions, just a few things we should think about before the managed network trend leads us to a place where we weren't expecting to go.

E-mail me at doshea@telephonyonline.com. Also, please note that my secondary e-mail address, doshea@prismb2b.com, has changed to dan.oshea@penton.com.

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