KPN: Establishing the Baseline for AN Transformation
KPN set out to build a foundation for its 2030 ambition to become Europe’s most efficient telco.
No automation investment is worth making without first knowing exactly where operations stand today. A joint program with Makman produced that baseline using two independent, TM Forum-aligned assessment methods at once, a first for this kind of combined evaluation.
Why telecoms need an honest baseline before they automate
As telecom operators adopt AI, the temptation is to move straight to the technology. Automation layered on an unclear operational picture tends to compound existing gaps rather than close them. Autonomous networks, the ability of a network to monitor itself, make decisions, and act without manual intervention, only deliver value when built on an accurate understanding of where an organization actually stands.
TM Forum’s frameworks bring that rigor to the assessment process, giving operators like KPN a standardized way to measure maturity that can be compared, defended, and acted on. Makman worked with KPN to apply this standard in a way that hadn’t been done before, combining two distinct, complementary assessments under TM Forum IG1403 rather than relying on a single lens.
Two lenses, one standard: AOMM and ANLET
AOMM measures an organization’s overall readiness to adopt and scale autonomous operations across value streams. It reads the business: people, process, governance, and how ready the organization is to operate autonomously at scale.
On the other hand, ANLET provides a sharper lens on network-specific autonomous capabilities and Autonomous Network Level (ANL) progression. It scores the network itself: what the infrastructure can actually do today, and how close it is to each level of autonomy.
For this engagement, Makman didn’t run the full AOMM assessment. Once the ANLET scope was set to fixed access network and home broadband, the team selected only the counterpart sub-dimensions from AOMM, four sub-dimensions within the Operations Dimension, that matched ANLET’s scope. Within that scope, AOMM reads the business at a high level (i.e., what management and customers see). ANLET, by contrast, scores the network itself at a low, technical level (i.e., what the infrastructure can actually do). Comparing the two within the same scope area is indicative rather than a like-for-like comparison, showing where management’s view of readiness aligns with, or diverges from, the technical reality on the ground.
Makman is among the few consultancies applying ANLET in live client engagements. As an industry-approved tool co-developed by TM Forum members, it carries a level of credibility a proprietary or internally built scoring method cannot match, an important distinction in a market where many assessments rely on a single, self-developed model.
Used together, AOMM and ANLET gave KPN two independently derived scores, one organizational and one technical, confirming each other.
A four-stage path to clarity: Makman’s 4D Assessment Methodology
Makman’s 4D methodology structured the engagement across four stages, moving the assessment from raw input to an executive-ready roadmap:
- Discovery: Aligning with key stakeholders across KPN, collecting data, gathering evidence (if needed for validation assessments like TM Forum’s ANLAV), and analyzing context to define the scope and approach.
- Definition: Finalizing the assessment structure, scheduling interactive workshops, and clarifying roles and responsibilities for a seamless delivery.
- Delivery: Running expert-led workshops to assess KPN’s autonomous operations and network autonomy levels against TM Forum’s standards and closed-loop stages, applying AOMM and ANLET in parallel.
- Demonstration: Consolidating findings into a comprehensive report and executive presentation covering the current state, target state, gap analysis, roadmap, and recommendations, giving KPN’s leadership a shared basis for committing to next steps.
Converging results for home broadband assurance
The assessment focused on KPN’s home broadband assurance operations. Reading the same operations through two complementary, TM Forum-aligned lenses meant the result rested on independent confirmation rather than a single team’s judgment. When AOMM and ANLET converged within a fraction of a level of each other, that convergence turned the baseline into a defensible, board-level fact.
As Menno Groen, Strategist Autonomous Operations at KPN, explains:
“KPN aims to be Europe’s most efficient telco by 2030. Before we invest in AIOps, digital twins or intent engines, we needed an honest baseline of our home broadband assurance operations. Makman delivered the first assessment to combine AOMM and ANLET under TM Forum IG1403. AOMM read our operations from the outside in, and ANLET scored the network from the inside out. The two readings landed within a fraction of a level of each other, which gave our leadership confidence in the result. We now have a roadmap with a foundational phase, a Level 3 co-pilot phase and a Level 4 auto-pilot horizon, each tied to capabilities we can fund and measure.”
The roadmap gives KPN a structure it can act on immediately: a foundational phase to close the gaps the assessment surfaced, a Level 3 co-pilot phase where automation assists but doesn’t yet replace human decision-making, and a Level 4 auto-pilot horizon representing full autonomy in home broadband assurance. Each phase ties to specific capabilities KPN can fund, build, and measure.
Every transformation to autonomous network operations starts with an honest baseline. Ready to chart that path for your own network? Learn more about Makman’s AOMM and ANLET autonomy assessments for CSPs at makman.co/solutions/strategy/autonomy-assessments-aomm-anlet-csps.