VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2012 Edition

UNIFIED BSSHow can all the

systems providea single view?

OPERATORINTERVIEW

Telus’ CustomersFirst Culture leader

shares experience

THE J.O.K.E.is on us when

it comes tocustomer

service

UNIFIED BSSHow can all the

systems providea single view?

OPERATORINTERVIEW

Telus’ CustomersFirst Culture leader

shares experience

THE J.O.K.E.is on us when

it comes tocustomer

service

TALKING HEADSAccanto chief executive saysCSPs are rising to customerservice assurance challenge

TALKING HEADSAccanto chief executive saysCSPs are rising to customerservice assurance challenge

D R I V I N G P R O F I T S F O R C O M M U N I C A T I O N S E R V I C E P R O V I D E R S

A P R I L / M A Y 2 0 1 2

V O L U M E 1 4 I S S U E 2

10-PAGE

CUSTOMER

EXPERIENCE

SUPPLEMENT INSIDE

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ISSN 1745-1736

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PLUS! PLUS Contracts, Products, People and Market News • Inside NetCracker's US$449m Convergys acquisition • The Contract Hot List • Diary •Read the latest BSS & OSS News online now at www.vanillaplus.com

MAKE A GIFTOUT OF A CRISISWhat can we learnfrom GiffGaff'sopen approach?

▼

Management

World 2012

CEO Guide

attached

Together, Telcordia and Ericsson can help you realize

value through unparalleled efficiency and customer

experience with the industry’s foremost capability in

operations and business support systems. Because

perfect moments begin with an outstanding experience.

ericsson.com/telcordia

A new name, a new look, a new direction.CSG and Intec are now CSG International.

www.csgi.com© 2011 CSG Interna onal, Inc.

With our recent acquisi on of Intec, CSG Interna onal is now a globally focused leader in helping clients At the core of our union is a transforma onal partnership. As a combined en ty, we now o er

our clients an unprecedented set of business support solu ons and services to help them capitalize on dynamic market changes and opportuni es. With more than 25 years of experience, and serving over 500 customers in 24 countries, CSG is even be er posi oned to help businesses accurately capture, manage, generate and op mize revenue, strengthen customer rela onships, and exploit emerging opportuni es. We are commi ed to long term partnership with our customers and believe collabora on and communica on are an integral part of helping our clients achieve success. We invite you to pro t from our experience. Visit us at: www.csgi.com

IN THIS ISSUE

5VANILLAPLUS APRIL/MAY 2012

TALKINGHEADS

13

C O N T E N T S

With solutions deployed to 180 customers in over60 countries, Accanto Systems is a leading supplierof advanced Customer Service Assurance andtroubleshooting solutions to communicationsservice providers. Accanto’s probe-based CustomerService Assurance solutions provide in-depthmonitoring, analysis and troubleshootingcapabilities, helping operators overcome themassive challenges associated with migration toconverged, next-generation telecom architectures.Accanto’s solutions can be utilised by any level ofthe organisation, from the NOC to marketing, andscale easily for use by new technicians all the wayto technical experts. www.accantosystems.com

MicheleCampriani,

CEO ofAccantoSystems

REVENUE ASSURANCE16

EXPERTOPINION:BSS FORUBIQUITOUSDELIVERY

20

EDITOR’S COMMENT 6George Malim muses on the Just OK Experience

COMPANY NEWS 7Inside NetCracker’s US$449m Convergys InformationManagement acquisition

PRODUCT NEWS 8cVidya releases enhanced bypass fraud detection module

CONTRACT NEWS 9Kapsch CarrierCom and Openet to deploy policy at TelekomAustria Group

MARKET NEWS 10Aircom buys Symena, Swisscom Ventures invests in Matrixx Software

PEOPLE NEWS 11NSN appoints Ken Wirth, Jason Bandy assesses how M&A cancreate career opportunities

THE CONTRACT HOT LIST 12VanillaPlus’s round up of the major contracts recentlyannounced worldwide

TALKING HEADS 13Michele Campriani, CEO of Accanto Systems, says CSPs arerising to the challenges of delivering high quality user experiencesin the 4G world

REVENUE ASSURANCE 16Terri Haney explores how CSPs can build business models foroptimum revenue performance

POLICY MANAGEMENT 17Dennis Landscheidt explains how policy management is amonetisation enabler

UNIFIED BSS 18CSPs are seeking a single view of their BSS but can vendorsdeliver, asks George Malim?

EXPERT OPINION: BSS FOR UBIQUITOUS DELIVERY 20Gabriel Matsliach says its time CSPs adopted a modern approachto BSS

DIARY 21Where to go and what to see

CLOCKING OFF! 25Nick Booth looks at how one MVNO is making a virtue out of a crisis

Sponsored by:

VANILLAPLUSAPRIL/MAY 20126

After all, if the OTTs are generating the lion’s share of the profits, why shouldoperators, in spite of their service excellence hyperbole, do more than the bareminimum required to extract subscriptions and charges from the user base? The idea of being good enough has a lot going for it but it is complex to computethat fine balance between being adequate and becoming a joke. With that in mind,my thoughts turn to TalkTalk, the UK broadband provider started in 2002 by deviceretailer Carphone Warehouse. TalkTalk came to market with a range of attractivepropositions for consumer users and it’s probably fair to say it attracted moreusers than it expected. As a consequence it has never really caught up on thecustomer service front.

Chief executive, Dido Harding, a former Tesco executive who knows a thing or twoabout customer facing retail environments, has had a year or so to try andimprove things and, in her view, results are coming through. According to UKregulator Ofcom’s most recent figures (for the three months ended December2011), TalkTalk is still the most complained about broadband provider but theregulator has seen less than half the number of complaints about its broadbandservice than in the same period in 2010.

“We're pleased that Ofcom saw less thanhalf as many complaints about ourbroadband service than this time lastyear,” said a company statement.“There is more work to do but weare confident that the measureswe've put in place are payingdividends.”

They certainly are – if you’re aTalkTalk shareholder. Dividend lastyear was 5.6p a share which goessome way to proving my point thatquality is a subjective measure andwhat’s good for a customer isn’tnecessarily good for a shareholder.Enjoy the magazine

George Malim

Just as the original Jeep off road vehicle was said bytroops to be an acronym of Just Enough EssentialParts, and concepts of just-in-time – or JIT –manufacturing have revolutionised the cost base offactory operations, I’m wondering if telecomsoperators are having a JOKE. That’s a new acronymfor Just OK Experience.

C O M M E N T

John Aalbers,chief executive,Volubill

Martin Creaner, president,TM Forum

AndreasFreund, VPMarketing, OrgaSystems GmbH

Louis Hall, chief executive,CerillionTechnologies

Gaby Matsliach,general manager,BSS Product Line,Comverse

Pat McCarthy, VPof GlobalMarketing, ServiceDelivery Solutions,Telcordia

Simon Muderack,COO, Tribold

John Rainger,vice president,EMEA, CSGInternational

Mac Taylor, CEO,The MorianaGroup

Chris Yeadon,director of ProductMarketing, Ericsson

Dr Reinhard Zuba,CMO, Vipnet(Telekom Austria)

EDITORGeorge MalimTel: +44 (0) 0208 292 [email protected]

DIGITAL EDITORNathalie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESSDEVELOPMENTDIRECTORCherisse DraperTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Mark BridgesTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

OPERATIONS DIRECTORCharlie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

PUBLISHERJeremy CowanTel: +44 (0) 1420 [email protected]

DISTRIBUTIONUK Postings LtdTel: +44 (0) 8456 444137

CIRCULATIONCircdata Tel: +44 (0) 1635 869868

PUBLISHED BYPrestige Media Ltd.Suite 28,30 Churchill SquareKings Hill, West MallingKent ME19 4YU, UKTel: +44 (0) 1732 897645

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VanillaPlus is distributed free to selected named individualsworldwide who meet the Publisher's terms of Circulation Control. Ifyou would like to apply for a regular free copy supplied at thePublisher's discretion visit www.vanillaplus.com If you do notqualify for a free subscription, paid subscriptions can be obtained.Subscriptions for 6 issues cost £99.00 worldwide (or US$150 /EUR125) including post and packing. VanillaPlus magazine ispublished 6 times per year.

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© Prestige Media Ltd 2012

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Dan Baker, ResearchDirector, TechnologyResearch Institute

George Malim,Editor:VanillaPlus

The JOKE’s on us whenit comes to CEM

Amdocs says 40% of callscould be deflected online Research commissioned by Amdocs, hasuncovered an opportunity for CSPs toreduce call centre costs and to improvecustomer experience by creating a morecomplete, consistent and accessible self-service capability, while using customerinsight to proactively prevent andeliminate calls.

The survey, conducted by analyst firm,Coleman Parkes, found that 75% ofsurveyed consumers said they wouldprefer to use online support if it werereliable, but only 37% currently even try touse self-service options, which are oftenperceived as inaccurate or incomplete.91% say they would use a single, onlineknowledge base if it were available andtailored to their needs. The lack ofsatisfactory online support is driving largenumbers of consumers to call centres,wasting valuable resources. More than40% of customers contact a call centreafter they cannot find answers to theirquestion via self-service and up to 50% of“How do I …?” calls could be deflected toself-care channels.

Mobile industry lostUS$58bn in 2011through poor FM and RAA new report from Juniper Research findsthat the mobile telecoms industry lostmore than $58 billion last year – over 6%of global revenues – due to inadequate FM(Fraud Management) and RA (RevenueAssurance) processes. The report suggeststhat under a ‘nightmare scenario’ wherebyoperators fail to implement any remedialmeasures over the next five years, thescale of losses could rise five-fold by 2016.

The report, ‘Mobile Revenue Assurance &Fraud Management: Business Strategies &Forecasts 2012-2016,’ finds that, asoperators have been obliged to integratean ever-expanding array of devices and tosimultaneously manage a surge in cellularnetwork traffic, billing systems have failedto keep pace. As a result, they areincreasingly unable to accurately orefficiently capture the large volume oftransactions that occur on the network.The complexity has magnified the scale ofrevenue loss, resulting in bad debts and agreater opportunity for fraud.

C O M P A N Y N E W S

The news that NECCorporation is to buyConvergys’ InformationManagement businessand integrate it into itsNetCracker business issymptomatic of a needin the market for smalland mid-sized telecomssoftware vendors tobecome larger and bringintegrated solutions thataddress more, if not all,

of the OSS/BSS stack, together.

That’s the main reason for theacquisition, Sanjay Mewada, vicepresident of strategy at NetCracker, toldVanillaPlus. “Absolutely, the end-to-endaspect is increasingly important. If youtake fulfillment as a domain, there was atime when CSPs bought best of breedsolutions for order management,inventory management, workflow andall the other functions and had an armyof systems integrators to integrate it alland thread it together. It’s increasinglynot possible to do that not because thereis limited money and fewer peopleavailable but because vendor solutionshave got to a point where their end-to-end offerings are very, very good.”

“Who’s going to buy solutions a slice ata time when they can buy end-to-endfulfillment as a footprint?” askedMewada. “The trend continues toaccelerate in tier two and tier three CSPsand we certainly see end-to-endOSS/BSS platforms being in greatdemand. That end-to-end capability iscertainly a driver for the deal and we willhave a very powerful and importantpresence in the BSS market followingits’ completion.”

Part of the rationale behind NEC’sacquisition of NetCracker in 2008 wasthat the Japanese vendor has its ownrange of BSS products that had achievedsales in Japan and Asia. Were thereintegration issues? No, said Mewada:“The Convergys deal gives us over 150customers straight off the bat. It allowsus to make a sustained and strong playin the OSS/BSS as a standalone entity. Itenables us to leapfrog the company’sdevelopment – gaining 150 customerswould take a while.”

The existing NetCracker business isabout half the size of Convergys’

Information Management business.Mewada sees combining the two ascritical in bringing the company up to ascale where it can compete with thelargest providers. Will NetCracker startto resemble a big specialist vendor suchas Amdocs? “Ultimately, it will go thatway but with one critical difference,”said Mewada. “We started out as asoftware products company and that’sour pedigree. Convergys is also veryproduct centric so we will not buildcustom solutions on a customer-by-customer basis. The NetCracker productused by one customer is the same asthat used by another. We’ll continue toemphasise productised value and theCOTS approach. That will be thefundamental differentiator.”

Even if the transaction isn’t quite aminnow-swallows-whale story – in fact,it’s more of a cod swallows tuna story –there will still be a substantial andcomplex integration to go through.“Integration’s always an important partof an acquisition and for us it is certainlyimportant and critical but it’s not goingto be as big a challenge as generallyperceived for a couple of reasons,”added Mewada. “We’re as global asConvergys is and NetCracker is part ofNEC. NEC’s a US$40bn company and wehave its help and support. There’s alsothe nature of the business to consider.We haven’t gone out and bought anequipment vendor, for example. The lineof business isn’t fundamentally differentso there isn’t a huge shift in culture toadapt to.”

Finally, the Convergys IM business cantrace its roots back to GenevaTechnologies, the UK-based businessacquired by Convergys in 2001 forUS$700m. In that light, has NetCrackerbought a bargain? “You have tocompare apples to apples when youlook at valuations,” said Mewada. “Itcan be misleading to look at absolutenumbers. For instance a $20 stocktransaction versus a $10 cash deal couldsee the $10 cash make more sense to avendor or vice versa. There were 80 to100 companies active in OSS in 2000, 80or 90% of those are gone but Genevacontinues to solve meaningful problemsfor CSP users so the message is thatcompanies come and go but themeasure of success is whether thetechnology they created disappeared aswell. Geneva’s technology is still here.”

Sponsored by:

VANILLAPLUSAPRIL/MAY 2012 7

SanjayMewada:Who’s going tobuy solutions aslice at a time?

News Analysis: Inside NetCracker’s US$449mConvergys deal to enlarge end-to-end offering

N E W S U P D AT E

N E W S U P D AT E

P R O D U C T N E W S

cVidya Networks haslaunched a new enhancedbypass fraud modulewhich integrates into itsFraudView FraudManagement solution.With the new module,CSPs are able to detectboth under-the-radarmethods and thoseexploiting SIM boxes, tomake as many calls aspossible in a short period,

with advanced alert and aggregationmethods. As the complexity of bypassfraud schemes continue to develop, it iscrucial for CSPs to detect these fraudstersefficiently and effectively.

Bypass fraud has become the number onefraud type in developing countries asfraudsters continue to find new ways todisguise their operations by using prepaid

SIMs, making only a few calls and limitingcall times. In order to help CSPs preventlosses from these new techniques, cVidyahas made many improvements forinstantly detecting bypass fraud. Real-timedetection, within one hour, enables mostbypass scenarios to be proactivelyblocked, and a new set of bypasspredictors, based on summarized data,was also added.

“Bypass fraud losses are almost US$3billion annually according to a recentCFCA survey,” said Alon Aginsky,president and CEO of cVidya Networks.“With cVidya’s expertise in fraudmanagement, the enhanced module forFraudView will have much morecomprehensive bypass fraud detection,barring fast and furious scammersinstantly and even catching offenders thatmake bypass calls over a long period oftime.”

cVidya releases enhanced bypass fraudmodule for high usage fraud detection

Alon Aginsky:Almost US$3bnlost each year

NSN provides trial CEMsoftware and services forGuangdong MCC Guangdong MCC, China Mobile’s largestsubsidiary, has signed a cooperationagreement with Nokia Siemens Networks(NSN) for the company’s customerexperience management (CEM) softwareand services. The cooperation, set to last formore than six months, will provideGuangdong MCC with a unified view of itscustomer data, along with continuousreporting of usage trends to help it improvecustomer experience.

“Operators are faced with a number ofchallenges, including high dataconsumption and increasing pressure onrevenue,” said Markus Borchert, presidentat Nokia Siemens Networks Greater China.“Our customer experience managementexpertise will help Guangdong MCCenhance its service experience byhighlighting where focused capacityupgrades may be needed and automaticallycorrecting device settings without peopleneeding to report problems via customercare. It can also assist the operator’smarketing teams by providing new insightson subscribers’ usage and preferences,enabling targeted actions to increasecustomer loyalty and drive new revenue.”

Telus turns to DigitalRouteto cut usage dataprocessing costsDigitalRoute's MediationZone producthas been deployed by Canadian CSPTelus. The CSP set out to replace itsexisting mediation platforms in order toreduce costs for processing usage dataacross the company’s multiple businesssupport systems (BSS). DigitalRoute, aprovider of mediation solutions for thecommunications industry, was selectedafter an evaluation of the availablemediation technologies on the market.

MediationZone is now in live operationat Telus, providing an integration layerbetween the mobile core network andthe BSS. The deployment is one of thefirst steps in a comprehensivereplacement programme as Telus isnow looking to further enhance its costperformance by expanding the use ofMediationZone over time to replace itsother mediation systems.

“MediationZone has reduced our totalcost of ownership for mediation, and italso provides the ability to reduce theoverall load on our business supportsystems,” said James Ritchie, vicepresident of consumer developmentand support at Telus. “With itsimplementation, we are able toefficiently meet our expandingmediation needs, the result ofcontinuous growth in mobile data.”

TeliaSonera choosesTribold EPM for B2BtransformationTeliaSonera, Europe’s fifth largesttelecoms operator, has selectedTribold's Enterprise ProductManagement (EPM) software for its B2BTransformation programme across itsunits in Finland, Denmark and Norway.

Simon Muderack, Tribold’s CEO, said:“Working with TeliaSonera we lookforward to improving a number ofsystems and key processes used todeliver services to new and existingTeliaSonera customers.”

Telekom Austria Grouphas selected KapschCarrierCom to integrateOpenet Policy Manageracross six operatingcompanies in EasternEurope. The deal was ledby Kapsch, which willserve as the systemintegrator and provideregional complimentaryservices and support for

the solution. The six network operatorsare to benefit from spam attackdetection and flexible bill shockprevention as well as theimplementation of requirements relatedto roaming regulation.

The deployment will go live this yearand support approximately 19 millionmobile subscribers, enabling them tobenefit from enriched and innovativeservices and an enhanced customerexperience.

"Kapsch and Telekom Austria Group areconnected through long-term business

relations. Through Kapsch's knowledgeand experience as our business partnerin the area of system integration, anefficient integration is guaranteed," saidJohann Pichler, CTO of Telekom AustriaGroup. "Openet has made it easy for usto offer our operators within theTelekom Austria Group flexible andsecure policy and billing solutions tosupport the smartphone revolution,while providing both new and existingcustomers with enriched and innovativeservices that will enhance theirexperience of our network service."

Thomas Schopf, Kapsch CarrierCom'sCOO, added: "Kapsch and TelekomAustria Group have been cooperatingfor several years. The knowledge wehave gained through providing regionalservices and support within ourcooperation with Telekom Austria Groupis crucial for the integration. Openet'sPolicy Manager delivers exceptionalperformance and flexibility and is anideal solution to enable a safe mobileexperience for Telekom Austria Group'soperating companies."

ThomasSchopf, COO,KapschCarrierCom

Kapsch CarrierCom to deploy Openet PolicyManager at Telekom Austria Group

M2 Telecommunications Group, theleading reseller of mobile, fixed and datatelecoms services in Australia, has gonelive with the Cerillion CRM and Billingsolution. The new system consolidatesM2’s billing activities for its PeopleTelecom branded customers andservices and provides fully automatedfulfilment and provisioning to the hostnetworks. In time, M2 will migrate all ofits retail and wholesale operations toCerillion.

Cerillion implemented the RevenueManager, CRM Plus, Service Manager,Output Streamer, Web Self-Care andInformation Manager modules from itspre-integrated product suite, andperformed migration from M2's legacysystems. The new solution fromCerillion enables M2 to introduce newproducts and offers quickly across itsmultiple brands and achieve asignificantly lower cost of operation,whilst improving revenue assurance andoverall financial control.

“Cerillion’s ability to support multiple

brands, resellers andchannels on a singleconvergent system andthe quality of theirprofessional servicesteam were both keyreasons for selectingthem from a strong fieldof contenders” saysGeoff Horth, CEO of M2Telecommunications. “Having lookedinitially at over fifty BSS vendors it wasCerillion’s track record of delivering out-of-the-box yet highly configurablesystems that made them the stand-outoption.”

Louis Hall, CEO, Cerillion Technologies,added: “M2 is an outstanding businessthat has achieved rapid growth bothorganically and through some astuteacquisitions, and we are delighted to havehelped them move to the next level ofefficiency by consolidating their back officesystems to a single convergent solution.We look forward to expanding our activitiesin Australia and helping M2 achievefurther growth and success in the future.”

M2 Telecommunications goes live with CerillionCRM and Billing for People Telecom services

N E W S U P D AT E

C O N T R A C T N E W S

Sponsored by:

VANILLAPLUSAPRIL/MAY 2012 9

Louis Hall,CEO, Cerillion

N E W S U P D AT E

TechMahindra andMahindra Satyam inUS$1.8bn mergerTech Mahindra and Satyam ComputerServices have approved a proposal tomerge Mahindra Satyam with TechMahindra along with certain wholly ownedsubsidiaries of Mahindra Satyam and TechMahindra. The logic of the merger is thatthe combined entities will benefit fromoperational synergies, economies of scale,sourcing benefits, and standardisation ofbusiness processes.

The exchange ratio recommended by thevaluers and approved by both the boardsis 2 shares of Tech Mahindra, for every 17shares of Mahindra Satyam. On a pro-forma basis, the Mahindra Group will own26.3% in the combined entity, BritishTelecom will own 12.8%, 10.4% will be heldas treasury stock, 34.4% to be held by thepublic shareholders of Mahindra Satyamand the balance of 16.1% will be held bythe public shareholders of Tech Mahindra.

Tech Mahindra will issue 103.4 million(Rs 10.34 crore) new shares, therebyincreasing its outstanding shares to 230.million (Rs 23.08 crore) and its equitycapital to Rupees 2.308 billion(Rs 230.8 crore).

Telefónica signs mobilepayments deal with BOKUTelefónica Digital has announced astrategic agreement with BOKU, anenabler of online mobile payments, toenhance its payments capabilities. Theagreement, which also sees Telefónicaparticipate as a strategic investor inBOKU’s latest funding round, comes asTelefónica gears up for the launch of itsmobile wallet services. The partnershipopens up access for BOKU to Telefónica’sglobal footprint of 25 markets and 300million customers, while providingTelefónica with access to BOKU’s expertisein secure and reliable online mobilepayments.

BOKU has developed the use of mobilenetworks as a payments mechanism,creating a network of merchants and amethod of quickly and easily paying forvirtual goods via the customer’s mobilephone bill. The company's recentlylaunched BOKU Accounts service expandsthis capability by enabling offlinepurchases in physical stores.

M A R K E T N E W S

Sponsored by:


AIRCOM International, an independentnetwork planning and optimisationsolutions provider, is to acquire Symena,a provider of optimisation andAutomatic Cell Planning (ACP) tools.AIRCOM said the deal – for anundisclosed value – will strengthen itsLTE radio capability by integratingSymena’s systems with its planning andOSS tools, enhancing its existing selforganising networks (SON) capabilities.

Founded in 2002, Symena was the firstcompany to offer a commercial ACPsolution for LTE. It has also beendeveloping specific SON solutions since2009 and has market traction withoperators, network equipment providers,systems integrators and drive test toolvendors.

As a spin-off from Vienna University ofTechnology, Symena offers 2G and 3Gnetwork capabilities as well as in-depthtechnical expertise on optimisationalgorithms. The combination ofinnovative optimisation methodologiesfrom Symena, with the scalable OSScapabilities of AIRCOM, is set to create acomprehensive SON offering for themarket.

“Our decision to acquire Symena is a

clear demonstration ofour commitment to costeffectively deliveroptimal service qualityacross multi-technologyand multi-vendornetworks,” said AlwynWelch, CEO, AIRCOM.“AIRCOM has always advocated andevangelised SON capabilities and theenhancements it will deliver, both to anoperator’s customer base and ultimatelyits bottom line. By capturing Symena’sproven technology and internationallyrecognised skillset, we can deliver evenfurther value to our respectivecustomers while offering a powerfulbusiness case to new operators andvendors.”

Thomas Neubauer, CEO, Symena,added: “We are tremendously excited bythe wealth of new opportunities thatcloser collaboration with AIRCOM willdeliver to new and existing customers.Both Symena and AIRCOM share thesame vision for SON, and theinstrumental role it will play in drivingefficient and profitable networks through2G, 3G and LTE technologies.”

Neubauer will join AIRCOM’smanagement team.

Swisscom Ventures, theventure capital arm ofSwiss former incumbentSwisscom, has investedin real-time chargingsoftware providerMatrixx Software.Swisscom Venturesinvests in innovativeareas that it sees asstrategic – with mobilebroadband solutions

being a crucial area of investment.

Matrixx Software, led by CEO DaveLabuda, is designed to deliver real-timeprocessing that provides CSPs withinstant visibility, intelligence, andcontrol of data services across theirmobile networks. Using smart-charging

technology together with mobile appsand dashboards, the solutiontransforms network traffic intoactionable information that CSPs needas smart devices go mainstream. Thesolution is built with patent-pendingtechnology that claims to provide a 100times increase in performance andefficiency.

“We’re very excited about MatrixxSoftware’s vision for mobilebroadband,” said Stefan Kuentz,investment officer with SwisscomVentures. “We only make a fewinvestments out of hundreds ofopportunities each year and thisinvestment allows Swisscom a primeposition to profit from the tremendousgrowth of mobile broadband services.”

Dave Labuda,CEO, MatrixxSoftware

Alwyn Welch,CEO, AIRCOM

AIRCOM organises self to acquireSymena for SON and LTE capabilities

Swisscom Ventures into real-time chargingwith investment role in Matrixx Software

Nokia Siemens Networks appoints Ken Wirthhead of customer operations Americas

Ken Wirth has been appointed head of CustomerOperations for North and Latin America at Nokia SiemensNetworks (NSN). In this role Wirth will be responsible forthe company’s sales throughout the Americas and will jointhe company’s Executive Board. Previously, Wirth waspresident of the End-to-End Networks business at AlcatelLucent. Wirth will report to NSN chief executive officer,Rajeev Suri.

Wirth has spent much of his career in leading roles in thetelecoms industry. He played an important part in buildingAlcatel-Lucent’s global LTE business with Verizon, AT&T,China Mobile, Telefónica and other leading operators.Before that Wirth held a range of leadership positions atAlcatel-Lucent, including heading the company’s 4G/LTEbusiness unit and serving as president of the Verizoncustomer team.

At Lucent Technologies he was president of MultimediaNetwork Solutions which consisted of the fixed access, dataand optical businesses. Before that, Wirth was president ofLucent's Optical Networking Group. He originally joinedLucent Technologies from AT&T, where he held sales,product management and financial roles.

“Ken is an ideal addition to the Nokia Siemens Networksteam at a time when we are seeing increasing marketrecognition of our technological strength and strongmomentum in our LTE sales,” said Suri. “I look forward tohim joining us during this key period of mobile broadbandevolution.”

Wirth started his career with AT&T Network Systems and hasa BA in Communications from Seton Hall University, NewJersey. He will be based in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Dave Adams joins MDSL asservice delivery manager

MDSL, a provider of international MarketData Expense Management (MDEM) andTelecom Expense Management (TEM)solutions, has expanded its UK operationswith the appointment of Dave Adams asservice delivery manager.

Adams brings experience from theinvestment banking sector, having workedat Lehman Brothers for 22 years. More recently, he spentthree years at Nomura, holding a number of senior roles intechnology including his last position as executive directorof Infrastructure Service Management.

The M&A wave continues – Vodafone andCWW, Ericsson and Telcordia, Netcrackerand Convergys' Information Managementdivision and Facebook and Instagramhave all merged or are in the process ofbeing acquired. These transactions willno doubt cause significant employeeanxiety with many of the existing stafffearful of unwanted role changes,personnel changes, relocation worries

and ultimately redundancy concerns.

Despite the best efforts of smooth talking public relationsand internal communications consultants to communicatethe joys of the opportunity, many people will be feelingunsettled. However, mergers and acquisitions are partof the everyday fabric of global business and whereverwe work the prospect of the organisation suddenlychanging hands is never too far away.

To help survive in an M&A scenario, I recommend thatyou consider the following:

1 Embrace Change – Recognise the opportunity,adapt and thrive. Set some clear objectives and rise tothe challenge.

2 Get Involved – Become part of the decision makingprocess, maintain a high profile and facilitate thechance to network.

3 Don’t Hide – Make it clear to the people that youembrace change by being as visible as possible. Makeyourself available, be busy, be positive and mostimportantly deliver your very best work during this timewhen others may be slacking.

4 Be Prepared – Complacency and unrealisticexpectations are the enemy. Look, listen and learn allabout your rights, your options and take the earliestopportunity to build a plan.

M&A is a double-edged sword it can provide anopportunity to develop your career further in thecombined company or provide the impetus to seekopportunities elsewhere. Keep a cool head and take thesituation as a chance to assess your options.

Jason Bandy, Director, identify Group [email protected]: +44 (0) 750 001 3084 Tel: +44 (0) 845 370 2900www.identifynetworks.com

Jason Bandy

DaveAdams,servicedeliverymanager,MDSL

Welcome to our regularJobs column, brought toyou by Identify Networks,Sponsors of People News

P E O P L E N E W S

VANILLAPLUS APRIL/MAY 2012 11

C O N T R A C T H O T L I S T

VanillaPlus Hot List: April/May 2012

Acision MTS, Russia Acision Message Plus system, also called SMS Pro, to enable MTS to control and personalise message content 3.2012

Acision Vodafone Portugal Upgrade of Acision messaging infrastructure with Acision Flexible Gateway and Acision Message Controller 2.2012

Aito Zain Kuwait Customer Experience Analytics (CEA) system with key performance indicators 2.2012

Amdocs TIM, Brazil Amdocs' full Customer Experience Systems (CES) portfolio plus consulting, integration and implementation services 2.2012

Astellia Nextel, Brazil & Mexico End-to-end monitoring solutions for optimisation of mobile network QoS 3.2012

Cerillion Technologies M2, Australia CRM and billing solution to consolidate M2's billing activities for People Telecombranded customers and services 3.2012

Comarch Networks!, Poland Fault management system for Orange and T-Mobile's Networks! Infrastructure sharing joint venture 2.2012

Comarch BICS, Belgium & international Network inventory and next generation service assurance products to improve service assurance and delivery 2.2012

Comptel Wataniya Telecom, Kuwait Comptel Dynamic SIM Management system to enable self-activation of subscribers 2.2012

Convergys UNE Columbia Managed services for real-time, convergent, 4G services platform 2.2012

Entone Sunrise, Switzerland Set top boxes for nationwide IPTV deployment 2.2012

Evolving Systems MTS, Russia Dynamic SIM Allocation system for single universal SIM provision 2.2012

i-conX Solutions Canar, Sudan Additional modules for managed QoS for I-conX Routing Optimisation Core 2.2012

Jinny Software Batelco, Bahrain MMSC, WAP gateway, value added services upgrades and USSD gateway 2.2012

Jinny Software Cable & WirelessCommunications, Guernsey New SMSC to handle wholesale and domestic SMS traffic 2.2012

Netadmin Systems CAIW, Holland Implementation of an open access management platform for expanded fibre network 3.2012

NetCracker Claro, Brazil NetCracker Telecom Operations & Management solution to streamline operations and improve end-to-end visibility 2.2012

NetCracker Axia NetMedia, six countries End-to-end charge generation, customer management and OSS systems 2.2012

Newcon Orange Austria Migration of batch and real-time billing and mediation process as part of architecture modernisation 3.2012

Nokia SiemensNetworks Telkomsel, Indonesia CEM onDemand portal and Serve atOnce Intelligence customer and business analysis suite 2.2012

Nokia SiemensNetworks Starhub, Singapore LTE mobile broadband infrastructure plus CEM, PCRF and subscriber data management systems 4.2012

Nokia SiemensNetworks Gunagdong MCC, China CEM software and services for six month trial plus Serve atOnce customer and business analytics suite 4.2012

Openet & Kapsch

CarrierCom Telekom Austria Group Openet Policy Manager deployment integrated by Kapsch CarrierCom in six eastern European group properties 4.2012

Sandvine ClearSky Technologies,Americas Network policy control systems 2.2012

Sandvine Nex-Tech Wireless, USA Network policy control systems 2.2012

SAS Analytics Bintel, Africa SAS Analytics to improve efficiencies of marketing campaigns 2.2012

SAS Analytics Reliance Communications, India SAS Customer Intelligence to optimise campaign management and nurture customers 2.2012

Subex Avea, Turkey Revenue Operations Centre (ROC) Revenue Assurance system for investigation, diagnosis and recovery of revenues 3.2012

Subex IDEA Cellular, India Revenue Operations Centre (ROC) Fraud Management system through managed services for IDEA's postpaid

and roaming businesses 3.2012

Subex ZON Multimedia, Portugal Revenue Operations Centre (ROC) Revenue Assurance solution to support Portuguese pay TV company's1.6 million subscribers 4.2012

Syniverse Vivo, Brazil Syniverse RoamMonitor for usage alerts to reduce bill shock 1.2012

Telenity Turkcell, Turkey Canvas Converged Services Platform components for Turkcell's Telco 2.0 service provider gateway 2.2012

Telsis Telefónica, Germany Telsis Ocean 2280 application server to control existing VAS portfolioand enable in-house engineersto develop new apps 3.2012

Telsis Cyta, Cyprus Deal to boost performance, efficiency and flexibility of SMS network at Vodafone partner operator 4.2012

Tribold TeliaSonera, Finland, Enterprise Product Management (EPM) software for B2B transformation programme across Finland,Denmark and Norway Denmark and Norway 4.2012

The Hot List below shows the companies informing us of recent contract wins or product deployments. If your contract is not listed here email the details to us now marked "Hot List" <[email protected]>

Vendor(s) Client, Country Product / Service (Duration & Value) Awarded

Key: SMSC = Smart Message Service CentreMMSC = Multimedia Messaging Service Centre

USSD = Unstructured Supplementary Service DataPCRF = Policy and Charging Rules Function

Sponsored by:


HP has announced a mobility platform for communicationsservice providers (CSPs) that is set to enable them to helpenterprise customers increase productivity by supportingemployee use of smartphones and tablets. HP’s EnterpriseMobility platform will support enterprises in providinginternal mobile applications to employees so they can accesscompany data quickly, easily and securely on their personalmobile devices.

The core components of the HP Enterprise Mobility platformare a mobile app store and a mobile gateway. The gateway,called HP Enterprise Mobility Gateway will enable CSPs tohelp enterprise employees access the right enterprise data at

the right time by connecting mobile applications with anenterprise’s back-end systems. Available on the customerpremises and as a service from the CSP, the gateway enablesdevelopers to create data-rich apps that run effectively evenwhen bandwidth is limited.

“Service providers are at a point where they need anenterprise service delivery platform, not just a telco servicedelivery platform,” said Glen Ragoonanan, lead analyst,Infrastructure Solutions and SDP Strategies, AnalysysMason. “It makes sense to work with a partner like HPthat has both telco and IT heritage and can bring the twoworlds together.”

HP to offer enterprise mobility platform for CSPs


T A L K I N G H E A D S

Sophisticated usage and qualitydata enables CSPs to monetisenetwork investments creatively

VanillaPlus: Accanto has provided CustomerService Assurance (CSA) systems for severalyears. What is CSA, and how does it help CSPsaddress their current challenges?

Michele Campriani: One of the greatestchallenges for CSPs in this new world of high-bandwidth, multimedia mobile applications,especially if they are in the midst of migrating toLTE, is in creating an end-to-end visibility of thenetwork and services, and presenting thisinformation in a customer-centric view. This iscritical as the old rule of ‘the network isperforming well, so the customer must beexperiencing good service’ is no longer true.

Accanto’s intelligent Customer ServiceAssurance (iCSA) platform provides just this typeof capability. Overall, iCSA allows the operator to

extract valuable information from the traffic tomap the actual customer activity to service usageand quality information profiled by customertype, service, device and so on.

Accanto was built around the CSA concept fromday one. We were one of the first to understandwhere the market was going and anticipatecustomer needs. As a consequence of that, in2011 we experienced an incredible growth in ourbusiness as the market understands and isembracing our concept.

VP: The use of monitoring systems has evolvedgreatly over the past few years, moving fromtheir classical role in operations, to utilising therich data they provide for other revenuegeneration opportunities. What examples of thisevolution have you seen?

Michele Campriani is CEO of Accanto Systems, the specialist provider of CustomerService Assurance solutions to CSPs. With more than 15 years of experience in theservice provider market, he was previously general manager of the Protocol ProductGroup at Sunrise Telecom and before that responsible for OSS business at Hewlett-Packard. Here, he tells VanillaPlus how CSPs are rising to the challenge of deliveringhigh quality user experiences in the 4G world and, critically, using CSA to monetisetheir customer data, tap into new revenue streams and compete more effectively withthe Over-The-Top providers.

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One of the greatest

challenges for CSPs

in this new world of

high-bandwidth,

multimedia mobile

applications is in

creating end-to-end

visibility


VANILLAPLUS APRIL/MAY 201214

MC: CSA is indeed expanding out of itstraditional boundaries, finding its way into thelarger operator ecosystem, whether as acomplete service assurance solution, or as afeeder of valuable data into other systems. In thissense, Accanto’s newly launched Accanto iDplatform when used as a middleware source, canfeed customer behaviour, location andexperience information to fraud management,billing verification, business intelligence andother value-added applications. On top of that, itsgeneral flexibility enables development ofcreative revenue generating services.

For example, INRIX, in partnership withTelefónica O2 and Accanto, wanted to delivereffective automotive road congestion avoidancesolutions, which at the time were slow andinaccurate. A possible solution, they realised,could be introduced by making use of inputsfrom the millions of mobile devices already onGerman roads. The resulting system, which wasfeatured in selected BMW models fromSeptember 2011 on, provided, thanks to AccantoiCSA, a time from ‘road event to presentation’ ofless than 60 seconds – a vast improvement overthe existing market solutions. The system usesTelefónica’s existing mobile network and theindividual users’ mobile devices as mobileprobes to detect traffic jams or other incidents.Accanto’s CSA platform provides ultra-fast datacollection and correlation capabilities. It gathersreal-time location information of the subscriber,fully anonymised it to protect subscriber privacyand feed it into mediation and traffic informationportions of the system.

This is a great example of how service assuranceis transforming from a ‘necessary evil’ into a keybusiness enabler that is helping operatorsdifferentiate and create new revenue streams. Inparticular, CSA allows the operator to reuse andmaximize value from their investment in probinginfrastructure by getting enriched and valuabledata that enables improved applications to bedelivered. In addition, they can monetise thevalue of the data collected by ‘selling’ this data toother value added applications such as the INRIXexample. That means they can improve the valueof existing applications by obtaining richer andmore accurate data sources.

VP: How does CSA allow CSPs to be more

competitive as they face the threat of the newgeneration of over-the-top (OTT) operators?

MC: A well-implemented CSA solution can be akey competitive differentiator against OTTservice providers who do not own their ownnetworks. The network and especially the end-to-end visibility of the service traffic is the greatestasset for any service provider. By havingsophisticated usage and quality data, the CSPsare in a much better position to understand howtheir customers are interacting with services, andhow they are being affected by them (positivelyor negatively). It allows them to become creativein monetising their network investments byutilising the customer information they currentlypossess to deliver innovative new services.Taking advantage of in depth network data issomething that OTT providers simply cannot do.

VP: When we interviewed you in October 2010,you indicated that operators must migrate frombeing simple connectivity providers, tobecoming service providers that can deliver dataservices and web applications. To what extenthas this migration taken effect and what role hasCustomer Service Assurance had in thatevolution?

MC: Evolution of mobile data applications hascreated strong consumer demands, and hasmore or less forced operators to take a muchmore proactive stance on network monitoring.The problem is that monitoring this new class ofapplication, increasingly over 4G networks, hasput the current generation of monitoring andtroubleshooting tools on the back foot. One ofthe major problems is that there is simply toomuch information to make sense of and theclassic network monitoring approaches arestruggling to deliver real business value. Theyare unable to analyse the volume of datacollected sufficiently quickly to delivermeaningful business insight.

To help meet these needs, last year Accantocame to market with an adaptive approach toCustomer Service Assurance. That allows theoperator to arbitrarily make use of the threemonitoring dimensions – resource, service andcustomer – in order to provide the best point ofview for the issue at hand. It enables the CSP toavoid being overloaded with useless information

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Evolution of mobile

data applications has

created strong

consumer demands,

and has more or less

forced operators to

take a much more

proactive stance on

network monitoring.


– or false alarms, and to look atthe most critical informationand issues first to prioritiseinterventions. With the adaptiveapproach, it is possible to selecta number of dashboards,structure them over differentlayers and display the mostrelevant information alongdifferent perspectives and axes ina timely and effective manner.

VP: Since our last interview howhas Accanto been doing as acompany?

MC: Accanto continues on a stronggrowth trajectory. Over the past year, wehave grown more than 60% and have beenadopted by eight new major operators. Wecurrently serve five of the top 10 serviceproviders in EMEA, which tend to be atthe forefront of innovation and next-generationtechnology adoption. Our performance has beenbeyond our expectations.

VP: Looking to the future, tell us your vision for LTE.How is the market maturing, and what are you seeingas key challenges for operators? What does it meanfor CSA?

MC: LTE is being deployed primarily as an overlaynetwork, which means additional challenges tooperators who must grapple with interworkingissues between 3G, 3.5G and 4G. It requires adifferent sort of monitoring capability – forexample data correlation, reduction andpresentation in ways that are effective andmeaningful – and a different mentality inthe NOC, a more service-orientedapproach.

Once these challenges are met andthe operator can monitor from acustomer-centric perspective, LTEprovides incredible capabilitiesfor service differentiation.Accanto has a great amount ofexperience in helping bothtier one and two CSPs dealwith the complexitiesof LTE.


Is your revenue assurance strategy ready forthe new generation of consumers?

For service providers today, converging factors,including next-generation networks, emergingtechnologies, and multi-sided business models,have propelled revenue assurance to theforefront of their revenue managementstrategies. The change has been so rapid; manycarriers have been caught unprepared withnonintegrated, disaggregated, and silo-drivenrevenue assurance processes.

For too long CSPs have built siloedorganisations that have treated fraudmanagement, analytics, billing, rating, chargingand revenue assurance as separate areas as ifthey were not related when in fact each area canimpact revenue performance. With emergingtechnologies and consumer demands, CSPsneed to expand their focus across the entireenterprise to prevent leaks and becomeproactive to deter leaks as well as fraudulentactivity.

To build an effective revenue assurance strategyit is critical to build a holistic view thatincorporates advanced process integration andbusiness intelligence capabilities across yourplatform. The strategy should support multiplebilling systems and allow diverse revenuemodels to operate freely in different channelsand to interact with different partnerships. Thestrategy needs to address:

Data Quality is at the crux of revenue assurance.Data needs to be managed and treated as anasset that is accurate and trustworthy. Thisrequires existing data and new incoming datamust meet the highest quality standards.

Credit and Risk Management. Effective riskmanagement means having a 360 degree viewof your customer accounts regardless of theirproducts or services or which billing system(s)are used to process their account.

Fraud Management is critical as millions oftransactions are being processed per second.Your strategy must provide an integrated andbottleneck-free revenue assurance solution thatcan monitor all revenue-event traffic in real time.

Margin Management. With shrinking marginsand increasing consumer demand for moreproducts and services, CSPs must be ableconduct ‘what-if’ scenarios quickly allowingthem to launch new products with confidenceand to monitor the profitability of products postlaunch.

Partner Settlement. Expect the number ofpartners to expand as more industries look forways to leverage smart mobile devices. Thismeans having an integrated solution that canmanage receivables and payables, which is lowtouch and high value. CSPs that can balancebetween positive cash flow while ensuringaccurate and timely payments will become thepartner of choice.

In today’s challenging, new world of next-generation networks, emerging technologies,and innovative business models, shouldn’trevenue assurance be at the forefront of yourrevenue management strategies?

To read the whitepaper in its entirety, and tosee how you can get involved with the Telco 2.0Challenge, please visit www.sap.com/telco20

It was 136 years ago that the first bi-directional electronic phone transmission tookplace. Today it is estimated phones exceed the world’s population with much of thegrowth occuring in the last decade. In this extract from a recent whitepaper, Terri Haney,solution manager at SAP, says that although the technology has changed, the questionsremain the same: How to build business models to achieve optimum revenueperformance? How to scale products and services and who to partner with?

REVENUE ASSURANCE

www.sap.com/telco20


Next generation policy management– the monetisation enabler

One response to the data crisis that can beobserved in the market is that many CSPs aremoving away from all-you-can-eat data flat ratesto tiered price plans with personalised offers.The idea is clearly to avoid penalties foroverusing data, but to monetise new revenuestreams. Policy management is positioned morefrequently as an enabler for monetisation, as itis moving out of the technical sphere into thecommercial sphere.

For example, let’s say that a customer with amid-tier data tariff wants to use a smartphone tostream a high definition video. Due to trafficcongestion, however, you, the CSP, are limitingbandwidth in a fair way to conserve capacity.When your customer attempts to stream thevideo, he or she receives a notice explaining thatcurrent bandwidth conditions will not supportthe stream. Instead of sending a notice thatdisallows the stream, you could respond with anotice that allows your customer to upgrade thedata tariff for a time-limited nominal fee. Forinstance, the customer could spend $2 for twohours of higher bandwidth – just enough timeand capacity to watch the movie.

The latest response of IT providers is tointegrate policy management and charging andrating solutions in order to enable these kinds ofnew business models. This is without doubt avery important step into the right direction.

Yet bringing policy management and chargingtogether is only one point of a holistic policy

management approach. The move from data flatrates to price plans with limited included datavolumes might impact customer experience.An answer to this could be new mobilepersonalisation offers. What if customers coulduse mobile apps to choose when and for whatservices higher bandwidth should beguaranteed? Maybe only for videos or certainweb pages? Also on device cost control is a veryimportant feature that will allow customers togain real-time access to balances and counters,helping to avoid bill shocks, especially ifcustomers are more and more charged on ausage basis.

Last but not least, holistic policy managementassumes an understanding of what customerswant. This, in turn, requires ongoing analysis ofcustomer usage patterns – which can only beaccomplished with powerful, real-time in-memory analytics. With such capabilities, youcan quickly analyse where and when congestionproblems occur and then implement newpolicies in a timely manner to rectify theproblem. What if you can also glean insightsthat enable you to offer location- and customer-specific tariffs ahead of time to proactivelyreduce congestion? This can help keepcustomers satisfied, reducing churn andincreasing CSP revenue.

To read the whitepaper in its entirety, and tosee how you can get involved with the Telco 2.0Challenge, please visit www.sap.com/telco20

For communication service providers (CSPs), the explosion in smart device usage is agood thing. More smart devices – smartphones, tablets, and so on – mean morecustomers. For network managers within these CSPs, the story is a bit more nuanced.After all, says Dennis Landscheidt, solution manager at SAP, in a recent whitepaper,increased smart device usage leads to exponential growth in data demand – but suchgrowth can easily overwhelm the capacity of CSP networks

POLICY MANAGEMENT

www.sap.com/telco20


UNIFIED BSS

Concepts of unified BSShave been around for many

years but what constitutesunification is a divisive issuefor the industry. GeorgeMalim assesses whatunified billing means andwhat it should bring toCSPs.

The promise of unified BSS is one thatinvolves a system that provides a CSP with asingle view of its BSS across all the siloes andsystems. Ideally, unified BSS should besupported by a single system but this istelecoms and it isn’t an ideal world soconcepts of unified BSS in deployment ofteninvolve an adjunct system that overlaysexisting legacy BSS systems to provide thatunified single view of a CSP’s BSS.

“The real definition of unified BSS for us isone that involves a single system,” saysSiobahn Ryley, product marketing manager atCSG International, which offers its SingleViewunified BSS system. “SingleView is a singleinstall, single database, single product andthere are significant benefits such as reducedrisk and reduced cost in terms of hardwarethat CSPs can derive from that. We haveimplemented SingleView as an adjunct systemfor those that don’t want to take the big bangapproach to systems upgrade but want toachieve a similar result using their existingsystems.”

For Timo Ahomaki, vice president of productmanagement at Tecnotree, the benefits are

obvious but the industry has struggled withbringing the concept to reality. “The conceptof unifying the BSS is nothing new, but actualreal-life implementations remain few and farbetween,” he says. “At Tecnotree we arecurrently implementing a number of systemsbased on a data-centric approach where allBSS elements operate on the same mastercopy of user and service information. Thatinvolves not only the traditional pieces of BSS,but also elements on the fringes such asmarketing automation and product catalogue.Basically, all the systems dealing with thecustomer and their services need access to thesame body of data in order to create a trulyunified approach to BSS. We are currentlyseeing a number of our customers taking the –admittedly rather huge – step to create aunified view of customer information in orderto provide a homogenous view to thecustomer across all touch points from thepoint of sale to billing.”

Ryley thinks unified BSS is being deployed toa greater extent, although it may not alwaysbe named as such. “From CSG International’spoint of view, unified billing is old worldconvergence,” she adds. “That, of course,

CSPs seeka singleview

�


means many different things to many peoplebut I think it is now becoming an actuality.We’ve got customers using exactly the samesystem for prepaid and postpaid customers –the only difference is their credit limit, prepaidusers have zero and postpaid credit limits aregreater than that.”

However, as Ryley acknowledges, unified BSSis about far more than simply convergingprepaid and postpaid billing. Rob Smith, director market development at MDS takes up thetheme: “Unified BSS is critical for CSPsbecause it encompasses more than just asolitary billing system, bringing billing,analytics and customer management togetherto enhance the customer experience andprovide support for myriad new servicesoperators are now looking to offer,” he says.“Without truly unified BSS, CSPs will struggleto capitalise on the glut of consumers lookingfor more personalised and flexible services.CSPs themselves will struggle in their desireto move up the value chain to offer more thanjust telecoms services and effectively competewith OTT providers.”

There is a shift in attitude that CSPs will haveto go through to access the advantages ofunified BSS. Understanding that where thedata is held is less important that having thesame data consistently available to allcompenents is probably more important inenabling a unified or single view of thecustomer. “The approach to where this masterdata repository should reside varies quite alot,” says Ahomaki. “For some, billing is theplace to be due to heavy emphasis onfinancial risk management. For others, anapproach more akin to CRM seems to makemore sense. Whichever the approach though,the core BSS components should be able toutilise the data available without resorting tolocal copies which too easily get out of sync.”

Keeping all the data in sync seems obviousbut the BSS domain is a large one andpiecemeal approaches to system upgrade

have made the architecture convoluted anddifficult to manage. Unified BSS promises tostrip away all that but it is an early stage interms of system deployment. “While no onehas it completely right just yet, it is feasible forthese disparate systems to be integratedeffectively,” adds Smith. “In fact it’ssomething that operators have to do, to avoidthe unfeasible – and very costly – job ofaugmenting or replacing their systems furtherdown the line. There needs to bestandardisation across CSPs to support unifiedBSS, there has to be a consensus to workmore closely together so that data can beeasily transferred and systems can interact ona more efficient level.”

To create that consensus, it’s not just the CSPsthat will have to work together. The vendorcommunity must play its part and actresponsibly to ensure unified BSS as aconcept doesn’t get bogged down further in amire of competing definitions and marketingobfuscation. “We find – it’s a sad fact – that alot of companies claim to be able to doconverged prepaid and postpaid and you haveto drill down a long way before you find outthey are two systems bolted together,” saysRyley.

If they can’t be straightforward about thenature of their pre- and postpaid billingsolutions, what hope is there for transparencyin the greatly more complex arena of unifiedbilling? Buyer beware.

Timo Ahomaki:Industry hasstruggled withunifiedconcepts

Rob Smith:No one hasit completelyright yet

E X P E R T O P I N I O N :

BSS FOR UB IQU ITOUS CONNECT IV ITY


With new devices, technologies and services fundamentally altering the CSP business, it’stime CSPs took stock of their supporting infrastructure and adopt a modern approach toBSS, writes Gabriel Matsliach, Chief Product Officer, Comverse

Advanced network technologies and ubiquitousconnectivity have opened up new revenuegeneration opportunities for CSPs such asMachine-to-Machine (M2M) Communicationsand Enterprise Cloud Computing offerings. At thesame time, more advanced and convergedservices are accessible to end-consumers acrossvarying devices such as smartphones, tablets andlaptops, increasing usage. These new connectedopportunities have brought new monetisation,marketing, competitive, and customer and offermanagement challenges to the surface.

To secure differentiation and profitability CSPsmust take stock of their supporting infrastructure.BSS – including CRM – directly enables andimpacts: service offering and bundling,monetisation capabilities, and end-customerexperience – including end-customer aspects ofpolicy management. It also directly impacts thecustomer service representative (CSR)experience and efficiency, as well as the real-timemarketing and promotions capabilities of anoperator. And, of course, BSS data is animportant business intelligence data source.

In the connected world, CSPs’ infrastructuremust support: more services, moresophistication and higher consumerexpectations; policy-enabled monetisationoptions and capabilities; convergence – in all itsforms; real-time; the ability to do more with less.

Disparate ecosystems by their nature are notadequately equipped to address the newmonetisation, customer management and cross-channel real-time marketing needs of the ultraconnected world. With disparate data models andproduct catalogues these siloed environmentsproduce disjointed views of customer andproduct data obstructing the necessary linksrequired between this data and policy engines,CRM systems and customer care channels.

A modern approachto BSS: unificationA modular BSS system that unifies criticalbusiness functions from policy management andenforcement to CSP-specific CRM, to chargingand billing – around a single data model andsingle service-agnostic and marketing-focusedproduct catalogue will allow CSPs to uncover agold mine of opportunities by exposing the fullpotential of their two most valuable assets:customer data and their networks. Such a systemprovides CSPs with the following essentialbusiness benefits required to succeed in theworld of new connected possibilities:

• Advanced policy-enabled monetisation for any service or business model – through the enforcement of traffic and charging policies that are subscriber and network-aware to ensure that dimensions such as type of device and application, usage patterns, QoS and priority level and value per bit are being considered as part of offers, plans and bundles

• Automated and consistent multi-channel customer management and marketing – through the sharing of complete real-time customer information and activity, across CSP-specific CRM and customer care channels – including social media

• Real-time everywhere – even into traditional postpaid environments – through the extension of real-time rating and charging to meet regulatory bill shock requirements, limit postpaid credit risk and promote personalisation, even for postpaid subscribers

The Comverse ONE® Billing & Active CustomerManagement solution offers a unified approach toBSS – from CSP-specific CRM into the network,including policy. Comverse ONE’s design turnsBSS into a strategic asset by enabling CSPs tomanage and enforce smarter policies that areboth subscriber- and network-aware, while beingable to smartly monetise any service, content orbusiness model all while providing apersonalised and consistent customer experience.

New monetisation andcustomer managementneeds require unified BSS

GabreilMatsliach, chiefproduct officer,Comverse

To learn more visit: www.comverse.com

DRIVING PROFITS FOR COMMUNICATION SERVICE PROVIDERS

www.vanillaplus.com

VanillaPlusWebsite

VAPL2012

102LPPLAVVA

21

periodAll things mobile

CTIA is All Things Mobile. Now with new dates in May, International CTIA WIRELESS 2012 is even better positioned to meet the needs of the global wireless

marketplace. This bold move is more than a change of date. It is the best opportunity to create a more

personalized, powerful experience at the one place for carrier services, enterprise, communications,

apps, content and social networking.

Pre-Conference Events May 7, 2012 Convention & Exposition May 8–10, 2012Ernest N. Morial Convention Center New Orleans, LA

WWW.CTIASHOWS.COM

New Dates!

Get Connected!

D I A R Y

Upcoming Events

CTIA OSS Zone7-10 May, 2012New Orleans, USAOrganiser: CTIAwww.ctiawireless.com

Broadband World Forum Asia15-16 May, 2012Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaOrganiser: Informaasia.broadbandworldforum.com

Management World21-24 May, 2012Dublin, IrelandOrganiser: TM Forumwww.tmforum.org/ManagementWorld

Maximising CustomerLoyalty and Profitability21-24 May, 2012Berlin, GermanyOrganiser: IQPCwww.loyaltyandprofitability.com

LTE World Summit23-24 May, 2012Barcelona, SpainOrganiser: Informaws.lteconference.com/

Mobile Health Summit29 May – 1 June, 2012Cape Town, South AfricaOrganiser: GSMAwww.mobilehealthsummit.com

TIA & Connections @ TIA6-7 June, 2012Dallas, Texas, USAOrganiser: TIA Telecomshttp://tia2012.org

Gridcomms11 June, 2012London, UKOrganiser: Smart Energy IPhttp://www.gridcomms.com

Roaming Strategies11-13 June, 2012Brussels, BelgiumOrganiser:IQPCwww.roamingstrategies.com

Cloud Computing World Forum12-13 June, 2012London, UKOrganiser: Keynotehttp://www.cloudwf.com

Global Messaging World Congress12-13 June, 2012London, UK,Organiser: Informahttp://globalmessagingcongress.com

Mobile Network Performanceand Service Quality18-21 June, 2012London, UKOrganiser: IQPCwww.mobilenetworkperformanceevent.com

Digital Home World Summit19-20 June, 2012London, UKOrganiser: Informahttp://digitalhomeworldsummit.com

SIMposium Global19-20 June, 2012Berlin, GermanyOrganiser: Informawww.simposiumglobal.com

Pricing Mobile Data26-27 June, 2012London, UKOrganiser: Informawww.pricingmobiledata.com

CEM UK2-5 July, 2012London, UKOrganiser: IQPCwww.cemintelecomsuk.com


MHS offers decision makers, influencers, andthinkers from across the mobile health valuechain to discuss key topics in mobile health.Speakers from mobile operators, insurance groups,pharma companies, healthcare providers,equipment manufacturers, infrastructurevendors, governments, NGOs, academics,application developers, and integrators presentthe latest developments in mobile health and inthe ecosystem that supports it.

MHS 2012 includes:• A spectacular conference agenda with

insightful keynotes from top CEOs and executives including: • Helen Zille, Premiere of the Western Cape,

South Africa• Andre Beyers, CMO, Airtel Africa• Thierry Zylberberg, EVP Strategic Partnerships,

GM Health Line of Business, France Telecom• Gabby Zedlmayer, VP, Office of Global Social

Innovation, HP

• Scott C. Ratzan, VP, Global Health, Johnson& Johnson

• Axel Nemetz, Head of Health, Vodafone• A cutting-edge exhibition showcasing the most

innovative Mobile Health products and services from today’s industry leaders

• The premier forum for Mobile Health networking and deal-making with C- Level leaders of healthcare institutions, mobile network operators, development organisations and solutions providers, as well as regulators and policymakers

Last year, over 600 professionals from 43countries attended MHS while this year’sprogramme will grow with an even larger andmore diverse audience.

MHS 2012 is brought to you by the GSMA andthe mHealth Alliance - leaders in the globalmobile and health industries. For moreinformation go to:www.mobilehealthsummit.com

The GSMA-mHealth Alliance Mobile Health Summit (MHS) brings together senior decisionmakers from the mobile and health industries to drive the mobile health ecosystem. Thisglobal event is designed to foster the commercial sustainability of mobile health acrossboth the public and private sectors. Now in its second year, MHS will be held at the CapeTown International Convention Centre between May 29 and June 1, 2012.

May 29– June 1,

2012

Cape TownInternational

ConventionCentre, South

Africa

GSMA-mHealthAlliance MobileHealth Summit


CLOCK ING OFF!

On that note, this column would welcome afurther study into the reaction to the fast-growingdialect, which is quickly establishing itself as themost reviled and mistrusted vocal style ever.There’s no name yet, so let’s call it the voice ofthe corporate spokesman. The pronunciation isstill received, but it’s receiving its influence froma different place – the marketing department of aUS corporation.

Next time the population is sold short, listen tothe voice of the media trained companyspokesman who is wheeled out to pacify themasses. Ask yourself, do you trust this man? Areyou convinced that safety lessons at an oilcompany have really been learned? Or that thebank really is ‘committed to customer service’after its’ losses have been met by the tax payer?

Since televisions reach every corner of societynow, we’re all pretty media savvy and nobodytrusts a company spokesman. That’s possiblywhy GiffGaff pulled a masterstroke recently byturning its gaff – a network failure - into a gift.

Most people probably didn’t realize or care thatthis is a virtual network operator that uses O2’snetwork, until the news reports began to outlinethe details. The fact that GiffGaff allowed itsproblems to be exposed and was quite openabout the causes would horrify most spindoctors. But the beauty of this rescue operation,which customers were allowed to observe in theraw, was that it worked. Who would havethought being painfully honest was the best wayto convince people of your authenticity?

When the MVNO’s billing system started tocreate errors, many subscribers of a traditionaloperator – such as parent company O2 – mighthave started asking for their PAC code and

having that difficult exit interview that customersmust endure when they want to change supplier.

GiffGaff, the self-styled ‘people’s network’ wonsympathy from its subscribers, by being painfullyhonest with the public. It was open about the factthat engineers were working to fix the problemand that it had finally resorted to the people’s fix, ofrebooting its systems. Who could fail to sympathisewith a company that has to switch its systems offand on again? They’re just like us! As a publicrelations coup, it could only have been improvedif they thumped the machines a few times.

GiffGaff reported on progress on its social mediaforum, and we could all follow the diagnosticprocess on the web. For the techies in thesubscriber base (of whom GiffGaff has aproportionally high number) this must have beenentertainment on a par with watching a policeprocedural series on TV.

Maybe there’s a show in this idea. Who knows,perhaps unconventional investigators, who fixproblems in their way, could be the next realityweb TV stars.

GiffGaff eventually announced that the faultcame from the mobile switching centre thathandles its traffic and accounts. That’s a brilliantplot development. I never would have had theMSC down as a suspect. Had I been watching Iwould have been on the edge of my seat.

Whoever wrote the script for GiffGaff had done afar better job than any jargon spouting andpredictable media consultant. Actions speaklouder than wordsmiths – that’s only a clichébecause it’s true. The public wants companieswho are honest and possibly vulnerable, whodon’t do things by the media training book. Fornow anyway.

The levels of trust we have for peopledepends on the voice that deliverstheir messages, according tonumerous studies. Sadly, the mostrecent research in the Journal ofSociolinguistics in the UK stuck withtradition and concentrated on Britain’sage-old snob obsessions with classand regional accents. So we learnedthat people with a Birmingham accentare automatically judged to be lessintelligent than the average Briton, butare generally more trustworthy. Whyintelligence is linked to deviousness,the study doesn’t say.


The author,Nick Booth, is acontributor toVanillaPlus anda technology journalist.

MANAGEMENT

WORLD

Event Snapshot

May 21-24, 2012 Dublin, IrelandMay 20-21, 24-25 Official TM Forum Training & Certification

Rethinking Communications -Enabling Connected Life

Sponsors and Partners

D R I V I N G P R O F I T S F O R C O M M U N I C A T I O N S E R V I C E P R O V I D E R S

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCEMANAGEMENT SUPPLEMENT

SUPPLEMENT APRIL / MAY 2012

PLUS OPERATORINTERVIEWTelus' Customers First Cultureleader shares her experience

CEM ON THEOPERATING TABLEShould somebodycall a medic?

PLUS OPERATORINTERVIEWTelus' Customers First Cultureleader shares her experience

CEM ON THEOPERATING TABLEShould somebodycall a medic?

TALKINGHEADSComptel's Matti Akselasays real-time events,analytics and actionmake the mobilebusiness more beautiful

TALKINGHEADSComptel's Matti Akselasays real-time events,analytics and actionmake the mobilebusiness more beautiful

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▼

CEM SUPPLEMENT VANILLAPLUS APRIL/MAY 2012S2

CONTENTS

CSPs need to pump ironto achieve CEM results

At the same time, basic communications services are being offered in the internet worldby VoIP providers such as Skype or Jajah and traditional revenues, such as SMS, havebeen decimated by the emergence of social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Even theenterprise market is assessing how closely it needs to work with specific CSPs. Cloudcomputing has revolutionised corporate networking and traditional relationships are notnecessarily going to continue.

Therefore, on all fronts, it has become clear that CSPs have to do what they do andprovide what they provide in a way that is demonstrably better than these competitors.That would be relatively easy if they were the same type of business as these competitorsbut they’re not. They are encumbered with multi-billion euro network investments andthey are seen as the weak link in delivering the customer experience – in many casesunfairly. For the consumer, it’s straightforward to blame the CSP for failed delivery whenin fact the fault may lie within a content provider’s server or systems. Add to that, that thephone company has a phone number and a portal you can complain to and the poor CSPis lumbered with the cost of customer service while the OTT provider enjoys the profit.

As a consequence, CEM has become fundamental to the transformed CSP business. CEMindices are now routinely presented to C-level executives on a daily basis – right up to theCEO in some CSPs. The granularity of customer data such systems can present is vital,especially as CSPs are trying to scope the balance between providing excellent customerexperience and making a profit. That is the really difficult bit for CSPs: Deliveringexcellence in customer service while maintaining profitability.

This supplement explores how CSPs are adopting an analytical approach to CEM. Thatstarts in the network and migrates across all the operating systems and departments ofthe business. As Carol Borghesi points out on pS10, this isn’t exclusively an organisationalor technological challenge, the greater difficulty is in transforming the mindset of theentire CSP and its workforce. It’s like going to a gym to get fit, she says. There’s no point ifyou don’t have a disciplined exercise regime in place and you don’t go regularly.

It’s time for CSPs to get pumping iron.

George Malim, Editor, VanillaPlus

Customer Experience Management (CEM) has risen right to the top ofCSPs’ agendas in recent years. The reasons for that are obvious. CSPsare no longer engaged in a cosy competition with other CSPs. They’refighting for revenues and profits with a huge variety of other businesses.In great evidence are over-the-top (OTT) web-based providers of contentand services ranging from well-known services such as Google, iTunesand Facebook to a multitude of communication app providers and arcaneproviders of content.

S2 Introductionand contents

S3 Talking HeadsMatti Aksela, vice president ofanalytics at Comptel, says real-timeanalytics can provide the toolsnecessary to bring the customerexperience to the next level

S6 CEM on theoperating tableNick Booth explores whether, ifcustomers are your lifeblood, thereare enough CEM surgeons to curethe industry’s ills

S8 Data Collectionand CorrelationFreddie Kavanagh explains howCSPs can make the most of theirCEM data

S10 CSPs need achange of lifestyleTelus’ Carol Borghesi, tells GeorgeMalim about her experiences leadingthe company’s Customers FirstCulture initiative

Since 1986, Comptel has helped morethan 280 service providers across 85countries to meet over one billionsubscribers’ communications andinfotainment needs. The event –analysis – action strategy forms thebasis of the Comptel approach,building new solutions on thestrengths in event data processing,advanced predictive analytics andactions directly onto the network.Comptel’s offerings in servicefulfillment, mediation, charging andpolicy control, and predictive socialanalytics enable service providers toenhance customer engagement and,in turn, create revenue, reduce costsand lessen churn. Comptel is a globalteam of over 600 professionals, andnet sales were € 77 million in 2011.www.comptel.com

C O M M E N T

S3CEM SUPPLEMENT VANILLAPLUS APRIL/MAY 2012


Customer experience has been a hot topic in the telecoms industryfor several years, but according to market and business studies,there is still space for improvement in keeping consumers andbusiness users happy. Here Matti Aksela, vice president of analyticsat Comptel, tells VanillaPlus how real-time analytics can provide thetools necessary to bring the customer experience to the next level.

VanillaPlus: Good customer experience hasbecome a basic competitive requirement forCommunications Service Providers (CSPs) to bein business. What have been the drivers to getthe CSPs and the whole industry to be sofocused on the customer experience?

Matti Aksela: Continually increasing, intensivecompetition drives CSPs to look for new ways ofengaging with their customers for bettercustomer loyalty and to find additional revenuestreams as well as streamlining their ownoperations for productivity. In mature marketsthe cost of churn has been high on the agenda ofthe senior leaders for some time already andbuilding a better customer experience is seen asa key to success.

A big reason for the focus on churn is also thefact that customer retention costs are still lowerthan acquisition costs, although some analysis,such as that from tefficient, would suggest aweak trend downward for average contractacquisition costs and upwards for the averageretention costs.

And this does not apply only to mature markets.Growth markets are also maturing at high speedso the CSPs in those markets need to beprepared as well.

CSPs are naturally also interested in drivingmore revenue from existing customers. Ifrelevant promotions can be made to thecustomers, these promotions can actually bedrivers for increased customer satisfaction and

better customer experience. Getting spam isvery irritating, but getting relevant promotionscan actually be a very positive experience.

At the same time, feedback from the endcustomers shows that some work still needs tobe done by the CSPs to get the basics right.Multiple consumer studies tell the same story, asan example, the recent research by VansonBourne essentially shows that the consumersdon’t feel enough love and care from theirservice providers, but even very simple actionscan help: The majority – 72% – of consumers inlarge European and US markets agree that iftheir mobile operators apologised and sent aspecial offer to compensate, it would make up fortheir poor QoS and would increase their loyalty. Asmall action can make a big difference to thebottom-line through increased customer loyalty.

The Vanson Bourne study also found themajority of consumer respondents – 65% – saidthat they would appreciate their mobile operatorbeing more interactive. However, there areseveral interesting cultural differences. Forexample, French mobile phone users are themost likely to appreciate personalised customerengagement, with 77% welcoming it yet inGermany, more than half said they would notappreciate this.

VP: So, the task is clear but what needs tohappen to address these types of customer andbusiness requirements? Where is the industrymoving in this, and where do CSPs have thebiggest opportunities?

Real-time events,analysis andaction make themobile businessmore beautiful

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feedback from the

end customers

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work still needs to

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CSPs to get the

basics right

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MA: CSPs have the need to focus more onengaging with their customers with the rightcombination – having the right offer for thesubscriber, and also making that offer at the righttime – in essence, this will ultimately drive theneed for operating in in real time. Whencontextual services utilising information on thesubscribers’ location, device and actions becomemore prevalent in the market, the solution to beat the right time is through real-time analytics.

There are several drivers for the need for real-time analytics and actions, based on the eventsas they occur. As the technology continues toevolve, and more and more elaborate andengaging services are made available, analyticsalso needs to evolve. The ever-growing datavolumes will provide CSPs with better access tothe raw information required and tools for bothdeeper insights into their customers’ likes anddislikes and for appropriate and timely interactionswith them. Also, the speed the data is generatedat is growing, and at the same time the industry,and decision-making as a whole, is reaching everfaster clock speeds. When the information flowstowards customers at an incredibly fast pace, theCSP must react very quickly or, even better,proactively, utilising predictive analytics, buttailored to this domain of dynamic big data.

Thus while retrospective analysis, such astraditional reporting, will continue to play a rolein evaluating performance, and serve as a toolfor long term planning, I believe the future is inbeing able to extract actionable information fromthese huge streaming data volumes as quickly aspossible. This can be, for example, with real-timepredictive analytics applied in the context of theaction, time and location.

VP: You have recently launched Comptel SocialLinks. How does your approach help CSPsachieve that more intelligent, personalised typeof customer engagement?

MA: The key to more intelligent customerengagement is analysing the massive volume ofcustomer data the CSP holds and turning it intomeaningful intelligence that allows the CSPs todecide, at the most granular – individualcustomer – level, who to engage with, when toengage with them and with what kind of action.

Comptel Social Links is a use-case-basedadvanced analytics solution that makes highlyaccurate predictions on the future behaviour ofcustomers and their individual preferences. Thisallows the CSPs to better understand theircustomers, further develop their differentiatedservice portfolio and optimise the messages andtiming for the customer interactions. In essenceSocial Links brings CSPs the power to discoverand act upon operational predictive analytics to

find the optimal targets for actions towards thecustomer in an operational manner, and can beintegrated into operator processes for maximalefficiency and benefit.

We have been involved in several CSPevaluations where they have compared theaccuracy of various systems in, for example,prediction of the churn and have shown verysignificant increases in prediction accuracy anddecreases in churn rates. We have alsodemonstrated that the CSP can predict thecustomer life time value from the very beginningof the subscriber lifecycle, even before they haveused the device. From that, the CSP can makedecisions about how much to invest in thecustomer engagement of that specific customerfor customer profitability, for example. With ahigh level of automation of actions, we can alsoaddress the need for CSP’s operational efficiencywhile delivering more personalised and bettercustomer experience.

VP: Can you give examples of how CSPs can usethe system?

MA: Comptel Social Links has a number of usecases that represent productised ways of utilisingthe predictive analytics. For simplicity, we havedivided the use cases into some key categories.This isn’t an exhaustive list, but does illustratesome examples of common use cases where wefeel Social Links can be of great benefit to theCSP:

New customer engagement: Social Links offerstools to aid in customer acquisition utilisingpredictive analytics in combination with socialnetwork analysis. When performed appropriately– and targeted optimally – peer to peeracquisition campaigns can be very effective. Newsubscribers also require special attention, but atypical challenge is that in the first days, the dataavailable for analysis is very limited. Social Linkscan make a powerful ‘zero day’ analysis todetermine whether the new customer is apotential high value customer, low valuecustomer or a probable churner, or whichservices to promote to them starting from thebeginning. Naturally the accuracy of predictionwill continue to increase as more data becomesavailable.

Increasing customer profitability and generatingadditional revenue is a target of another set ofuse cases. Up- and cross-sell campaigns usuallyaim for maximal product uptake, but Social Linksalso allows CSPs to make the most relevantoffers to the subscriber, which is beneficial forboth parties as the offer is something thesubscriber is most likely to respond positively to.Social Links can help find the customers who arelikely to respond positively to the campaign


�

There are

several drivers

for the need for

real-time

analytics and

actions, based

on the events as

they occur


offers but would not purchase the product withoutthe offer. This can be applied to a variety ofservices, products, subscriptions or for exampleanother product family in a quad-play operator’sportfolio. Personalised and optimised campaigntargeting is also essential for successful top-up andusage stimulation campaigns, where Social Linkscan find optimal offers and incentives on the mostgranular level, the individual subscriber.

Customer retention is something most operatorswould like to improve on, and while Social Linksalso performs accurate churn prediction, true valueis only gained when the action to prevent churn isalso optimised. Moreover, optimised churnprevention mechanisms allow the CSP to engagethe customer with personalised ‘stay with us’offers before the decision to churn is made, alsominimising the amount of money unnecessarilyspent on the retention campaigns.

Subscriber insight for portfolio management: Inaddition to the directly actionable use cases, SocialLinks can also provide additional information forthe operator to build their actions and portfolioutilising methods such as segmentation, socialnetwork analysis and demographics prediction.The differentiation by portfolio becomes moreimportant when the traditional network andservices assurance related customer needs havebeen fulfilled. Advanced analytics help the CSP tomeet customer needs, respond to changing marketconditions, innovate for advanced offermanagement, personalised promotions andenhanced offer portfolio and pricing.

VP: How does Comptel Social Links providesuperior customer engagement results?

MA: Comptel’s event-analysis-action strategy andrelated solutions provide the CSP with a holisticway of collecting all the necessary data fromdifferent sources such as the CDR (call detailrecord), subscriber information, subscription data,service usage and recharge histories. All this datacan be processed into intelligence by our analyticscapabilities and can then be further translated intoautomated and operational actions based ondefined business decisions utilising predictiveanalytics, allowing the CSP to act on the subscriberin a timely fashion.

Social Links utilises Comptel’s high-powerprocessing platform and in-house built state-of-the-art algorithms, selected and developed foroptimal performance on the use cases. This allowsSocial Links to be a predictive analytics solutionready to trigger real-time context-specificadvanced analytics driven actions.

With such methods, the customer experience cantruly be brought to the next level, while making,business figures of CSPs more beautiful.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT


If customers are your lifeblood, then any competitor in a brutal battle for marketsupremacy risks heavy losses. A CEM system could stem the flow but do you haveto be a doctor to apply it, asks Nick Booth?

The thing about customers is you can never doenough for them. For finance directors this is acurse, but for customer engagement specialists itbecomes a vocation. There is a clear financiallogic in buying a customer experiencemanagement (CEM) system, but getting the mostout of it is another challenge. This being a newdiscipline, the choice of system and thepersonnel to run it is difficult.

Ironically, studies into the customer experiencesof the CEM market indicate there is room forimprovement all round.

Consumers have no loyalty as they feel their

service providers don’t care, according to a studyby Vanson Bourne in January 2012, whichquizzed 2,000 subscribers. The research firmreports that 72% of consumers in Europe and theUS said they’d stay with their mobile operator ifthey’d just apologise or offer to compensate forpoor quality of service. This simple response istoo much for many CSPs however.

The problem for all CSPs, mobile operatorsincluded, is that it has never been easy to have aclear idea what’s going on with the subscriberbase. The nervous system of CSPs have alwaysbeen pretty primitive, with intelligence beingdiscretely stored in separate silos of billing

CEM needs specialists toextract maximum benefitsfrom systems

�

Araceli del RioSastre, NokiaSiemensNetworks


records, network outages, tariffs, payments andso on. Until these were brought together, therewere no immediate sensations of pain when animportant customer was being treated badly. Thepain would only be revealed later, whensubscriber numbers plunged.

“The costs of customer acquisition and retentionplay a crucial role in a CSP’s future so theyshould focus more in engaging with theircustomers in real time,” says Matti Aksela, vicepresident of analytics at Comptel.

The problem with subscribers is that they are alldifferent. French mobile phone users are themost likely – in 77% of cases – to appreciatepersonalised customer engagement, yet morethan half of their German counterparts wouldhate this. Young people like interaction with theirmobile operator, while older ones don’t andcontracted customers want more interaction thanprepaid subscribers.

“Customers want services that respond to theirindividual needs, meet their individual price leveland are suitable for their current usage level,”adds Aksela. If the customers get the right offerat the right time, their relationship with the CSPwill improve. The reverse is also true, he warns.

However, the success of a CEM system depends onmany different factors. Much depends on who makethe purchasing decision because their perspectiveand skillset will determine whether they get themost out of the set of tools they are purchasing.

According to Nokia Siemens Networks’ head ofmarketing and customer engagement, Araceli delRio Sastre, the person in charge of CEM can varydramatically. “In the bigger operators they havespecialised customer experience. But in othercases, the person responsible can be the CIO, theCTO or the CMO.”

The fact that customer experience managementis still seen as a subset of CRM (customerrelationship management) is something of adrawback. The relationship described by CRMsees everything from the seller’s side, which ledto it being lablled a customer stalking system.Customer experience management, on the otherhand, tries to see everything from thesubscriber’s point of view. In that case, CRM andCEM are diametrically opposite.

Another challenge faced by all purchasers of CEMsystems, whatever their job title, is that this is arelatively early stage discipline, where every vendortries to differentiate itself, making things confusingfor the buyer. “A lot of different companies havedifferent ideas about CEM,” warns del Rio Sastre.

So the name of the game now, in CEMpurchasing, is to establish what you need toachieve and exactly how each vendor can provethey can produce those results.

Every customer has a different state of readinessto yield useful information, every customerexperience executive might have their own ideasabout which information is relevant to them.Every CEM vendor has different ideas aboutextracting that information and CSPs all differ inhow readily they can act on that intelligence too.

NSN’s approach to information gatheringinvolves data drawn from sources as diverse astechnical KPIs (key performance indicators) andsocial networks, and points in between such asCRM and billing.

The ultimate goal is to fine tune the network toplease the most valuable customers, so that highvalue VIP subscribers always get the best qualityof service. Meanwhile, the less ‘quality sensitive’customers can be persuaded to yield theairwaves if they’re hogging the bandwidth.

This automated class of service system can onlywork efficiently if two criteria are met. The qualityof intelligence about customer experiences mustbe accurate and the tools to implement actions,the BSS/OSS, must be equally fine tuned.

“We develop insights and you need to know whatto select and reject,” explains del Rio Sastre.

NSN has refined the process by creatinghundreds of packages, based on its pastexperiences of customer feedback. These‘customer projects’ are available on a portal andcan be linked by clients to trigger actions.

For now, with CEM complicated by so manyvariables, the best thing to do is simplifyobjectives and definitions. CSP Yoido is enjoyingthe fastest growth in Spain because it simplifiedits billing for subscribers, reports NSN.

There’s a long way to go before all thecomplexities of CEM can be matched up andintegrated with a CSP, according to DavidFfoulkes-Jones, CEO at WDS, which advisesCSPs on best practice in CEM. “While operatorslabour to meet KPIs on everything from droppedcalls to complaint resolution, customers add anabstract, emotional layer to the mix that is farmore difficult to manage,” he says.

But in the meantime, instinct and common senseare pretty good starters. Keep communicating andkeep it simple, he argues. An apology for badservice would work wonders. Manners cost nothing.

The ultimate goal

is to fine tune the

network to please

the most valuable

customers, so

that high value VIP

subscribers

always get the

best quality of

service

E X P E R T O P I N I O N :

C E M D A T A


CSPs are acquiring new information about their customers every day; what services theyuse, when and where they use these services, and the capability of its network to supportthese interactions. As data traffic increases and networks become more complex,sometimes it’s difficult to judge what information to believe. Here, Freddie Kavanagh, vicepresident of Applications Solutions at Tektronix Communications, explains how CSPs canmake the most of their CEM data.

There are a couple of golden rules that a retailerneeds to stick to if their business is going tosurvive and thrive. One is that ‘the customeralways comes first’ and that ‘the customer isalways right’. These same rules can be appliedto a communications service provider (CSP), butwhile the satisfaction of the customer is ofparamount importance to the CSP, the data itcollects on the subscriber may not always beright; in fact in some cases it might beconflicting or misleading. The contemporarymobile network is a patchwork of differenttechnologies, standards and protocols.Operators need a mechanism to collect andcorrelate, the huge quantities of data collectedfrom the network into actionable information.They need a holistic view of the customerlifecycle, the services they’re consuming andtheir interactions with the network.

To do this effectively, they need to adopt asystem that provides them with an end-to-endview of their network. Once they have thisautomated system in place they will be able toanalyse data across multiple technologies anddomains. They will have real-time data in theirpossession that can be used to make strategicbusiness decisions based on user trends, trafficpatterns and market conditions. Not only that,but the data will inform them how best tomaximise their resources and optimise theirnetworks. In short they will be able to use datacollection and analysis to make money and savemoney. So what is the system called and whatdoes it look like? It’s actually been with us for anumber of years and it isn’t a single application,it’s typically a suite of products that arecalibrated to perform all of the above; optimisedto meet the specification of an individualnetwork or group of networks. It’s widely knownand accepted as a solution called customerexperience management (CEM).

CEM is now a well-established term, but up untilnow the CSPs have only scratched the surfaceof what CEM is capable of delivering. The key toutilising CEM is to acknowledge that it canprovide much more than subscriber intelligence– it’s a window onto the network itself.

Understand the datapackage in depthStandard network monitoring offers anoverview of the network from an operationalperspective but provides insufficient data from acommercial perspective; data which canfacilitate an appreciation of user behaviours.Most network monitoring solutions offer abroad view across the network and aretherefore used to drive QoS enhancements.They typically lack the capability to chart, andinterpret the user journey and provide amechanism to evaluate how services can bedelivered in a way that offers a pay-off for bothsubscriber and network operator. The optimalapproach to arriving at an intimate appreciationof what the network is being used for is tounderstand the data package in depth. There’sno reason why dumb should get any dumbergiven the technologies and tools now availableto underpin some truly revenue-focussed CEM.New developments in network analytics anddiagnostics, for example in terms of probe-based solutions, can offer unrivalled granularity.They can enable CSPs to gain a unique view ofthe customer experience by monitoring serviceusage, and detect and respond to customerevents in real-time. The consumption of dataservices can be broken down by service,subscriber and device, even to the extent thatoperators can drill down to what peer-to-peerservices – such as VoIP – subscribers are using.This sophisticated analysis offers a view ofwhich services are consuming the mostbandwidth over any specified time period, be it

CEM addressesmore than justcustomer satisfaction

CEM is now a

well-established

term, but up

until now the

CSPs have only

scratched the

surface of what

CEM is capable

of delivering �


daily, weekly or longer. Not only can operatorsmonitor QoS at its most basic level, but theycan also view how many subscribers are usinga given service at a given time.

Understanding the bigger pictureOn one level CEM allows the operator toidentify heavy users of a service or the mostfrequently used devices and can also identifythe worst affected subscribers, or worstperforming devices, for throughput or latency.This approach will enable the operator to refinethe network and service delivery to improve theend-user experience and to innovate with newservices to address the needs of subscribersbased on their consumption habits. Once theinfrastructure is in place, the management ofnetwork services can be far more strategic. Asan example, network data might enable anMNO to throttle peer-to-peer apps but not tothrottle VIP subscribers. Operators can,therefore, recommend policies that give priorityto monetized streaming services and createservice tiers to fill usage gaps. Smartly gatheredand intelligently used data can actually be liftedfrom network probes, warehoused and theninterrogated down to the finest detail, toinvestigate where opportunities may lie. It canbe used to drive revenue-capturingopportunities such as tuning the serviceexperience based on the most popular devicesand bundling device upgrades with new serviceofferings, not least keeping hold of roamingcustomers so they do not migrate elsewhere.

With usage outpacing revenues, businessmodels must evolve. Continual network tuningmakes optimal use of existing networkresources and accelerates the return ondeployed assets. By prioritizing traffic based onperformance and revenue recognitionrequirements CSPs can use new and cost-effective charging models to encouragechanges in subscriber behaviour.

Seeing what the customer seesBuilding, or reclaiming revenue is clearly ofprime interest to an operator. However,reducing costs through network efficiencieswhen combined with targeted servicepropositions makes for a very strong andcompelling commercial model in anycompetitive environment.

Customers experiencing persistent issues withnetwork services will call customer care, give upusing the service or possibly churn - in eachcase costing the MNO valuable time and

revenue. The circumstances triggering thesereactions are often invisible to the MNO. Anincorrectly configured APN on the handset, forexample, will lead to the network blockingaccess to the user. Whilst it’s right for the CSP totake such an action, the user will perceive it as adisastrous system failure. The CSP receives noindication of customer dissatisfaction becausethe network is performing exactly as intended.Nonetheless, the customer who is trying to spendmoney on the network may simply give up infrustration. This inevitable cause and effectrelationship can be readily understood throughreal-time Customer Experience Indicators whichenable the CSP to implement correctivebehaviours; automatically addressing customerexperience issues within moments of occurrence,eliminating customer dissatisfaction, drivingservice uptake and reducing customer churn.

Combining customer experience data from thenetwork with data from a range of sourceswithin the CSP can create the foundations ofsophisticated issue detection and resolutionbehaviours tailored to the needs of theindividual subscriber. CSPs can start having ameaningful positive impact on the experience ofthe network users.

Making the most of CEMAn integrated CEM solution can provide an end-to-end view of a CSP’s business and all of itsassets. It can reveal the breadth and depth of asubscriber’s interaction with the network and adetailed and comprehensive view of theservices they use. It can also provide a windowonto the network, it can provide an operatorwith an inventory of its network reach andcapabilities; identify hot spots, traffic congestionand data throughput, and then align resourcesaccordingly. Apart from making informedbusiness decisions, based on the analysis ofsubscriber usage and trends, to create newrevenue opportunities, CSPs can use CEM tointroduce efficiencies and make cost savings.With CEM operators can maximise theirnetwork resources, make the best of use of theirexisting 2G and 3G assets and graduallyprogress their 4G strategy. However, one keychallenge remains and that is how will thecarriers address the disparity between trafficand revenue, how do they close that gap? Thatinvolves a wider service assurance issue andone we can look at another time.

For more information visitwww.tektronixcommunications.com.

An integrated

CEM solution

can provide an

end-to-end view

of a CSP’s

business and

all of its assets


OPERATOR INTERVIEW

Carol Borghesi:Approaches tocustomerexperiences havebeen like joining agym afterChristmas

CSPs need a change oflifestyle to deliver on customersatisfaction promisesCarol Borghesi is senior vice president of Customers First Culture at Telus, theCanadian CSP. Here, she tells George Malim about the company’s adoption of acustomers first culture, what that means and what it has achieved.

Borghesi who has worked with CSPs all aroundthe world to enhance their customers’experiences, admits the concept of customerservice is always a challenge in telecoms. “Overthe years I’ve seen that the best you can be is theleast worst of the not very good,” she says.“There’s huge evidence that the industry isbottom of the league when it comes to customerservice.”

Hotels and parcel delivery services routinelycome top of indices that measure customersatisfaction such as analyst firm, Forrester’sCustomer Experience Index. The gap betweenthose at the top and those at the bottom is wide.

Recently the telecoms sector has started tounderstand it has to raise its game. “While manyin our industry would say customers are just toodemanding, many others of us have clicked thatin order to differentiate ourselves the customerexperience must be improved,” she says. “Nineout of 10 CEOs across all industries have claimedthat customer experience is top of their agendabut very few organisations put their moneywhere their mouth is. It’s like joining a gym afterChristmas but never going. Telus not only joinedthe gym but we decided what results we wantedto achieve and put them in place with thediscipline to carry them out.”

“It’s not a transformation, it’s not a programme,it’s a lifestyle change,” adds Borghesi. “Personalfitness is a great analogy because there’s onlyone way to achieve it – by eating properly andmoving – but our industry has focused on theeasy wins.”

So, if customer experience initiatives resemble aget-fit-quick scheme, how do you bring a large,

former-PTT like Telus back to the fundamentals ofcustomer satisfaction? “We identified the biggoal among all the ways to measure and managecustomer feedback as being to lead the likelihoodto recommend category of customer satisfactionsurveys,” she explains. “Secondly, we made thatrelative to the markets we serve and set timelinesfor achieving that leading position.”

Telus decided to focus on customer experiencetwo years ago and, in order to ensure the entirebusiness bought into the pursuit of Borghesi’sbig goal every organisation, silo and fiefdomwithin the company was brought into thelifestyle change. “We arranged for all the seniorexecutives to spend an entire shift with customerservice agents, installers, field engineers,salespeople and workers in our corporate retailstores. Our top 350 leaders spent a shift on thefront line and they didn’t just sit next to ourworkers, we made them park their Blackberriesand work shoulder to shoulder with them.”

The results were eye-opening but Borghesiwasn’t finished. Workers were encouraged toextract a promise from the executive workingalongside them that they would lobby for aspecific improvement at a strategy meeting.

The technology itself also didn’t present asignificant challenge. “We had the opportunity totackle issues in the process that did have systemsimpacts but almost all recommendations werenot systems-related but collaboration andprocess related,” she says. “That’s an importantmessage for our industry that our fascinationwith technology can be a limitation unless youstand back and consider what customers andwant and what we promised we’d deliver. In theend doing that impresses customers a lot more.”

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VanillaPlus Magazine April-May 2012 Edition