Category: Partner Ecosystem Management

Wholesale telecom has powered international connectivity for decades. Once built around revenue from cross-border voice calls and interconnect agreements, wholesale divisions now face an industry transformed by data, digital partnerships, and next-generation services. Are wholesale and interconnect revenues still growing or slipping into decline?

Voice Revenue Decline – Wholesale’s Old Pillar Fades

Traditional interconnect revenues have plunged, with operators’ voice revenue dropping around 80% and SMS down 94% in the past decade. The rise of OTT platforms like WhatsApp and Zoom, offering low-cost messaging and calls, has radically shifted consumer habits.

As of 2025, OTT communication services account for over 60% of international person-to-person calls, decisively eroding wholesale voice margins. In many regions, voice revenues face double-digit annual declines and now contribute less than 10% of ARPU, down from more than 50% a decade ago. Interconnect settlements for voice, once a core revenue stream, have rapidly diminished, hitting operators who relied on inbound international traffic the hardest.

Wholesale’s Transformation – A New Growth Engine

Despite this grim picture for voice, wholesale telecom is expanding rapidly. The global wholesale market was valued at $470 billion in 2024 and is projected to hit $1.74 trillion by 2037, growing at an estimated 10.6% CAGR. Data-driven services, cross-operator connectivity, and new business models are fuelling this shift.

Several factors support wholesale’s continued relevance:

• Enterprises still utilize traditional voice for important functions, like customer authentication or regulatory notifications, especially in banking, insurance, and the public sector.
• Regulators in many regions mandate interconnect agreements to guarantee interoperability and fairness.
• International roaming, enterprise communication, and inter-network services remain essential for global telco operations.

Wholesale roaming is a bright spot, expected to double revenues between 2024 and 2028, driven by new 5G technology enabling real-time roaming analytics, better monetization, and improved subscriber experiences.

Diversification – Multi-Line of Business (LoB) Model

Wholesale divisions are no longer limited to voice settlements. The scope now extends across new business lines:

• OTT Settlements: Operators are increasingly partnering with OTT providers, bundling digital subscriptions (e.g., Netflix, Disney+) with telecom offerings, which requires complex new settlement models.
• Fiber and Infrastructure Services: Demand for broadband and enterprise-grade connectivity has led wholesale teams to manage infrastructure sharing, fiber access deals, and cloud on-ramps.
• Enterprise/B2B Services: Wholesale now settles partnerships with IoT platforms, cloud providers, and digital marketplaces.
• 5G & Edge Services: Private 5G deployments and edge computing involve billing for metrics like latency and reliability, not just bandwidth.

These business lines can yield higher revenue per connection than traditional voice, transforming wholesale into a broader telecom growth engine.

Data & Digital – Wholesale’s Modern Growth Drivers

As voice shrinks, data dominates. Revenue share per user from data usage has grown over tenfold since 2013, and now makes up more than 85% of ARPU. Operators can monetize huge volumes of network capacity for cloud, fiber, and SD-WAN services, moving beyond traditional boundaries.

High-value enterprise connectivity and cloud services command premium pricing, and recurring revenue streams outperform legacy margins. Additionally, IoT connections are forecasted to generate $2 billion in roaming revenue by 2028 – a category that never existed in the old wholesale models.

The Digital Transformation Challenge

Transforming from voice-centric to multi-LoB wholesale isn’t easy:

• Legacy System Constraints: Traditional billing platforms designed for voice can’t easily manage OTT, IoT, or diverse digital services.
• Operational Complexity: Multiple partners and models mean complex reconciliation and difficult dispute resolution.
• Revenue Leakage: Without automation, error-prone manual processes can result in substantial lost income.
• Scalability: Outdated systems lack flexibility and can become bottlenecks as business lines diversify.

These challenges highlight the urgent need for digital transformation in wholesale billing and operational systems.

Strategic Digital-First Responses

Forward-looking telcos are modernizing rapidly by:

• Upgrading to converged digital billing platforms that support diverse lines of business.
• Automating settlements with AI/ML to increase accuracy, shrink labor costs, and minimize disputes.
• Expanding into digital partnerships (OTT, fiber, IoT) as core revenue streams.
• Leveraging cloud-based solutions for flexibility, scale, and cost savings.

Modern billing introduces AI-powered anomaly detection for errors/fraud and predictive analytics to optimize pricing and manage large partner ecosystems.

Real-World Transformation – The Subex Story

Platforms like Subex’s Partner Ecosystem Management (PEM) exemplify how telcos have transformed. PEM brings together interconnect, OTT, fiber, IoT, and enterprise billing/settlements, letting wholesale move from cost center to growth enabler. Results include:

• 70% reduction in manual effort through automation.
• 15–25% interconnect cost savings via optimized routing and automated reconciliation.
• Unified platform handling diverse settlement models.
• Improved partner satisfaction thanks to faster, transparent dispute resolution.

Operators have benefited by using comprehensive partner management to expand beyond interconnect and enter new growth markets.

The Future – Third Generation Wholesale

This evolution is dubbed the “third generation of wholesale” – a model built on ecosystem management, not just connectivity or capacity leasing. Modern telco wholesale now involves IoT, data solutions, cloud integration, and advanced analytics, moving telcos beyond traditional telecom confines.

Wholesale now plays a crucial, independent role in driving growth, handling everything from digital services to advanced enterprise partnerships.

Conclusion

Are wholesale and interconnect revenues growing or declining? The simple answer is that traditional voice interconnect is in steep decline and will continue shrinking as OTT communication expands. However, wholesale is rapidly growing, empowered by data, digital transformation, new service categories, and 5G innovation.

The successful telcos of tomorrow recognize the shift, modernize systems, and build multi-disciplinary, digital-first wholesale teams. Rather than retreating as margins fall, they embrace transformation and emerge as leaders in a broader digital ecosystem.

Wholesale’s journey is one from legacy decline to new leadership, with unprecedented opportunities awaiting operators who can adapt, digitize, and innovate.

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The telecom industry is a high-speed race where agility, efficiency, and innovation separate the leaders from the rest. While some operators still rely on outdated billing systems, others are upgrading to modern solutions that drive revenue, enhance customer experience, and support long-term growth. If your billing system is holding you back, now is the time to rethink your strategy.

Sticking to a legacy system means sticking to outdated results and manual processes. While concerns about migration risks, data security, and costs may slow decision-making, the cost of inaction is far greater. Modern billing solutions are no longer just about invoicing; they are critical tools for revenue optimization, customer engagement, and business expansion.

Here are five compelling reasons why upgrading to a modern billing system in 2025 is a strategic necessity.

1. Unlock New Revenue Streams with Flexible Monetization

Telecom is no longer just about voice and data services. The industry is evolving, and modern billing systems enable telecom operators to capture new revenue opportunities.

• Support for 5G-driven services, including ultra-low latency applications such as cloud gaming, autonomous vehicles, and smart cities
• Monetization of Internet of Things (IoT) services, including smart home devices, connected cars, and industrial IoT applications
• Ability to offer subscription-based and pay-as-you-go models, catering to both B2B and B2B2X customers
• Seamless integration with third-party services, enabling bundling with cloud solutions, cybersecurity services, and content platforms

With legacy systems, complex pricing models often lead to revenue leakage and inefficiencies. A modern, cloud-based billing system ensures accurate real-time billing, enabling telecom providers to optimize revenue and capitalize on new market trends.

2. Enhance Customer Experience and Improve Retention

A seamless billing experience is critical to customer satisfaction. However, outdated billing systems often cause friction, leading to:

• Confusing invoices and hidden fees
• Limited payment options, causing delays and frustration
• Poor self-service capabilities, forcing customers to contact support for simple billing inquiries

A modern billing system enhances customer experience by:

• Providing personalized billing experiences tailored to individual usage patterns
• Enabling self-service portals
• Supporting multiple payment options, including digital wallets and automated payments
• Offering transparent and detailed billing with break up to build trust and reduce disputes

By simplifying and improving the billing experience, telecom operators can strengthen customer relationships and reduce churn.

3. Ensure Scalability to Support Business Growth

As telecom companies expand, their billing systems must be able to scale effortlessly. A rigid, outdated system can create bottlenecks, making it difficult to add and manage a growing partner base, launch new services quickly and efficiently and handle high transaction volumes across multiple markets.

A modern cloud-native billing system provides:

• On-demand scalability, ensuring smooth operations as partner numbers increase
• Automated processes to handle large volumes of billing transactions with accuracy
• Faster time-to-market for new products and services without complex system modifications

With the right billing system, telecom operators can focus on growth without being constrained by technological limitations.

4. Gain Competitive Advantage with AI and Data Analytics

A modern billing system is more than just an invoicing tool; it serves as a strategic asset by leveraging AI and advanced analytics. This is not just beneficial for telecom but applies to multiple industries, making it a domain-agnostic advantage.

• AI-powered insights help optimize pricing strategies, detect revenue leakage, and predict churn before it happens
• Automation reduces manual intervention, improving efficiency and reducing errors
• Data-driven intelligence enhances decision-making across finance, marketing, and customer service

With AI-driven capabilities, telecom operators can make smarter business decisions, anticipate customer needs, and create targeted offers that drive engagement and revenue.

5. Seamless Integration for Digital Transformation

Modern telecom billing systems are designed to work seamlessly with other critical business systems, including:

• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for financial and operational management
• AI analytics platforms for real-time data-driven decision-making
• Customer support platforms to provide a smooth and connected service experience

Open APIs and modular architectures allow telecom providers to integrate their billing system with third-party applications, ensuring a seamless digital transformation. By unifying billing with other business functions, telecom operators can streamline operations, enhance agility, and stay ahead of market trends.

Conclusion: The Time to Upgrade is Now

Telecom operators face two choices:

• Continue relying on legacy billing systems and struggle with inefficiencies, lost revenue, and customer dissatisfaction
• Invest in a modern billing system and unlock new revenue streams, improve customer experience, and ensure long-term scalability

A modern billing system is not just an operational upgrade—it is a strategic transformation that can propel a telecom business forward in a competitive landscape. With 2025 set to bring new challenges and opportunities, now is the time to make the switch and stay ahead of the curve.

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The growth of IoT and M2M technology has brought about significant opportunities for businesses across industries. However, the complexity of managing the data and transactions involved in this technology has made it challenging for companies to settle accounts in a B2B2X scenario. In this blog post, we will discuss the key challenges that telecom companies encounter in settling transactions related to Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine to Machine (M2M) technology. We’ll also explore strategies to overcome these obstacles and help companies achieve their goals.

Challenges in IoT and M2M Settlements

One of the primary challenges that telecom companies face in IoT and M2M settlements is the complexity of the settlement process. Unlike traditional telecom services, which involve a single service provider and customer, IoT and M2M services involve multiple providers and customers. This makes it difficult to manage the transactions and data involved in settling accounts.

However, settling B2B2X transactions can be challenging due to several factors. One of the significant obstacles is the intricate nature of the ecosystem, which entails the involvement of multiple parties with distinct roles and responsibilities in the settlement process. Unfortunately, this complexity can lead to a lack of transparency that makes it challenging to track and reconcile transactions.

On top of that, the lack of standardization in the industry poses another challenge that companies must overcome. Different operators and vendors may have their own unique settlement systems, which can make it difficult to integrate and standardize settlement processes across the industry. These challenges can cause setbacks and prolong the settlement process, leading to inefficiencies and delays.

Moreover, to ensure the integrity of transactions and safeguard against fraud, robust security measures are crucial. With more parties involved in the settlement process, the risk of fraudulent activities and security breaches heightens. These risks can ultimately result in financial losses and tarnish the reputation of the parties involved.

Overcoming Challenges in IoT and M2M Settlements

To tackle these hurdles, telecom operators and vendors are exploring advanced settlement solutions. These cutting-edge solutions rely on groundbreaking technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of the settlement procedures.

AI and ML can help automate settlement processes, reducing the need for manual intervention and improving the speed and accuracy of settlement. Furthermore, these technologies can aid in the detection and flagging of questionable transactions. By doing so, they can assist in mitigating the risks of fraudulent activities and security breaches.

In addition to AI/ML, industry-wide standardization efforts are underway to improve the efficiency and transparency of settlement processes. The GSMA, for example, has launched a B2B IoT Roaming Guidelines initiative to help standardize settlement processes for IoT roaming.

Overall, settling B2B2X transactions in the telecom industry can be complex and challenging. However, with the help of advanced settlement solutions and industry-wide standardization efforts, telecom operators and vendors can improve the efficiency and accuracy of settlement processes while reducing the risk of fraud and security breaches.

If you’re keen to know more about B2B2X settlement in the telecom industry, we’ve got you covered! You can catch our recent webinar on the topic and gain valuable insights. During the webinar, we dive deep into the challenges and solutions surrounding B2B2X settlement, as well as real-world examples and case studies. To access the webinar recording, simply click here.

In conclusion, settling B2B2X transactions in the telecom industry requires careful consideration of the challenges involved, including the complexity of the ecosystem, the lack of standardization, and the need for robust security measures. By leveraging advanced settlement solutions and making standardization efforts across the industry, telecom operators and vendors can enhance the efficiency and accuracy of settlement processes. This can lead to better business outcomes for everyone involved, helping to streamline operations and reduce errors.

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The development of machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) technology is changing how organisations run and complete transactions. New difficulties in concluding these transactions do, however, arise as a result of this transition. Due to this, organisations should attend the IoT and M2M Settlement in a B2B2X Scenario webinar on February 22, 2023, now more than ever.

this blog article, we’ll look at the reasons why companies need to handle these settlement issues if they want to keep up with the quickly evolving IoT and M2M technology ecosystem.

• New Challenges in Settlement Techniques: The Internet of Things (IoT) and M2M technologies are significantly changing how organisations settle transactions, but this influence is not without difficulties. In order to ensure seamless and effective transactions, these new technologies are posing enterprises with new and difficult settlement challenges. Learn about these difficulties in this webinar, along with strategies for dealing with them.
• Streamline and Enhance Settlements: According to a research by ABI Research, the use of IoT and M2M technology may help firms cut operating expenses by up to 40%. Businesses must deal with the difficulties in the settlement processes in order to gain these savings, though. By utilising IoT and M2M technologies, you will discover how to simplify and enhance settlements in this webinar.
• Keep Ahead of the Curve: According to a poll conducted by Business Insider Intelligence, 60% of organisations either now use or want to use IoT technology in the next five years. Businesses must deal with the difficulties in settling IoT and M2M transactions if they want to stay ahead of the market. You will get knowledge of the main factors influencing the growth of IoT/M2M solutions as well as how to navigate the market in this webinar.
• Real-World Use Cases: Hearing about the potential advantages of IoT and M2M technologies is one thing; seeing them in action is quite another. In this webinar, you’ll examine actual use cases and see how businesses are resolving settlement issues and streamlining their processes.
• Significant Market Growth Potential: According to a MarketsandMarkets analysis, the IoT in the B2B market is predicted to increase from USD 99.2 billion in 2018 to USD 194.4 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 14.5% over the forecast period. This enormous market expansion underlines how crucial it is to handle settlement issues if you want to keep up with the fast-evolving IoT and M2M technology ecosystem.
• Better Business Results: According to Gartner research, companies that have integrated IoT solutions have witnessed a 15% boost in their business results. Businesses must handle the IoT and M2M settlement difficulties if they want to attain these better results. You’ll discover how to address these issues and enhance your company outcomes in this webinar.
• Expert Speakers: Paulo Zanotto, Director of Business Consulting at Subex, and Subrat Saurabh, Head of Partner Ecosystem Management at Subex, will serve as the webinar’s expert presenters. These seasoned experts will share a wealth of information and views on IoT and M2M technology as well as the difficulties in concluding agreements.

Finally, in order to stay ahead in the fast-changing market, organisations must handle the settlement difficulties in IoT and M2M technologies. Attending the IoT and M2M Settlement in a B2B2X Scenario webinar on February 22nd, 2023, is a wonderful way to learn about the problems and solutions in settling IoT and M2M transactions, examine real-world use cases, and network with other experts in the area. We look forward to seeing you there!

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The ability to provide connectivity services has been a critical revenue driver for telecom operators that offer enterprise services. But as the world becomes more mobile, with consumers using their own devices and industries embracing new technologies (such as 5G, IoT, and edge computing), operators are looking for ways to offer a variety of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) digital services and business solutions to their B2B customers in the hope of increasing customer retention and profitability.

ICT digital services are suitable for any customer segment of telcos, irrespective of their size and domain. It can include small and medium businesses (SMBs), small offices/home offices (SOHOs), large enterprises, and public sector companies across any domain, such as healthcare, manufacturing, IT, education, banking and financial services, smart solutions providers, etc.

While telcos used to focus on connectivity services, today’s revenue growth from non-connectivity services such as cloud and security are leading the way. Hence, telcos behave more like technology businesses that aim to meet the evolving needs of their customers.

Telecom enterprise businesses are evolving from connectivity providers to ecosystem orchestrators

With advances such as smart cities, renewable sources of energy, and massive upgradation of networks and infrastructure, ICT will be a key feature of this development.

Ericsson’s Market Compass 2030  predicts that the CAGR for industry digitalization revenues of ICT players may increase by 12% by 2030 compared to 0.75% for current existing services. According to Transparency Market Research’s latest research report, the telecom enterprise services market could cross US $583 billion by 2030. Other predictions are:

The telecom industry is witnessing a paradigm shift in terms of enterprise products and services offered by various communication service providers (CSPs) and digital service providers (DSPs) in the market.

With this shift, enterprise digital ICT services have become integral to modern-day businesses. They provide customers with a range of services, such as cloud computing, software-as-a-service (SaaS), managed services, security, and more.

Traditional Services	Non-traditional Services	Next-gen Services
Internet solutions Private networks MPLS VPNs IPLC links Internet Broadband SD-WAN Fixed lines OTT content and apps Connectivity Satellite	Mobility solutions Applications Messaging and APIs Cloud services Colocation Cloud contact centre Security Unified communication Cloud voice Managed services IoT connectivity	5G products Mobile VPN/slicing Real-time partner content Network-as-a-Service Drone-as-a-Service MMC-enabled IoT Smart solutions (smart city, smart grid, etc.)

Table 1: Bouquet of ICT digital services offered by CSPs/DSPs

Challenges of traditional billing for ICT digital services

Traditional enterprise billing systems were designed to support legacy connectivity services that, over the years, have been modernized incrementally. Currently, product portfolios and rating scenarios are growing increasingly complex due to modern technologies (such as 5G, IoT, and edge computing), new digital offerings, and a thirst for service innovation. Some telcos are unaware of these types of new service offerings, while others grapple with legacy invoicing, reconciliation, and payments processes that cannot keep up with nimble digital services. It throws up several challenges around pricing, rating, suppliers, contract management, data, etc.

These new services often come with large numbers of vendors/suppliers that are tough to handle. As products and services get bundled, it leads to complex pricing structures such as recurring subscriptions or one-off usage charges. These bundles may use products and services from upstream partners that are recombined with others (including those owned by the CSP) to be offered downstream to the final consumer.

The absence of a robust, real-time rating engine with balance management is another challenge. Telcos will need ways to handle the millions of events arising from multiple data sources, as in the case of IoT devices. They also need to rate usage and update customer credit accounts in real time. The lack of such capabilities causes poor visibility into spending and usage, resulting in bill shocks, write-offs, and shrinking margins. Further, inflexible billing systems can delay the rollout of new products, thereby impacting time to market.

It is evident that in this new world of digital ICT services, telcos must generate and manage thousands of financial documents such as invoices, statements, disputes, and payments. Most of the existing contracts governing these documents are restrictive for customers, owing to fixed terms and penalties in case customers do not meet the terms of their agreement. However, new digital offerings mandate flexible contracts such that customers can opt in and out of services on-the-fly without fearing penalties. This eventually helps gain customer loyalty as customers are free to choose products that meet their specific needs. Enabling such personalization will call for a 360-degree customer view to visualize current and historical customer information such as billing data, usage per day, important KPIs, risks, revenues, and costs related to customers.

What can a next-gen enterprise billing platform do differently?

An evolved enterprise billing platform addresses the above challenges by giving telcos an intelligent, intuitive, and automated way of handling usage and billing across their complex vendor, customer, product, and service ecosystem. Such a platform can leverage a mix of automation, self-service, big data analytics, and real-time insights into usage and billing to deliver transformational functionalities, such as:

Partner Management: CSPs can offer various digital services beyond connectivity by adapting, prioritizing, and forging valuable relationships with multiple vendors.

Convergent billing for B2B customers and ecosystem partners: CSPs can rollout different out-of-the-box pricing models such as quality of service (QoS) per session, volume-based pricing, and network slicing based on network conditions. Network analytics can be used for real-time rating and re-rating, enabling flexible DIY pricing models. Convergent billing will also enable innovative subscription models and one-time payments using a range of payment methods.

Real-time billing: CSPs will be able to apply B2B prices on events from core networks and applications as they occur and update balances accordingly. This feature is essential to handle 5G use cases and for bundles where the information comes from other systems. Further, this will occur in real-time – as the transactions occur and the balances are adjusted – without waiting for high-load processes at the end of the cycle. For enterprise customers and partners, it will provide advanced payment flexibility and accurate real-time visibility of the services ordered, used, and eventually paid for. Service providers gain significant operational benefits such as faster time to cash, an accurate organizational financial outlook, the ability to perform ongoing quality assurance, and the prevention of revenue leakage or fraud.

Automated Reconciliation and Dispute Management: CSPs can use a workflow-driven approach to handle reconciliation, thereby reducing customer disputes proactively.

Diverse Credit Management: The system can support various payment models, such as pay-as-you-go and postpaid, with several flavours of credit limits. It can also support expenditure management when integrated with several ERP systems.

Real-time Visibility and Transparency: It will give customers a real-time dashboard view of their spending so they can pre-emptively manage costs, optimize reconciliation time, and reduce account management overheads.

Self-Serve Capabilities: Web-based or mobile applications enabling self-serve capabilities such as viewing usage on demand, monitoring real-time trends, 360-degree views of the customer accounts, online access to bills, payments, disputes, etc., will reduce the operational overheads for CSPs.

AI/ML Support: Extensive use of AI/ML models and algorithms for automation and decision-making will help create custom models of advanced business assurance use cases for different digital offerings.

Integration via TM Forum Open APIs: Such a platform paves the way for telcos to adopt a new integration framework based on Open APIs for communication with the core network and BSS and to expose, provision, and monetize innovative digital services with flexibility and lower time to market.

Cloud-native Billing System: A cloud-native, microservices-based architecture with CI/CD is essential to handle new enterprise ICT services with scalability and flexibility. Being highly configurable, it can support many enterprise and partner needs and ensure reduced time-to-market when launching new services or handling massive numbers of new devices, including unattended IoT. It also allows smooth rollout of upgrades without lengthy downtime.

Wide Range of Delivery Models: The solution can be implemented based on the needs of the telco, i.e., on-premises, on public/private/hybrid cloud, SaaS-based on-demand, etc.

Features of a future-ready enterprise ICT billing platform

Modern businesses will increasingly rely on enterprise ICT digital services to enable new and smart business use cases. Hence, a robust B2B billing solution that understands and supports the existing landscape and adapts to new and emerging enterprise ICT services across various domains becomes critical. Such a solution should be flexible enough to support changes in the ecosystem and the evolution of business models while reducing the dependency on vendors.

What CSPs need is a cloud-native ecosystem platform that handles all aspects of B2B business across different verticals. Some of the key features to look for are:

An enterprise self-care portal and mobile app to drive collaboration, communication, self-care, data exchange, documentation, and real-time visibility of usage and other commercial activities.

Automated catalogue-driven billing and settlement that handles the traditional as well as future needs of enterprise customer and partner billing. The solution should, at minimum, offer flexible rating and discounting (build-it-yourself economic models) apart from non-usage and usage rating and billing support of product bundles in the same core, re-rating of aggregated and record-level data with changes, and error detection. It should also support workflow-driven automation of core billing tasks such as user-definable invoicing, reconciliation, and dispute management. These processes should be intelligent enough to consider volume agreements and several tax models based on the type of customer and their region. It also should comply with the financial particularities of each telco by offering integration with the general ledger (GL) and multiple ERP systems.

Powerful analytics and AI/ML for personalization, prediction, targeted automation, and open APIs to expose services and integration with multiple upstream and downstream systems.

Advanced intuitive reporting and dashboard views that unwrap and present all important billing, loyalty, and performance-related insights to help make strategic decisions. It should also provide real-time visibility and transparency into how partners and enterprise customers use all the features.

An intelligent and smart alerting system with the flexibility of a user-definable alerting framework.

Conclusion

The role of a telecom operator is shifting from providing connectivity services to being an ecosystem orchestrator. As new and advanced enterprise ICT digital services penetrate telecom product portfolios, CSPs must juggle the ensuing complexities for their customers and partners. Traditional billing systems cannot keep pace with these changes and complexities. Hence, the need of the hour is a robust Enterprise ICT Billing system that uses AI/ML, cloud, automation, and big data analytics to offer end-to-end billing and rating of a complete bouquet of digital services. Such a solution can provide customer management, partner management, a self-care and mobile app, intuitive dashboards, and smart alerts, allowing telcos to confidently take advantage of and monetize enterprise ICT digital services.

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This article is originally published in Disruptive.Asia

In this Digital Transformation era, every business strives to get the best out of its services by leveraging all capabilities available. This cannot become a reality without innovations within telecommunication products and services.

To meet the increasing, dynamic, digital, and innovative needs of customers, Telcos need to expand their portfolio beyond their traditional capabilities. Digitalization is forcing Telcos to forge partnerships with the digital natives to innovate their offering. This also means Telcos need a much quicker GTM strategy for their services than ever before. Partnership is the key to success here as Telcos can leverage on their partner’s strength. The partnerships are not new to Telcos; in fact, a partnership is like a conjoined strategy for most telco products and services.

Managing a Profitable Partnership

Telcos should have Partnering Strategy to bundle services, go to market quicker, realize the benefits and continue to innovate. While everyone is focusing on making the partnership work and be successful, fuel to this model is nothing but revenue and cost management. While it is not in the true intention of any partner to charge/pay for more/less than what it has to be, it’s necessary to validate, communicate and resolve any errors with the settlement. Timely identification of discrepancies and resolving them without delays is crucial for a healthy and profitable partnership. Discrepancy resolution is naturally a slow process and if not addressed at the right time and right pace, may end up in backlogs of unsettled invoices leading to unhealthy partnership.

Usually, Analysts read the invoices, verify values and confirm correctness. However, when dealing with 100s or 1000s of invoices, there are high possibilities of errors. Telcos should leverage technology to address this problem of Carrier Invoice Imports & Reconciliation. You will be surprised to see that there are still jobs posted in the market for analysts to check rates, cost elements, verify invoices, and do reconciliations manually. Such tasks are error-prone and hectic, which will eventually reflect in the quality of the outcome.

Challenges with Partner Invoices

Partners send invoices in different formats, types, and frequencies to Telcos. Such invoices can be in PDF, JPG, scanned images, or spreadsheet format.

Telcos should invest in a robust solution capable of handling all variants of invoices, parse, process them and hand it over for reconciliation. Investing in a solution that is based on prebuilt can help to some extent. This will work if the invoices you want to process fits in one of their prebuilt. If not, then the new invoice layout needs to be designed, developed, or trained.

Even within pre-builts, it’s not very easy to find the model which fits the need. Partners can keep changing their invoice formats as part of their continual improvements. Field positions can shift or change from what it is trained from. One can build rules to wrangle them. But the real solution to this problem should be from the Deep Learning techniques of AI/ML.

Deep Learning: The need of the hour

Solutions built based on deep learning-based convolutional object detection methods can extract data from scanned images (OCR), interpret any types of invoice formats, layouts, and support different language invoices translation. Deep BERT-based question-answering model will enable parsing attribute values from the invoices with a higher success rate. This, combined with NLP, improves the accuracy of invoice data classification. Also, look for solutions that can scale out as per need; hence parallelism can be achieved to improve performance.

Subex AI Labs comes in handy to address OCR challenges with invoices. Four key features of the Subex Invoice processing module are:

• Deep learning-based OCR model for data extraction from scanned pdfs.
• Advanced BERT-based NLP model for accurately classifying invoice data, summarising invoice data to get better representation.
• Distributed deployment to support processing multiple invoices simultaneously within a few minutes.
• Automatic convolutional method for invoice layout identification and verification for known customers.

Our invoice extraction module can automatically identify invoice layouts and extract all relevant information using the above-mentioned experts-built techniques. We drive efficiencies into your businesses via process automation to gain operational insight to support critical decision-making activities and enable you to achieve a competitive advantage. Subex Partner Settlement solution also allows you to introduce innovative services, bundled offerings, and products and handle billing for traditional and digital services, thereby opening new business streams for complex variable pricing models.

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The impact has been profound of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the whole world, especially for customer service providers. The impact was not felt on the revenues as predicted by some analysts; instead, the impact was how these services are provided and the interaction with customers.

This impact has brought a paradigm shift on what the customer wants, their behavior, and their requirements. The key thing here to understand is the number of revenue streams that have opened. CSPs have started the work towards pivoting these challenging times into opportunities and opportunities into Revenue.

CSPs are under pressure to innovate to counter the rise in competition. They are now expanding their partner ecosystem to drive cost-effective innovation to improve customer experience.

However, from a service operations point of view, the pandemic has exposed CSPs, many of which have not invested in software and processes that enable them to change their internal structures smoothly in response to such a massive change in the Partner Ecosystem.

Despite them understanding the importance of Partner Ecosystem, CSPs are significantly behind in implementing new business models & digital offerings. Following are the challenges which CSPs are facing in curating partner ecosystem, asking more profound questions on CSPs’ capacity to deliver the right technology, skills, and business agility:

Ability to manage Partner Ecosystem & Relationships

Selecting the right partners for a CSPs ecosystem by identifying and scoring them on key KPIs so that their ecosystem is profitable also enables CSPs to accelerate innovation, increase agility and lower the operating cost by offsetting pressure from traditional services.

With the rise in complexity in the partnerships, an end-to-end partner ecosystem management system to the like of Subex’s is the need of the hour.

Which helps to choose the right partner for a CSPs Ecosystem and end-to-end manages the relationship.

Having the right technology in place to manage monetization & Contracts across the partner ecosystem

A converged integrated platform that manages a CSPs B2B billing & settlement for all the LOBs at a single place manages disputes; reconciliation to have high assurance on the revenue is one of the critical requirements.

Growing Partner Ecosystem and increasing dynamics also asks for a High-quality Contract management solution that analyses, tracks SLA, and maintain contractual integrity for all the partners is another area where CSPs need to work upon.

The need for a Converged system that does all of this to create a seamless experience of conversation between partners & CSPs will drive the growth that CSPs are aspiring for.

Why Subex Partner Ecosystem Management?

Subex Partner Ecosystem Management offers capabilities to Expand business while working with traditional partners and digital disruptors to introduce new-age products and services. Partner Ecosystem Management enables collaboration between communication services providers (CSP) and their partners to manage all aspects, from partner onboarding to billing and dispute settlement, taking care of entire partner lifecycle management through a transparent process.

Rise of the API Economy in Forging Dynamic Digital Partnerships

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What is Interconnect Business?

Interconnect is a process for telecom operators to handle calls for other operators, thus allowing people using different networks to communicate in domestic and international scenarios. Point of Interconnection connects the physical interface between two telecom operators to connect their customers. If operator A and operator B are not interconnected partners, their customers would not call each other. So, to allow ease of communication, operators get into interconnecting agreements with each other, thus allowing excellent business opportunities for them.

What is Interconnect Billing System?

It is a centralized, automated solution that supports multi-party agreements with multiple service providers to use the network and facilitate the traffic routing between multiple networks like circuit-switched networks (e.g., PSTN) or computer networks (e.g., Internet). The traffic flow is regulated through the rules defined by the system’s rules according to the interconnect agreement between the operators. The interconnect billing solution is near real-time processing to allow business optimization and help achieve increased operational efficiency and network profitability. As the business in most of the cases is bidirectional, billing systems perform two essential tasks-

• Managing Deals or Bilateral Bulk Agreements
• Partner Settlements –the incoming and outgoing invoices are taken through a net-off process where the net payable or receivables are identified

Why is there a need for a Partner Management Solution?

5G is beyond pure connectivity. CSPs need to work with other partners to develop compelling product bundles that provide ancillary services and processes to help enterprises achieve a significant strategic shift. CSPs should use their 5G assets to create value with their partners.

While doing so, it is essential to acknowledge that partnerships play a critical role in the continued business success of service providers. Enhancing partner profitability is critical to retaining the right partnerships. Low partner profitability due to lack of settlement processes and systems may lead to a loss of invaluable partners, affecting service levels, revenues, and margins.

Earlier, Voice revenues used to be the bread and butter for every Telco, but the emergence of Internet and OTT services have impacted revenues drastically. Gone are the days when operators entered into interconnecting partnerships only with other telecom operators to share and leverage each other’s network, primarily for Voice traffic and Messaging revenues. The proliferation of smart devices and high-speed internet has completely revolutionized the telecom ecosystem. A sudden rise in the plethora of partner-enabled services has led to a more significant divergence between partner management and interconnection systems. The number of interconnect partners has relatively increased. Still, the nature of partnerships has been relatively the same, which does not stand true for partner settlements where new partnerships are budding up quickly.

Key differences between Interconnection and Partner Management Solution:

Interconnect and Settlements

• It mainly includes systems that record the volume and value of traffic. Primarily related to the rating for voice, data, and messaging
• Traditional and widely deployed. Almost all mobile operators have some form of interconnection and settlement system in use
• The revenue model is typically based on the volume of transactions
• Settlements are mostly related to inter CSP connectivity

Partner Management

• It includes systems that enable third-party providers to offer their services to CSP customers and enable CSPs to charge for their service
• Comparatively new and driven mainly by demand for partner-enabled digital economy services
• The revenue model is mostly revenue sharing and, in some cases, is tied to product licensing
• Support complex third-party settlements, subscription, billing, etc

The wholesale telecom market is expanding aggressively, competition is fierce, margins have dwindled, billions of transactions/events take place which must be rated and charged, and multi-party agreements have become complex leading to a decrease in the quality of service rendered.

There is a need for a Partner Management system that overcomes all CSP challenges for superior partner relations. This is where Subex Partner Management fits in. It is a convergent platform that offers a 360⁰ view of the evolving telecom ecosystem across Mobility, Content, and Entertainment, 5G for Business, Enterprise, and Internet of Things by providing a nuanced profile of partner agreements based on data such as revenue and margins. It helps in swift partner onboarding, partner self-care, partner assurance, end-to-end revenue visibility, and accessible communication between Telco and its partners. It is designed to co-exist with your legacy systems and manage diverse revenue streams while helping you launch high-value, high-margin services in collaboration with partners.

From Effective to Cutting-edge: Next Generation Partner Lifecycle Management

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Do what you do best and partner for the rest! This fits well with how Telcos are approaching the digitalization wave. Telecom leaders are aware of what value partners can bring in, as CSPs look to expand their value chain and revenue streams by exploring cross-industry business opportunities. In fact, the partnership strategy is not new to Telcos, but it indeed is becoming prominent with the evolving business models as 5G, IoT becomes mainstream. The partner ecosystem enables CSPs to accelerate innovation, increase agility and lower the operating cost by offsetting pressure from traditional services.

Many CSPs have seized partnerships with other industry verticals to capitalize on the 5G promise. Deutsche Telecom (DT) announced a 5G partnership to support the smart industries and accelerate digitalization in the industry.  Reliance Jio, the Indian operator, has also transformed itself into a digital service provider by offering an array of services under the JIO brand (see figure 1).

Telia created Division X, a separate business to focus on emerging businesses such as IoT, 5G, and AI by creating a digital ecosystem-enabled platform to monetize joint offerings with partners.

We have seen both horizontal as well as vertical expansion by operators to add more value to the telco value chain. The diversification of services through collaboration and co-creation with the B2B2X business model is the new norm.

So how well are Telcos able to adopt the partner ecosystem strategy? We might have seen some progress, but how can they accelerate this to match the evolving customer needs. A telco needs to define its role in the evolving value chain and ensure a successful transition into the role of an enabler or provider of new-age services.

What Telcos can bring to the table? 

Playing to their strength while adopting the digital transition.

CSPs need to constantly keep innovating the service offerings to entice the digitally savvy enterprise and end consumers. They need to start thinking like Google, Amazon, or any webscale organization to embrace an end-to-end digital transformation. The traditional way is not sustainable and demands a reshuffle of the strategic focus and priorities set in the past. Telcos need to move away from connectivity providers’ perception and start leveraging their core competencies such as solid customer base, insights into customer needs, network assets as a platform to digital disruptors, and more.

The way forward strategy: Partner Ecosystem development

Telcos have been working with interconnect partners, roaming, MVNOs, other value-added service providers. But these partnerships are low involvement, with limited monitoring and contract management requirements. The new partnerships are becoming more complex and dynamic with the diversification of services and partners from across industry verticals.

One of the reports by a leading analyst organization revealed that CSPs are already cut out of strategic engagements and solution building with enterprise partners. CSPs are playing a secondary supplier role in 40% of enterprise 5G deals are signed. To capitalize on these opportunities, CSPs need to strengthen their position by creating a robust digital partner ecosystem that can deliver value with their offerings.

Where the telcos will see the most opportunities in near time:

Research shows that key industry verticals such as industrial automation, healthcare, connected cars, intelligent homes represent a $1 trillion opportunity by 2023. Telcos will support a wide variety of use cases with network slicing, edge computing and AI. However, a clear monetization strategy will have to be in place for these new revenue streams.

Healthcare: As there is a radical shift towards digital health services, it has created an opportunity for Telcos to offer telemedicine solutions for remote health monitoring and health management for people with chronic diseases. The low latency and ultra-reliable connectivity will provide accurate feeling and tactile interaction in remote surgical procedures.

Mobility: As the 5G networks roll out across cities and bring together existing wireless networks, they can provide real-time, end-to-end visibility into the transportation systems. Increased fleet visibility will also translate into better safety and reliability for travelers.

Gaming: 63% percent of gamers play with other fellow gamers. In fact, massively multiplayer online games make up the most popular gaming genre globally, but most gamers, especially multiplayer gamers, must deal with lag. By utilizing 5G end-to-end network slicing, operators can create a low latency-focused slice to offer an enhanced gaming experience, while a separate high bandwidth slice can be created for video streamers within the same mobile network.

Smart Industries: 5G will help create a more agile, fully connected, and automated end-to-end manufacturing experience from design to distribution. Supported by the unprecedented levels of AI/ML and automation, the smart industries will make faster decisions and quickly adjust to changes in near real-time.

While the opportunities are immense, Telcos alone cannot deliver the success that 5G promises. CSPs need to establish successful partnerships with digital incumbents and innovative startups on both the technology and service front to deliver the 5G promise to its enterprise and end consumers. One certain thing for success is, CSPs need to bring cooperation and collaboration with partners at the center of value creation.

Subex hosted a webinar on how digital partner ecosystem will help CSPs deliver the 5G promise. Watch the webinar on “Innovating and Accelerating Growth in the 5G world” to take a deep dive into the new generation of the partner ecosystem that telcos need to develop to ensure seamless delivery of 5G enabled services.

Register for more details and to book your slot!

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