Telecommunications

Reducing Opex and improving Customer Experience at the same time? Yes, it can be done. Talk to us to find out how.

overview

Be Ready for Massive Changes – Internal and External

Shifting consumer behaviors and disruptive technologies have transformed the way consumers interact with Service Providers. They want simplicity and software enabled service creation, provisioning, billing, and customer care all delivered without calls, truck rolls or store visits.  At the same time, Multi Video Programming Distributors (MVPDs) are seeing sharp declines on pay TV subscriptions as Direct to Consumer and Over the Top (OTT) services from Media companies get traction in the market place.

Enterprise customers are demanding pay as you go, Software Defined Networking (SDN), Platform as Service (PaaS), and Managed Services that can scale up or down based on their business needs, and can be configured on the fly to adapt to changing business environments.

Service Providers are betting big on new technologies like 5G, G-PON/E-PON, SDN/NFV, Remote PHY, and Virtual CMTS. None of these technologies can deliver value without re-architecting OSS/BSS which is necessary for service creation and service management. All of this requires a fundamental shift in the operations model and execution is critical.

As a key execution partner, BusinessOne has been assisting Fortune 50 Service Providers solve these big challenges, move the needle on key business performance metrics, and improve customer experience and shareholder value.

Telecom is in our DNA

Over 15 years of experience in this industry provides BusinessOne with the detailed, insider knowledge that executives demand from their partners.

We know Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are looking to ignite growth and extricate themselves from a utility mindset. To achieve the stock multiples, they need to transform and become more innovative, nimble, take some risks, and have laser focus on the customer's needs.

It is widely anticipated that 5G, along with IoT, Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Open Source Software will usher in new business models and products, and will unleash tremendous innovation and changes from inside the company as well as from outside. How well CSPs navigate through these changes will determine their long term growth and profitability.

Pre-Built Machine Learning (ML) Solution for Reducing Truck rolls

"Proactively identifying and resolving the customer's issue using ML and reducing truck rolls can significantly impact the bottom line."

At approximately $80 a truck roll and thousands of trucks rolls per month, the costs adds up pretty fast. A lot of these truck rolls end up as "No Problem Found". Not only was the truck roll avoidable, it inconvenienced the customer and it did not solve the problem, since the problem is not on the customer's premises.

This is the exact use case we have targeted.

We built an AWS ML Sagemaker based ML solution that is plug and play with a little customization, for CSPs which can accelerate the Opex savings as well as improve Customer Experience.

Pre-Built ML Solution for Predicting Calls and Proactive Resolution

While billing issues top the list of customers' reasons for calling call centers, customers often find themselves playing the role of a NOC for service providers. They are often the first to report service issues.

Today's Customer Premise Equipment (CPEs) (e.g. STBs, Broadband Routers, IoT) capture and log a lot of telemetry and in-home network health information.  This provides valuable clues about service issues.

Additionally, Network Element/Node Management Systems also provide data about Node Health, CMTS/OLT service groups, MAC Layer issues (BER/MER, Timeouts, Re-Connects), physical/QAM/RF layer (Signal-to-Noise Ratio, Xmit and Receive power levels, etc.). All of which can indicate impending service issues.

Freeing up the data that is stuck in organizational and system silos, correlating them and applying ML algorithms can predict service issues and help CSPs proactively rectify them. At approximately $8 per call, the savings from avoiding calls to the call center can add up fast.

ML Solution for Reducing Customer Churn

In a competitive environment, losing a customer is very expensive for service providers. They lose revenue. Plus, the cost of acquiring new customers is high and there is a good chance the customer is under contract with another Service Provider for 2 years. Being able to identify customers who have a high probability of disconnecting and then acting on that information can save Service Providers millions each year.

While customers may be disconnecting for various reasons, identifying those instances where the customer is disconnecting due to billing, pricing, service quality, delays in issue, dissatisfaction, etc. can be predicted, and actions can be taken to avoid those disconnects.

We have done just that for some of the largest Service Providers. Contact us to learn more.

ML for Reducing Mobile Fraud  

Mobile fraud alone is a $32B problem for telcos and is  a major issue that impacts the bottom line. Additionally, the fear of fraud has made the carriers limit or avoid  offering Dual/e-SIM card. Minimizing mobile fraud using ML can significantly impact the bottom line. Our projects at major leading mobile carriers identify fraud proactively and then take action to prevent or minimize it.

Armed with pre-defined scripts to process CDRs/IPDRs, NRTRDE, and by using AWS tools like Athena, Glue, S3 and others, we acquire, process and create a reliable Data Lake that includes customer history, usage data, devices, and SIM card information. Using AWS Sagemaker we select ML algorithms (Nueral Networks, Random Forest..) that would output probabilistic inferences that can be used to prevent/minimize fraud. Of course timely availability of data is key to success.

ML for CRM - Customer 360

For CSPs, everything starts and ends with the customer.
Customer 360 is a concept where a Communications ServiceProvider (CSP) is aware of customers’ interactions digital and human, across the enterprise and then harnesses the data, knowledge and intelligence created by the interactions, to improve customer experience and business outcomes. The problem is that the data is stuck in system silos. Unlocking this information and correlating to visualize patterns and anomalies near real-time would be tremendously helpful in getting the full picture of the customer and their interactions, which leads to customer intimacy and better customer experience.

Buy Flow Optimization

With increasing popularity of digital interactions, customers use service provider online platforms to shop, buy, pay and modify their services. Making the dot com sites frictionless is key for customer adoption. Business process bottlenecks, system deficiencies, and lack of integration often leads to errors, re-work and delays that cause customer frustration, thereby impacting the conversion rates of the site visits. Eliminating errors, timeouts, re-entry of information, etc. is the challenge. By gathering and analyzing  the work flows/buy flows and abandonment rates at the various steps (service  address validation svc availability, credit verification, product packaging, promotions & discounts, coupons, customer history, payment processing...) we can identify process and system bottlenecks that can improve the buy flow conversation rate, as well as increase the adoption of digital interactions by customers.

OSS/BSS Modernization

"Up to 72% of 5G revenue growth is dependent on OSS/BSS transformation".

– TM Forum

5G Monetization cannot happen without investment to modernize OSS/BSS.

Under investment in Order Entry/Management, Provisioning, Field Operations Systems, Network Management, Network Inventory systems, Sales and Customer Portals has loaded carriers with tremendous backlog of capabilities, and this backlog threatens to diminish the revenue potential of 5G and new networking technologies.

Replacing inflexible legacy systems can be daunting and is fraught with risk. Yet the risk of not doing so now, is higher than ever before. Marketplace will not wait for 18 months or longer to get new product features. They will just take their business elsewhere. Modular and flexible architecture is a must to survive and thrive.

BusinessOne has helped Tier 1 and Tier 2 Service Providers accelerate the modernization of their OSS/BSS.  

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