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Category: Partner Settlement

  • Key metrics in transforming Partners into Digital Members through Trigger & Hook Disruptive strategy

    Key metrics in transforming Partners into Digital Members through Trigger & Hook Disruptive strategy

    Digital transformation is pushing boundaries and blurring the lines between your consumer and partner operating business models.. Scenarios that were more applicable to an individual consumer is now relevant to partners as well. Digital disruptionhas forced Telcos to throw away their old monolithic business approach, wherein they were least affected by their partners and incorporate a inclusive digital strategy. The focus has shifted more on retaining partners and converting them into long term valuable members.

    The question to ask is, Are you creating enough value for your partners to maintain a long-term relationship?

    This is where the “Trigger and  Hook” strategy  can play a crucial role ; Let’s first understand “Trigger and Hook”  witha non-telco analogy. For example, I bought a TV because of the screen size and high resolution, but eventually, I stuck to the brand for the sound quality and color reproduction. So, screen size and high resolution was the “ Triggers,” but I got “hooked” to the brand because of “sound and color production quality.” Thus I became a loyal and essential member of the brand’s value chain.

    Let’s look at some of the scenarios of value creation using this strategy.

    • Dynamic Pricing Model: It  fuels Telcos short term and long-term revenue growth from the same partner. The pricing model needs to adapt to the business models of various partners in your ecosystem.. Therefore, a dynamic pricing model, be it fixed, or usage (tier or non-tier) or subscription-based, is a must for a telco in today’s space The subscription will act as a trigger but the dynamic pricing can be the hook point for the partner.
    • Convergence: The “one size fits all” approach does not work in today’s scenario as the rapid digital disruption demands a convergent appraoch. This leads having a system in place that not only allow existing traditional partners to work together but offer a seamless experience for new age digital partners such as OTT, IOT, content providers, content aggregators, infrastructure partners and be a part of the larger value driven telecom ecosystem.
    • Intuitive Partner Portal (on-boarding): Traditionally, partners would come on board without any clear visibility on the revenue that is coming in. But services resulting in a constrained and thin line of revenue, it has become important for the partners to capture each stream of income and have deeper visibility. So, it has become imperative to provide a platform where a partner, be it any partner, can self-on-board on to the platform seamlessly and have clear process and business visibility. So, providing a partner portal becomes the triggering point but offering an in-depth insight on incoming revenue, quick dispute resolution would serve as a hooking point for the partners . A  partner portal with smart personalization, fast onboarding and deeper insights on revenue streams will help partners to gain greater visibility and clarity on their businesses.
    • Recognizing your high-value partners: In the convergence model, a Telco needs to implement a recognition method to identify Super Partners. There can be a credit scoring system that rewards partners who have become a valuable members of the value chain by offering constact support and feedback to deliver higher customer satisfaction and fueld the revenue growth for the telco.

    In the digital economy, partners can make or break your business; therefore, it is very important for any Telco to have the same consumer-type mindset, by focusing on the above areas for your partner as well.. The ‘Triger and Hook’ strategy can be an effective way to create long lasting partnerships that can deliver value to all the stakeholders in the ecosystem.

    To know how a partner management solution, when combined with blockchain can address some of the key challenges of partnerships.

    Download the Point of View

  • What is Telecom Interconnect Billing System?

    What is Telecom Interconnect Billing System?

    Interconnect is a process for telecom operators to handle calls for other operators thus allowing people who are using different networks to communicate with each other in both domestic and international scenario. Point of Interconnection is used to connect the physical interface between two different telecom operators to connect their customers. If operator A and operator B are not interconnect partners, their customers would not be able to call each other. So, to allow ease of communication, operators get into interconnect agreements with each other thus allowing good business opportunity 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 policies defined by the rules integrated in the system according to the interconnect agreement between the operators. The interconnect billing solution is capable of near real time processing to allow business optimization and help in achieving increased operational efficiency and network profitability. As the business in most of the cases is bidirectional, billing systems perform 2 key 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

    Need for Interconnect Billing System

    • 360 ° Process Efficiencies

    Achieve accurate rating, invoicing, reconciliation and settlements with efficiency to manage interconnect, roaming and content settlements.

    • Near Real-Time Insights

    Enable fast business decision making with the help or near real time reporting to prevent losses.

    • Business Control and Transparency

    Allow better control over carrier related activities with proper monitoring system and achieve transparency with timely and insightful decision making.

    Key Features in an Interconnect Billing System

    • Billing and settlements: Manage interconnect, digital and content services
    • Roaming management: Enables settlements between partners for roaming services
    • Partner portal: Provides partner interface for business and self-service operations without unveiling the application
    • Number billing and routing: Manages interconnect billing and routing for origin-based routing (OBR) by tracking buy and sell destinations, dial code movements for terminating destinations and origin groups
    • Prepay management: Guides business relationships with new partners and mitigates business risk
    • Reconciliation: Verifies payables and receivables between partners
    • Dispute management: Minimizes disputes between partners related to payments and services
    • Multi-tenant environment: Supports mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), multi-BU environment
    • Buying, selling, routing: Optimizes transactions related to international calls

    Here is a case study to know how Subex helped a tier 1 APAC telecom operator reduced their billing cycle by almost 75% and achieved business efficiency and profitability.

    Download now!

  • How Industry Trends are Impacting Telecom Partnerships

    How Industry Trends are Impacting Telecom Partnerships

    Trends that are creating a shift

    With democratizing access to technology, more and more people are embracing it and telecom is one of the industries which is most affected by this shift. More and more people will have mobile by 2020 and the amazing thing is the revenue of this user acquisition will be driven by data consumption as compared to voice/SMS or other traditional services which were the base of telecom offering till recent time.

    Operators are sensing the shift happening in the user choices and trying to figure out ways to stay in the competition. Mobile broadband connection to increase from 55% of the total in 2016 to 73% by 2020. The number of smartphone users will reach 5.7 billion by 2020 which means more and more people will be using data as a telco service and be a part of the digital ecosystem. Mobile data is expected to grow at a CAGR of 47% till 2020.

    If we see the driving factors behind this shift, OTT, content and other digital service providers have played a major role. See the below graph on how the composition of services has changed over time.

    It’s not only the addition of new partners to the digital ecosystem, but the traditional wholesale is also evolving. Here are the new trends which we can see happening in wholesale.

    Implications on Telcos due to digitalization

    Telcos no more work in silos as they are disrupted by the new age service providers hence looking for new partners to offer competitive and exciting services to its consumers. The below chart shows the changes happening in the telecom industry. This is forcing telcos to search for innovative and unique economic models.

     

    New Possibilities for Telcos

    These trends have opened a lot of possibilities to explore additional business avenues and try new economic models. The telco revenue mix is also changing with the partner mix as we can see in the graph and it is impacting the way telcos operate and manage partnerships in a traditional format. Hence the partner lifecycle management is also becoming imperative for telcos to embrace the digital revolution. For example, there will be 25 billion connected things by 2025 with enterprise verticals as the main drivers. Blockchain in telco has so far been limited to roaming but experimentation could take this further, especially if eSIM came to smartphones.

    Smartphone connection will increase to 79% of the total mobile connection bringing in new customers. Over a fifth of the world’s markets will have launched 5G by 2020, spending a combined $244 billion on networks in the process which will bring new capabilities for telcos.

    How Telcos can Embrace Digitalization Successfully

    The need of the hour is a unified solution which can cater to all the requirement of the ecosystem. The system should be able to provide visibility for everyone in the ecosystem to establish trust among the partners. Right from efficiently managing the partner onboarding, to partner settlements and dispute management, the system should be able to make the whole journey seamless for both traditional and digital service partners. The below image shows some of the capabilities of the system.

    This unified solution will allow telcos to transition through the changing paradigm and add agility and scalability to the business to embrace any new technology and consumer behavioral shift.

    To learn how telcos can leverage partnerships to gain competitive advantage

    Watch the Webinar now!

  • Choosing the Right Converged Partner Management Solution

    Choosing the Right Converged Partner Management Solution

    What is a Converged Partner Management Solution?

    Converged partner management is a unified solution which caters to the entire gamut of partner needs of a telecom operator. The platform addresses the needs of both traditional and digital partners by spreading across different domains and helps to handle the complex relationships between the suppliers and vendors of the telecom operator.

    Why you need a Converged Partner Management Solution

    Over the last decade, digitalization has transformed the communication service provider (CSP) landscape. It has created a need to achieve market differentiation in response to the evolving customer profiles and prevail over emerging challenges from disruptive services. Telco revenues from legacy voice and SMS are on the decline and there is high CAPEX associated with network innovation. Telcos can turn this around by evolving as Digital Service Providers (DSPs). But the biggest challenge in this transformation is to bring both traditional and new digital partners together to create an integrated industry specific solution. But the success rate of these partnerships and integrations is very low as it comes with multiple challenges. Inefficient partner onboarding process, tariff management for multiple plans, billing and invoice reconciliation while taking OPEX into consideration. Based on a research 70% of partnerships fail due to trust and clarity of business relationships. There is a need of sustainable partnerships which can create value for everyone in the ecosystem.

    In this scenario, a converged partner management approach proves beneficial from both business and service perspectives. From the business perspective, a converged platform will help to visualize the partners’ business. It will consolidate partners into a single contractual binding and bundle the offerings, settlements, and payments across the entire domains. A converged partner management solution packs features that give CSPs freedom to experiment with NGN service offerings such as content management without having to worry about the scalability of its billing function. The solution enables telecom operators to have all their business partnerships in one single place and makes it easier to access information and make efficient business decisions. This is especially important as different partners insist different models in measuring the business impact and ROI.

    How to Choose the Right Converged Partner Management Solution

    Selecting a partner management solution to manage your partnerships efficiently is not an easy decision. The solution should complement the operations of the service provider and offers features and functionalities that remove operational errors and smoothen the partner management process.

    Below are the key features you should look for in a Converged Partner Management Solution

    Partner Self Onboarding: The partner onboarding platform can support self-boarding, manual onboarding and in some cases, a mix of both. The self-boarding platform will play a significant role in the digital era, giving the DSP the ability to perform most of the onboarding activities by automating the process like partner scoring on configurable KPIs and other partner details.

    Partner Scoring- Pre-Onboarding & Post Onboarding: Partner scoring can assist an operator to take pre and post onboarding decisions based on business KPIs, and this can be combined with standard agreed contracts to make the complete process automated.

    Defining the Partner Business: Defining the businesses of both traditional and digital partners is a complex process especially in the context of service offerings, revenue sharing and service agility. The business for traditional partners such as interconnect revolved around exchange of voice, SMS and usage of other services so the contract includes bilateral deals for settling the traffic and event rates. On the other hand, contract with digital partners like OTT players, content providers, VAS companies, MSOs, integrators, app developers, IoT and M2M service providers involves complex revenue sharing model as the settlement may be based on usage of resources, impressions/ clicks on the website, readings from metered equipment, among others. A converged partner management solution will help telcos to implement revenue sharing models that can be fixed, shared or a hybrid depending on the nature of the partner business.

    End-to-End Billing and Settlement: Helps the business to define rules and apply them to the events acquired to generate the final revenue figure to both the DSP and the partner. The system achieves this through accurate rating and charging, real-time updates, and on-time bill and statement generation.

    ETL (extract, transform, load) to Track and Process Events: The ETL tool is required to process different types of events from various sources and transform them to respective entities by extracting the relevant information. Considering the dynamic and open nature of the DSP ecosystem, the ETL tool should be flexible enough to handle the frequent onboarding of new partners and build mediation capability supporting ingestion and normalization of data from multiple partners in different formats.

    Partner Communication and Self-Care: A converged platform should enable a consolidated communication portal to manage all the operational aspects of the business including contractual updates, bills, settlements, credit debit notes, trouble ticketing, and dispute management. The portal should also be integrated to the backend systems to orchestrate each operational aspect towards the respective system for action and resolution. Finally, it should feature open APIs that enable quick integration with third-party systems.

    Visibility of Partner Business: Real-time visibility ensures transparency across the businesses. Through real-time analytics of reports, alerts and notifications, the converged platform can enhance the visibility and reporting across different channels.

    all-in-one-PS

    Are You Ready?

    New age partnerships require transparency and trust between the partners to create a robust ecosystem. A Converged Telecom Partner Management solution will help telcos to manage these new age partnerships efficiently and enable them to drive new business models. This will also reduce the time to market for new offers and packages and allow telcos and partners to acquire new customers and add new revenue streams.

    Are you ready for a converged partner management solution to succeed in the new age digital ecosystem?

    Download the Webinar recording!

  • What are the 5 keys that telecom operators should explore innovative partner contracts

    What are the 5 keys that telecom operators should explore innovative partner contracts

    The telecommunications industry has been evolving over the years in this digital economy through technological innovations. The shift between the generation of networks is progressing swiftly, and that sees an impact in business use cases and the BSS/OSS systems that are part of this ecosystem. While there is a huge buzz about 5G today, the 4G rollout is still in progress in certain regions. 5G has opened a host of new business opportunities with augmented reality, self-driven cars, transforming healthcare and more. With this unprecedented pace and agility in the business, partnerships play a very significant role for Communication Service Providers (CSPs), and they need to be well equipped to manage complex wholesale contracts to succeed.

    Here are the 5 drivers for CSPs to sign contracts with innovative economic pricing models:

    • 1. Changing Ecosystem of the Telecommunications Industry

    The telecommunications industry is experiencing a radical shift in the current scenario with multiple partners in the digital ecosystem. A CSP is no longer isolated in the market, but an integral part of a vital ecosystem. They are collaborating with different vendors and partners to provide differential products, innovative content for new age digital services like on-demand audio and video streaming. All of this puts the CSPs at the crux of all the action. With robust infrastructure and ability to process data in huge volumes, this is a unique position that can be leveraged in this changing scenario.

    • 2. New League of Customers and Partners

    The changing dynamics in the industry has given rise to a new league of customers who are aggressive and precision-driven. There needs to be transparency in every aspect of the business. Contract timelines are getting shorter and demanding, while CSPs’ business models have not adapted to meet these demands.

    Partnerships are very varied, as the demand for better and more innovative content keeps growing, and this could range from a channel, a gaming company to an individual content creator. Strategic partnerships are key, and transparency is essential here as well. With non-traditional partners for these newer types on content, the business model needs to be adaptive and responsive.

    • 3. Embracing Digitalization

    Gone are those days when CSPs focus on merely exchanging rate cards among partners to bill the usage of services. Pricing has become increasingly competitive. Margins are shrinking faster than new business CAGR can grow. Realizing returns is taking a longer time than usual. So, how is the market reacting? Well, the reaction has been to explore unconventional contracts that are driven by data volumes. The complexity of rating has increased in digital contracts with tier/ slab ratings, exclusions/discounts, and commitments.

    • 4. Content is the King

    Bill Gates wasn’t wrong in the late 90s when he wrote a paper predicting how real money will be made by sharing content online. Last decade has seen massive foray by CSPs into the content space under the pretext of diversification. Few years back, NBC Universal (acquired by Comcast) and Time Warner Cable (acquired by AT&T) were seen more as a change for the video market than for telecommunication. But with new digital technology to distribute content, and not just traditional media channels, CSPs have gained prominence there. CSPs are partnering with the OTT players to provide exclusive content and niche audience services in the form of premium bundles. Operator-led OTT subscriptions have become the new business model driving the revenues through targeted customer segments.

    • 5. Rise of Edge Computing

    With billions of IoT devices expected to be in use globally in the coming years, Edge computing will play a critical role in taking the advantage of high-speed data connectivity. Partnerships will become vital with increased collaboration of vendors in the areas of edge devices like sensors, storage, compute & power, etc. CSPs will become the backbone of this network by providing the required connectivity to all partners involved in the ecosystem.

    The last 5 years have been crucial for CSPs in transforming into digital service providers, and this has opened a whole lot of new business opportunities and challenges. Digital transformation had been the buzz word in the industry for almost a decade. In hindsight, it is just an enabler and real transition happens only when organizations embrace & evolve with it.

    If you are interested in knowing more about managing complex wholesale contracts

    DOWNLOAD THE WEBINAR RECORDING NOW!

    Debolina Ray

    Debolina is a seasoned professional who specializes in Telecom Partner Settlement, Route Optimization, Interconnect Billing and Order Management/Provisioning. She has over 10 years of experience in the Telecom industry and has a vast exposure to customers from all regions. Debolina currently works as a Technical Product Manager where she manages the product management for the Cost Analytics Portfolio of Subex. She is an active contributor on various forums like Actuate, QlikTech, and is also a voracious reader and an active blogger.

  • Managing Complex Partner Agreements in the Digital Era

    Managing Complex Partner Agreements in the Digital Era

    Digitalization has opened a plethora of opportunities for Communication Service Providers (CSP) across the globe to transform their traditional service offerings, moving from telephony into content-driven businesses and reaching the status of Digital Service Providers (DSP). There is a paradigm shift in the telecommunications ecosystem with the entry of technological disruptors (like OTT players) resulting in a portfolio of services with competitive pricing models. The depletion of voice revenues and the rise of data services has changed the dynamics of business partnerships.

    The traditional telecom service provider is no longer isolated in the market and has multiple collaborations for audio, video, content, analytics, cloud, etc. Furthermore, due to shrinking margins, operators are looking forward to having contracts/agreements with their vendors and partners, which will create a win-win situation for the parties involved. According to a recent survey by TM Forum, DSPs have a revenue opportunity of around $142 billion from digital services. Whether it is AT&T acquiring Time Warner for $85.4 billion or Reliance Jio integrating with Saavn to create JioSaavn app, telcos are looking to roll out exclusive content to their end customers. Considering that there is much to gain, a DSP without a strong content offering in today’s scenario is almost unimaginable.

    A DSP often has hundreds of content provider contracts (mostly with aggregators) to manage, and there is a huge diversity of partners ranging from a garage developer to the likes of Google.

    Building success factors:

    The phenomenal surge in data consumption by subscribers and free content is driving the majority of telcos’ core businesses today. In addition to this, few telcos are partnering with OTT players to provide exclusive content and niche services in the form of premium bundles. Operator-led OTT subscriptions have become the new business model driving revenues and customer segments.
    Building Success Factors
    Source: IHS Markit

    Driving new business models – The increasing level of complexity

    Initially, rate cards were exchanged between partners for billing the usage of services. Later they entered into bilateral agreements to settle the revenues between them. Now, telcos are moving to digital contracts by partnering with content providers and other OTT players. These digital contracts involve tier/slab ratings, along with exclusions/discounts. Commitments and rating based on specific parameters have increased the level of complexity with respect to rating and charging their partners.

    Let us go through 3 types of agreements that are executed between partners these days:

    There are several agreement scenarios (deals) between the operator and content partner based on different business models. Furthermore, revenue sharing models have been evolving from fixed % based to a tier/slab-based approach across product scenarios.

    1. An agreement based on new subscriptions

    No of New Subscriptions    Revenue Share

    0 – 500                                           P %

    501 – 2000                                     Q %

    2001 and above                              Q % and additional T % for no of subs >2000

    As per the partner agreement, if new subscriptions are negative for a particular month, no pay-out will be made to the partner for that month.

    2. An agreement based on promotions

    Revenue sharing between the parties will be on a monthly basis. The promotion period can be for a few months or it can be ongoing. If the user subscribes to the content for

    Months                  Revenue Share

    1 month                         P %

    2 months                       Q %

    3 months and above      R %

    3. An agreement based on market penetration

    In this scenario, the operator is liable to share the revenue based on the penetration of subscribers in an area. The complexity involved here is that the penetration level of each market is different from the other. In addition to this, there are certain areas where the radius is defined with respect to a landmark. Subscribers within the radius will be charged a premium and accordingly the revenue share.

    In today’s competitive market scenario, partnerships have become the need of the hour for telecom operators and they are moving ahead by signing innovative and complex contracts. The above mentioned examples of digital contracts/agreements are a few models that we have recently dealt with. In the future, we will see many such models with increased complexity and innovative digital contract definitions.

    If you are interested in knowing more about managing complex wholesale contracts

    DOWNLOAD THE WEBINAR RECORDING NOW!

    Have you negotiated or signed any complex contract recently? Let us know in the comments section below. Looking for partner who can help you handle complex contact? Talk to us.
  • ¿Estás listo para descifrar el laberinto de Facturación Digital?

    ¿Estás listo para descifrar el laberinto de Facturación Digital?

    ¿Alguna vez has adivinado quién será tu próximo socio digital, OTT o de venta al por mayor? Al ver el ritmo en que las asociaciones están creciendo a lo largo y ancho de la industria, parece que no obtendrá una respuesta fácil a esta pregunta. En esta carrera, contar con socios es una necesidad de la hora, y eso también en las categorías de entretenimiento, seguridad, juegos y más; no habrá mucho tiempo para analizar los antecedentes del socio o trabajar en la lógica empresarial. Pero estará seguro de que su viaje digital va por buen camino, con nuevas oportunidades de negocios e ingresos … ¡Hurra!

    Ahora, las cosas se ponen patas arriba cuando se da cuenta después de unos días de que hay una dificultad con la administración de la cuenta del socio o contenido defectuoso entregado a los suscriptores, disputas derivadas de los acuerdos, o descubre que hay un problema grave en la forma en que se están ejecutando los términos comerciales. ¿Por qué sucede esto?

    Bueno, el problema podría deberse a la falta de preparación y previsión; tampoco se debe culpar a nadie, el panorama empresarial en rápida evolución arroja una bola curva. Con miles de compañías digitales formando un complejo laberinto de asociaciones, los desafíos son ciertos. Estos desafíos podrían surgir de todos los sectores, no solo de sus socios, sino también de sus clientes o fuentes externas.

    Veamos algunos de los típicos desafíos que puede enfrentar en sus compromisos con nuevos tipos de socios:

    • Hay un proveedor de contenido y un socio que se ocupa de una variedad de tipos de contenido, incluyendo video OTT y aplicaciones móviles, pero le resulta difícil integrar todo tipo de servicios en una plataforma.
    • El contenido ofrecido por su socio está incompleto o corrupto, y los cargos deben revertirse a un cliente. ¿Cómo resolverá el acuerdo en este contexto?
    • Un cliente se involucra en actividades fraudulentas; Por ejemplo, después de descargar el contenido, él / ella no realiza el pago argumentando que el contenido es de baja calidad.
    • La Acuerdo de socios se vuelve difícil a medida que su socio se involucra en prácticas poco éticas, como usar una plataforma fraudulenta para rastrear el número de descargas o las impresiones.
    • Un fraude de phishing afecta a sus clientes, lo que le obliga a compensar masivamente.
    • Una violación reglamentaria inadvertida por su parte conduce a complicaciones legales graves, lo que lleva a pérdidas financieras y daños a la reputación.

    Y la lista continúa…

    ¿Dónde está el problema? ¿Quién será responsable? ¿Cómo superar estos desafíos?

    El problema de fondo con la mayoría de las empresas de telecomunicaciones que buscan oportunidades digitales es a veces la falta de preparación tanto en términos de tecnología, infraestructura y conciencia. Con los constantes cambios en el panorama digital, la presión regulatoria y el aumento de CAPEX, anticipar todo lo que podría salir mal es una espiral descendente. Una actualización de su sistema de soporte comercial y de operaciones (BSS / OSS) podría ser una solución, pero ¿hasta qué punto y en qué medida debería llegar la actualización? La mayoría de las empresas de telecomunicaciones ya han iniciado la transformación BSS / OSS, pero aún no han alcanzado el nivel de madurez digital que se supone que deben. ¿Por qué?

    Bueno, los escenarios discutidos anteriormente indican que la infraestructura tecnológica que está construyendo para proteger su negocio digital debería ser capaz de abordar no solo los desafíos actuales sino también los eventos futuros que probablemente surjan. En otras palabras, debe ser capaz de predecir los escenarios futuros hasta cierto punto y abordar los problemas antes de que afecten al sistema, y que además sea compatible con el futuro para que pueda adaptarse rápidamente.

    En términos generales, una estrategia integral de OSS / BSS que aborda diferentes aspectos como la Gestión de ingresos, la facturación y la Gestión de socios y la experiencia del cliente de manera proactiva es la necesidad de la hora.

    Estén atentos para comprender cómo Subex puede ayudarlo a desarrollar una estrategia de facturación digital que lo ayude a alcanzar el estado de un proveedor de servicios digitales (DSP) de nivel 4 exitoso. Si desea saber cómo las soluciones de Subex pueden ayudarlo a construir un ecosistema digital que aumente sus flujos de ingresos y mejore el valor para el cliente, contáctenos.

  • Are You Ready to Unravel the Digital Billing Maze?

    Are You Ready to Unravel the Digital Billing Maze?

    Ever guessed who will be your next partner in wholesale, digital or OTT? Seeing the pace at which partnerships are burgeoning across the length and breadth of the industry, it seems you won’t get an easy answer to this question. In this rat race, growing partners is the need of the hour, and that too across categories of entertainment, security, gaming and more; there won’t be much time to analyze the partner’s background or work on the business logic. But you are confident that your digital journey is on track, with newer business and revenue opportunities.… Hurray!

    Now, things turn upside down when you realize after a few days that there’s a difficulty with managing the partner account, faulty content delivered to subscribers, disputes arising from agreements, or you find out that there’s a serious problem in the way business terms are being executed. Why do these happen?

    Well, the issue could be arising from a lack of preparation and foresight; no one is to be blamed either, the rapidly evolving business landscape throws a curve ball. With several thousands of digital companies forming a complex maze of partnerships, challenges are certain. These challenges could arise from all quarters, not from your partners alone, but your customers or external sources as well.

    Let’s look at some of the typical challenges you may confront in your engagements with new types of partners:

    • There is a content provider and a partner who deals with a variety of content types including OTT video and mobile apps, but you find it difficult to integrate all types of services on one platform.
    • The content offered by your partner is incomplete or corrupt, and the charges need to be reversed to a customer. How will you settle the deal in this context?
    • A customer engages in fraudulent activities; for example, after downloading the content, he/she defaults the payment arguing that the content is of poor quality.
    • Partner settlement becomes difficult as your partner engages in unethical practices like using a fraudulent platform for tracking the number of downloads or the impressions.
    • A phishing fraud affects your customers, forcing you to compensate massively.
    • An inadvertent regulatory violation from your end leads to a serious legal complications, leading to financial loss and damage to reputation.

    And the list goes on…

    Where does the problem lie? Who is to be held responsible? How to overcome these challenges?

    The underlying problem with most Telcos pursuing digital opportunities is sometimes the lack of preparation both in terms of technology, infrastructure and awareness. With constant changes to the digital landscape, regulatory pressure and escalating CAPEX, anticipating everything that could go wrong is a downward spiral. An upgrade to your Business and Operations Support System (BSS/OSS) could be a solution, but how far and to what extent the upgrade should go? Most Telcos have already initiated the BSS/OSS transformation, but has not yet achieved the level of digital maturity which they are supposed to. Why so?

    Well, the scenarios discussed above indicate that the technology infrastructure you are building to protect your digital business should be capable of addressing not only the current challenges but also the future events that are likely arise. In other words, it should be capable of predicting the future scenarios to an extent and address the problematic ones before they impact the system. And be future compatible so that it can adapt quickly.

    Broadly speaking, an encompassing OSS/BSS strategy that addresses different aspects like revenue management, billing & partner management and customer experience in a proactive manner is the need of the hour.

    Stay tuned to understand how Subex can help you build a digital billing strategy that helps you rise to the status of a successful Level 4 digital service provider (DSP).  If you want to know how Subex’s solutions can help you build a digital ecosystem that boosts your revenue streams and enhances customer value, contact us.

  • Converged Partner Management: Will It Address Telco’s Concerns?

    Converged Partner Management: Will It Address Telco’s Concerns?

    Over the past decade, we have seen how the growth of IP-enabled networks has impacted Telco’s business models. The competition from Over-the-Top (OTT) players brought drastic decline in their traditional voice and message revenues. The discussions on improving Average Revenue per User (ARPU) for Telcos thus chiefly revolved around enabling new service models around Digital, but without compromising the overall budget. The transition of Telcos from traditional Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to Digital Service Providers (DSPs) thus became indispensable but at the same time challenging. One of the top challenges faced by DSPs during this transformation is to manage the diverse ecosystem of partners linked to their business.

    Why Converged Partner Management is Important?

    Considering the complex business environment a DSP operates in, partner management becomes crucial not only to simplify operations but also to optimize revenue streams. Legacy partner management systems have limitations especially due to their lack of flexibility and automation capabilities. By implementing a converged partner management strategy, Telcos can maximize profitability and minimize partner disputes. By integrating the service with ERP and other connected processes, they can also reduce the operational costs considerably.

    Before going deep into the converged partner management solution, let’s explore the scenario in a DSP partner management landscape. The complexity in partner management starts right from “defining the partner business.” Here we have the traditional partners like wholesale and roaming providers whose contracts may revolve around setting bilateral deals for defining traffic and event details for voice, data, and SMS services. On the other hand, there are digital partners like OTT players, VAS/content providers, and IoT players whose contracts may revolve around other metrics such as clicks/impressions, downloads, meter readings, etc.

    The wide variety in partner businesses also brings associated challenges in partner settlement, another major worry for DSPs. Each business entity requires different sets of rules, which need to be applied to the events to generate the final revenue reports. This is not easy considering the exhaustive DSP ecosystem comprising the traditional  interconnect, wholesale, and roaming providers  as well as the new digital partners for services like OTT, content, VAS, IoT, and M2M. Then, there is another set of entities like MSOs, integrators, dealers and resellers who require different types of contracts and settlement rules.

    The dynamic and evolving DSP ecosystem also makes partner onboarding a tricky affair. There needs to be a system that can track frequent partners and in multiple formats, and build mediation capability across them in a seamless manner. Attaining real-time visibility across each platform is important for accurate rating and charging, without which the DSP ecosystem will not work smoothly.

    The concerns over partner management prompted us to think about a converged partner management solution that could deliver an all-in-one package for DSPs. The innovation aimed at delivering real-time visibility into DSP’s end-to-end wholesale business and revenue sources. Our interaction with stakeholders in the telecom landscape helped us sort out the pain points quickly. With the insights gained from the industry, we have now come up with a new ROC Partner Management solution that addresses all aspects of partner management including partner onboarding, partner self-care, end-to-end revenue visibility, and communication under one umbrella.

    As mentioned in the beginning, converged partner management strategy helps Telcos gain end-to-end visibility and drive cost optimization across its service channels. The scalable partner management architecture makes partner onboarding hassle-free. It also enhances the DSP’s service capabilities as it allows them to identify, test, and analyze different contracts before they are implemented.

    To understand more about Subex ROC Partner Management offering, please download the whitepaper.

  • Telecom World Asia 2018: Here we come!

    Telecom World Asia 2018: Here we come!

    Digitalisation. This is the wave which has hit everyone across geographies and in our quest to help the telecom world embracing it and making it real, we are reaching the ‘Land of smiles’- Thailand.  The 2018 edition of Telecom World Asia is taking place in Bangkok on the 19th and 20th of March and I am excited to be a part of Subex delegation. This year, the conference is revolving around four key themes of digitalisation- wholesale, networks, the digital customer, and Telco 4.0. Let me tell you how and why these themes are close to our heart.

    Our product ROC Partner Management is a unified platform which caters to the entire gamut of partner needs of a telecom operator for providing both traditional and digital services and it aligns with the first theme of the conference- “wholesale”. We have two products under the ‘Network’ theme- ROC Network Asset Management and ROC Capacity Management. ROC Network Asset Management is an Asset Lifecycle Management solution which provides standardized processes for managing and optimizing network assets. ROC Capacity Management solution help CSPs to strategize and plan their network expansion & capacity augment investments to improve Customer Experience, increase RoI, optimize Capex, reduce Churn and increase Net Promoter Scores. Hence both these products are aimed at providing capex optimization and customer experience. Our advanced analytics solution ROC insights provide actionable insights about products, risk, revenue and customers and hence aligns well with the themes of digital customer and Telco 4.0.

    The conference is going to cover interesting strategic topics such as the future of wholesale operators, the road to 5G, SDN/NFV etc. which are the favorite coffee table discussions at Subex. Overall, Telecom World Asia 2018 looks a very good opportunity for us to share knowledge, network with industry peers and learn how Telco are addressing the digital transformation. Don’t forget to visit us at booth #20 at the conference. Wai Bangkok!