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Off-beam transformation – What are the side effects & challenges?
Has your organization’s promotional advertisement campaign ever gone off-beam (incorrect or mistaken)? Not only it’s a loss of an investment, but also drastically affects the credibility of the business. Imagine the scale of impact, if a telco’s business transformation, from legacy to new systems, goes off-beam? That would be the worst nightmare for a telecom operator.

Need for transformation

Telcos across the globe are evolving from delivering traditional services to new age services. New age services, like content, digital services, require collaboration with multiple partners serving the ecosystem. One critical aspect of the evolution is the transformation of different OSS and BSS systems to cater to technological disruptions, fixed-mobile convergence, increasing competition and changing mindset of the digital consumers.

Challenges of transformation

Transformation involves migrating complex and voluminous data from legacy systems to the new systems. Proper design, analysis, planning, testing and eventually execution is required to achieve the desired results. Yet, many transformation programs run into multiple issues of quality, budget, and timelines.

One critical area that has a direct impact on the customer experience is charging and invoicing. Off beam transformation, resulting in overcharging or undercharging subscribers, lead to revenue leakages and customer dissatisfaction.

There are many aspects that have a direct bearing on the transformation process. However, they needn’t threaten the transformation journey. Assuring the transformation journey will be the key differentiator in the end user experience.

Transformation journey in a leading South East Asian telco

A leading telco in South East Asia migrated their billing system from legacy to new and observed a dip in the postpaid revenue. While we investigated the reason for the same, below observations were captured:
- Improper configuration of products in the process of transformation to a new system
It had been observed that there is a configuration gap in the new system where offerings given to customers and charging of those offerings is not the same. i.e. the retail tariffs as per the marketing catalog are not matching with the charging rates configured in the billing system. Some of the top revenue-generating postpaid plans were analyzed and an estimated under booking of revenue of USD~ 35K was detected since migration for those plans due to issues in configuration and rating.
- Incorrect application of a discount for some plans was observed
While performing the discount and rating validation, increased discount for the month after migration was noticed and it was because of the behavioral change of the rental/commitment charging. A discount of few million USD was given on one offer id. In addition to this, few Customers were found where positive discounts were given, i.e. discount addition was done in the invoice in place of reduction. Voice and SMS are completely zero-rated and not charged for one of the plans which had accounted for a huge revenue leakage from that plan.
- Incorrect invoices were generated and sent to the subscribers
Overcharging on invoices was observed which can lead to compliance issue with the regulatory body. While performing the product validation, few cases had been observed where customers were being charged for their old subscribed plan even after they deactivated from that plan. This causes dissatisfaction to subscribers and may lead to customer churn.

Multiple reasons can be attributed for the transformation going off beam in the above scenario:
- Complexity of data and issues with data interpretation
- Lack of project management expertise
- Absence of exhaustive test-plan
- Lack of a comprehensive governance framework to manage intergroup deliveries
Had these issues been taken care by the telco while performing the migration of their billing system, the above resulted revenue leakage would have been reduced.

Conclusion

“Rome wasn’t built in a day but burned in one”

Transformation is a complex process requiring proper execution, especially billing systems that are at the core of any telco business.

SAFEGUARD YOUR OSS/BSS TRANSFORMATION WITH MIGRATION ASSURANCE
December 20, 2018
¿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.
December 18, 2018
Addressing the Trust Gap. It is Possible
In our previous blog, we spoke about how in today’s world of rapid and constant change it has become ever so important to make the most of real-time inflow of data. Data is the new oil – and like oil, data needs a refinery before it is used across business use cases. To quickly take a step back, this trend always reminds me of the comic Tintin and The Land of Black Gold – “Boom! … One day your car goes Boom!”. The plot revolves around car engines exploding because of faulty petrol at its source. Similarly, if data is not clean at the source, your business decisions are bound to go “BOOM”!

‘TinTin: Land of Black Gold’ by Hergé

Analytics has been commoditized today, with the entry of open source tools and technologies. However, there is a significant trust gap when it comes to the consumption of analytics. How much do you trust your data? How significant is the output of analytics in the organisations board meeting? While in our last blog we looked deeply into the trust gap and its roots, at the end of the day, we need to realise that analytics is just an application of Math-Technology-Business on data. So, if we believe in Mathematics, have faith in the technological revolution and are confident of our business intuition, there is no reason for analytics not to be considered as the most critical function – all that remains is refining the oil, i.e., data.

We at Subex, recognize and respect this trust gap. We also believe an analytics strategy should build around the golden triangle – People, Process, and Technology. The first and most critical step would be to have analytics done in a democratized manner. Everyone in the organization, from the C-Level, to the Department Head level, to the Analyst level should be armed to be data-driven. The involvement of machine should not undermine the trustworthiness, nor should it lead to a decrease in human involvement; instead, you should leverage the best of both human and machine intelligence to improve products, enhance the quality of service (QoS) and derive more returns from your investments.

Does Human Intelligence + Machine Intelligence = Trust?

Taking the Human Intelligence + Machine Intelligence philosophy into account, we have come up with a concept known as Subex ACT (Analytics Centre of Trust), designed to bridge the Trust gap by covering the end-end cycle of Data-Insights-Decisions (D.I.D.). Let us take a quick look at the three pillars of our ACT program:
1. Defining a Strategy
Before starting the analytics journey, it is imperative to assess the following
1. What is the analytical maturity of the organization?
2. What are my objectives from the analytical program vis-à-vis the business vision
3. Do I have a roadmap in place?
The main Objectives of this process are:
- Setting up the goals for the organization: The Strategy can help deliver competitive advantage, create incremental revenue opportunities, and reduce costs.
- Assessing your analytics maturity vis-à-vis your goals: Understand where you are in terms of your analytics maturity and identify the target maturity which will help you reach the goals defined in step 1
- Plan for the Transition: Understand how you will transition from your current maturity level to the desired maturity level and ensure the process is time-bound, tangible and step-wise. What we recommend is that you identify tangible use cases, such as churn, and move the analytics maturity of addressing churn from, say, 3 to 4. Once that is completed, define another use case and increase the maturity to address that similarly
1. Setting up an Information Infrastructure
Post defining the analytical strategy it is imperative we have the right set of tools to handle the task at hand. The tools which organisations need today need to be the following:
- Agile: Create the ability to address the problem statements based on the requirements
- Scalable: Should be able to handle massive volumes and different types of data
- Reliable: The information that is generated by the system needs to be trustworthy
- Real-Time: For quick and accurate decision making the reports should be in real-time
- API Integration: The tools should be compatible with API-based integration
- User-friendly: Consumption of the reports/data should be easy to use
- Secure: The tool should be compliant with security guidelines
- Self-Serviceable: Accessible UI enabling the end user to self-generate reports
Such an Information Infrastructure should offer a self-service reporting environment wherein each stakeholder gets the access to the tools to analyze and act upon the information. This will not only reduce the time gap in execution but raise the operational efficiency to a new level. As the model evolves into an Analytics Centre of Trust (ACT), the transformation journey becomes smooth.
- Analytical Driven Business Outcomes
The final piece of the Analytical Framework, is clearly towards the analytical output. For too long, organisations have set up analytics practices with a mandate towards delivering on analytics outcomes. Subex is of the firm belief that the key to analytics is to attain business outcomes while ensuring insights are available across all audience levels in a democratized fashion which is easily understandable.

Conclusion

The world of digital technologies is open for Telcos to build new business opportunities as well as excel on the existing ones. It’s time to identify the gaps in your analytics strategy and develop an ACT that helps you climb the ladder faster. As an organization is preparing to capture the active markets, your analytics goals must focus on using information as a strategic asset to generate revenue, improve operational efficiency and provide best-in-class customer service.

In our next blog, we will cover how Subex ACT helps CSPs regarding addressing these three pillars and how it helps bring Agility, an Analytics to Business mindset and Democratization through Consumable Outcomes to your organisation.
November 5, 2018
Selling devices – A boon or bane for Telcos?

Smartphone flashes in mind, when device is mentioned. Devices, however, are a large ecosystem beyond smartphones – a range of equipment like dongles, routers, customer premise equipment (CPE) and IP phones, to name a few. Devices are a great tool for telco to lock their customers in. For instance, the bundled offers with contracts spanning months provide predictable revenues for the telco’s.

The next wave of opportunity

With IoT and 5G making inroads, telco’s are preparing for the next-generation devices for home and office networks. A lucrative opportunity for telcos, as devices are critical to the IoT/5G penetration. Newer devices will be introduced, like small cells to boost network capacity and improve indoor coverage. It’s no wonder that telcos are investing into devices.

Are telcos benefiting from devices ?

Devices are an attractive opportunity as they improve customer stickiness and ARPU. Devices are good promotional tools to attract new customers and gaining traction even in emerging economies. Many customers extend their relationship with telcos beyond contract period.

Yet, procuring, selling and managing devices is riddled with risks. Fraud, leakages and unmanageable debt are hampering the revenues and profits.

A survey across telco’s states:

What are the risks?

Telco’s on an average spends 20% of their OPEX on procuring and servicing devices. The entire supply chain covering the forward and reverse logistics is prone to risks. The supply chain not only involves stakeholders within the telco (marketing, sales, operations, logistics, finance), but many external parties –manufacturer, supplier, financing partner, distributor, shipping partner, warehousing network, retail agents, repair/refurbish partner, and the end-customer.

The technology stack is complex with at least 10 different applications and platforms involved. Leakages of stock in ordered vs received, inventory gaps, devices ageing at inventory, gaps at POS are a few technological risks to highlight.

Bane to boon – Manage the risks

How could telco’s control the risks & leakages, and make the best of the opportunity? It is important that Telcos have Device Assurance strategy in place to manage the device related risks. Stay tuned for more updates about Device Assurance Solution.

October 30, 2018
Cash in on Reverse Logistics

Reverse logistics has long been the problem child of supply chain management. Increasingly that child has been in need of some serious help. This is due to two factors. The way in which the internet has transformed how we shop, and the short lifecycle of consumer goods. Although most consumers still like to shop in high street stores to find the products they like, at least 8% of sales are now from consumers just clicking on a picture to buy a product, comfortable in the knowledge that they can return it if necessary. In most countries, consumers have a legal right to return goods purchased on the internet. Many retailers now even offer free ‘try-before-you-buy’ returns, but the processes for managing those returns, known as reverse logistics, are far more fragile, costly, and susceptible to issues than the generally well-controlled forward logistics processes. Although return rates vary widely across different verticals, the average return rate has been calculated to be around 17 to 18%.

Source: Brightpearl

Reverse logistics faces complex issues due to the ad hoc way in which consumers return items and vulnerabilities in the returns processes. Because reverse logistics is not seen as a revenue-generating process, it sometimes doesn’t get the attention it needs, but recently it’s been getting more widely recognized as having a key role in the company’s profitability. Having efficient processes for collecting, re-selling or recycling used items can bring in additional revenue and improve a company’s bottom line. There are other important reasons for giving more attention to reverse logistics. Consumers are now judging companies on their green credentials, and consumers are aware that many electronic devices contain some highly toxic chemicals. Providing a channel through which old devices can be traded in and reliably recycled is a positive selling point. The efficiency of the returns process also has a significant impact on customers impression of a business.

Although the ‘returns revolution’ impacts all retail lines of business, high-value consumer electronics are especially prone to issues in the returns process. Huge volumes of handsets, set-top boxes, routers, even TV’s and laptops, are now being returned through a multitude of channels for a variety of reasons. Warehouses may receive thousands of such goods per week. Most of those devices may still be working and able to be resold, but tracking such devices back from customers, assessing their viability for resale, refurbishing, repackaging, and then re-distributing them, is a substantial challenge.

The problems begin as soon as a customer says they want to return a device. Whether it is because the device is faulty, unfit, incorrect, unwanted, or because they’re terminating their contract, they must provide notification that the device is getting returned. Agents must correctly capture the details of why the device is getting returned and issue an RMA (Return Merchandise Authorisation). This will trigger a complex sequence of processes to terminate services in the network, calculate bill adjustments, prepare downstream systems for receipt of the returned devices, update inventories on receipt, manage the inspection, refurbishment, and resale of those devices, and potentially issue replacements for faulty devices. Depending on factors such as contract, warranty, device status, termination type or customer rating, customers may be liable for additional charges or eligible for compensation.

Typical return channels would be to send a device by courier, return it to a shop, or a technician may return the goods. Whatever the channel is, devices will often arrive without a clear indication of which customer account they relate to. Returns to stores are particularly problematic with agents failing to scan in barcodes or register returns correctly. In-store systems may not be able to record IMEI, IMSI and/or serial numbers, and there is no motivation for staff to label returned devices accurately.

With so many moving parts it’s no surprise that many devices become stranded or lost along the way, and customers getting charged incorrectly. Operators have been known to write off more than $5+ million in lost devices per month.

One solution is to implement automated controls that provide monitoring across all systems in both forward and reverse logistics, thus assuring that devices can be monitored from the initial order in CRM, in and out of warehouses, with couriers, shipping, refurbishment partners, finance companies and activation status in network service provisioning. With monitoring systems in place that can even detect the physical location where devices are installed, it’s possible to validate inventory, bill customers and partners accurately, prevent fraud, recover maximum value from returned devices and understand why devices are getting returned.

Subex provides ROC Device Assurance solutions to operators around the globe, helping to track down missing devices, reconcile and correct billing, CRM, provisioning, distribution and inventory systems with world leading discovery and reconciliation capabilities.

Want to know how our Asset & Inventory Assurance solution can help your organization

Read a Demo

October 23, 2018
The changing business model of Assurance
It’s been more than a year since I have even looked at my phone bill, lying in my inbox, marked as read, never to be opened. Bundle of services packaged under a single price, only to change by a small margin when India moved to a single Goods & Services Tax framework.

This is the new world of telecommunication. Select services of your liking, planned well like mine is, you would rarely be looking into your bills, scrutinizing itemized lines and stressing about your usage with customer care.

In a recent survey of complaints received at the CCTS (Commission for Complaints about Telecom-Television Services, Canada) while incorrect charging complaints increased by 71% Y/Y, complaints on changes to contracts increased by over 200% Y/Y.

This trend is one of the key indicators of the change that is emerging in the space of assurance. The others being the steady and continuous interest in mitigation of risks within the partner ecosystem primarily related to contracts, margin, partner invoices, and inventory.

What’s Changing?

Today with telcos moving into the domain of content providers with offerings of entertainment streaming, current affairs consumption, shopping, and many more options. All these services are bundled into a highly configurable plan that has an “all you can eat” approach as long as it is within the “Fair usage policy” means for a telco subscription, services, on-boarding, customer intelligence, and QoS are the critical assurance parameters from a retail point of view.

However, the change being addressed has a pivotal impact from a B2B perspective from the massive complexity of the partner ecosystem.

Today for a partner ecosystem the risk universe includes devices, direct carrier billing, partner credibility, partner & product margins, pay-in & pay-outs, revenue sharing, contract alignment and many more which needs to be monitored & actioned on at near real time.

Furthermore, we are not talking just about revenues but also costs and liabilities. So, the new business model of assurance, which we are referring to as “Business Assurance.”

“Assurance is becoming a source of competitive advantage.”

Business Assurance is not just a methodology but a major transformation in practice & technology. The new Business Assurance solution will need to:
- Own and maintain the system that measures data quality
- Own and maintain the business anomaly detection engines
- Manage & drive business intelligence & insights
- Measure and anticipate the impact of changes or offerings on customers
- Monitor the content & partner environment for business feasibility and continuance
- Gain a comprehensive understanding of revenue & cost breakdown in the organization
- Help in assuring the “business model” itself, as opposed to a line of business
In short Business Assurance is the new Revenue Assurance. It is not a question of if this transformation will happen but when will it happen? If it hasn’t yet started, it will.
October 11, 2018
The Analytics Trust Gap. It Is Very Real
So, you are looking to start an Analytics Program within your organisation. You have the tools ready, you have the resources designated for the task, and you have all the required process you need in place to run a robust Analytics program. You expect to see a massive revenue growth within a year; however, after the passage of 365 days, the outcomes are well short of your expectations. At this point, you have a set of questions to ask yourself:
- Where could I have gone wrong?
- My organisation has a massive volume of data. Was the quality of my data not up to mark?
- I had all the tools in place, with Artificial Intelligence automating all the processes. Where did I fall short?
- I have received data from multiple sources? Is this causing the shortfall?
- Have I ensured that the data residing in my data lakes are free from breaches and attacks?
All these questions which arise could ultimately lead you to lose faith in your analytics program.

Over the past several years, we have seen how data analytics has evolved from the simple exploratory level to the current predictive level. With Business Intelligence (BI) playing the pivotal role in decision making, organizations are seeking the power of advanced analytics and machine intelligence to attain agility and competitive differentiation. Telcos, which own the most significant share of customer data among all the industries, are in the best position to leverage them to achieve higher levels of maturity. However, a recent KPMG report reveals a paradox that despite the huge investments in data analytics, organizations are not able to build value around it due to lack of trust. According to the report, only 35% of decision-makers have a high level of trust in their own organization’s analytics, and 25% admit that they either have limited trust or active distrust in their analytics. Moreover, only 10% said they excel in managing the quality of data and analytics, and 13% said they excel in the privacy and ethical use of data and analytics

What Causes the Trust Gap?

The above findings come as no surprise considering the growing complexity associated with handling the data originating from disparate sources. Many studies now indicate that the once 4 Vs to describe key aspects of data (Volume, Velocity, Variety, and Velocity) has now grown to 10 (to include Variability, Veracity, Validity, Vulnerability, Volatility, and Visualization).

But besides the growing complexity of data, there are multiple other aspects which are leading to the trust gap, some of which are captured below.

Quality- a top concern

As the data grows more complex, analysis can be challenging. Poor data quality or incompetent analysis can lead to disaster. As Gartner puts it, “As organizations accelerate their digital business efforts, poor data quality is a major contributor to a crisis in information trust and business value, negatively impacting financial performance.”

Working with false or incomplete data could result in uninformed and biased decisions, which could prove harmful to the overall business. Gartner has also estimated that poor data quality can lead to an average of $15 million per year in losses.

Can we trust machines?

In today’s machine-controlled analytics landscape, building trust becomes even more challenging. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI), coupled with the advancements in machine learning (ML), has opened a plethora of opportunities in data analytics. We have seen many horror stories wherein placing complete faith in AI without human intervention has had disastrous consequences.

Integration of disparate data

Considering that organisations do not have a single source of truth when it comes to the data they gather, data integration is another major roadblock, resulting in poor execution and sometimes complete failure of analytics implementation. Organizations which are slow in their transformation journey confront challenges in integrating data of different formats. They lack the skills, training, and tools to build a centralized access and control policy. Historically, the self-service concept is appealing but has often fallen short of expectations due to barriers faced at multiple levels – technology, people, and process.

Security-an everlasting concern

There is no respite from data breaches and misuse. The fact that fraudsters are making headway by exploiting advanced techniques escalates the concerns. The thin line between the security breach and the reputation of an organization brings the transformation to a halt.

These are but a few reasons to why a trust gap is being created, but they are very real. Should it remain, the trust gap will lead to severe implications in terms of competitive advantage, operational efficiency, and growth. The inability to rise as a data-driven organization means that they also lag mature organizations considering data-driven organisations witness 23x Customer Acquisition, 6x Customer Retention, and 19x Better Profitability (according to McKinsey). And non-data driven companies miss out on all these benefits.

It is clear – The time has now come to bridge the trust gap! The only question that now remains is, how? Stay tuned to our blog for the answer.
October 8, 2018
Its Not Just a Conference – But a Celebration!

It’s almost time for the 15th edition of Subex User Conference! As we count down the weeks, days and (soon to be) hours, many are starting to plan their agenda for the week.

For those who are new to this extravaganza, the Subex User Conference is an annual gathering of telecom operators, technology partners, and Subexians dedicated to sharing first-hand knowledge and provide insights into Subex Products and Solutions, give an unbiased opinion about the performance of products and influence product roadmap and also discuss on some of the challenges faced by Telcos today. This is our 15th year uniting thought leaders who are at the forefront of the telecom industry for two days of informative sessions and networking opportunities. The conference is hosted on 24th & 25th of October in Grand Hotel Excelsior, Malta.

My team often say that this is the only time of the year that they see me working ?. For me, this the most exciting time of the year and is more like getting prepared to host a carnival or a big fat wedding! I am more than a little excited to kick off this year’s festivities and host our customers and partner delegates in beautiful Malta. We’ve got workshops, informative sessions, demos, and social events to help make this conference unforgettable.

To all of our Subex User Conference registrants, we hope you are just as excited as we are for this year’s event! We are eager to share what we’ve been up to, where we’re headed.

Every year we carefully pick a theme for our event and align our sessions and speakers to the theme. Digitalization is the most powerful driver of change. It brings change across all aspects of the business. A known reality! Well, that’s not the theme we are talking about; Imagine a situation where your competition helps you with you topline! Telecom operators are innovating and reimagining their fundamentals; rebuilding their market positions, business systems, partner ecosystems, networks, and business processes.

Reliance Jio created the world’s largest mobile CDN to satiate the Bollywood yearnings of 1.4 billion Indians through high quality, low latency video streaming. #Reimagining Network

GiffGaff decided that crowdsourcing their customer support via open forums creates transparency and overcomes mundane, and at times ineffective and cumbersome. #Reimagining Processes

Verizon bought Yahoo as they saw Digital Advertisers as their new customers. #Reimagining Customers

Google Fi – Google partners with operators across 170+ countries to deliver Planetwide “Roam like Home.” #Reimagine Partners

Keeping in mind such rapid evolutions, the theme of this year’s event is #Reimagining Business

In addition to significant learning and networking experiences, we’ve set aside time to have a lot of fun at this year’s conference. We’re hosting two social events that will help you make new friends in the Subex User Network.

Here’s a quick rundown of a few things to look forward to at #SubexUC:

The Bucket List Life: What if we tell you that we have James Bond speaking at the event!!! Excited?? Well, even we are. This high energy, opening keynote session, will perfectly set the stage. Powerfully delivered by Kenyon Salo, who has been referred to as the ‘James Bond of Speaking.’

Technology Keynote Sessions: We’re bringing you the leaders who are at the forefront of the industry for this year’s technology keynote sessions. Click Here to see the full list of speakers at the event. With the fantastic line of speakers, we are sure that you will make the most of your visit and return to your work empowered by knowledge & connections.

The Sessions: Some sessions will showcase what other users have accomplished with Subex Products & Solutions. Get tips, tricks, and ideas from your peer group, as well as Subex SMEs.

The Company Update & Roadmap: Get a preview of an inside look at our roadmap. Our CEO Mr. Vinod Kumar and Mr. Rohit Maheshwari – Head of Strategy & Products will walk you through the long-term vision of Subex and changes we’ll make to Subex products in the future.

The Social Events: All work and no play make for a very dull conference, and we don’t do dull. We are hosting a welcome reception for our delegates on 23rd October at the Grand Hotel Excelsior. Be prepared to come dressed in Subex Colors (Blue & Green). On 24th of October, after a full day of sessions join us on a Harbour Cruise and witness Malta’s living past and unwind with your peers and enjoy traditional Maltese hospitality and culinary delights.

It is our sincere hope that you share in our excitement for this year’s conference. We are geared up and more than excited to host you at this beautiful Island – Malta. We certainly had a lot of fun in arranging this two-day event for you, and we selected what we think will give you a fun and authentic taste of Malta.

We look forward to hosting you!

October 8, 2018
Actionable predictive analytics: overcoming the analysis paralysis
Why standard forecasting analytics models fail to deliver in today’s world of complex digital networks and why telcos need a domain-specific analytics solution.

“Your analytical dashboards and visualizations look good, but I prefer actionable reports and insights”, said the deputy CEO of a Southeast Asia-based telecom service provider during one of our meetings last year. This was not just one odd instance. We have heard this many times in the past year from other CSP executives. There are many domain-agnostic AI/ML based analytics solution providers in the market, but what telcos really want is an analytical solution which provides end-to-end domain-specific actionable insights. Forecasting traffic or pointing out anomalies is one thing, but how to incorporate those recommendations into capacity planning? What is the root-cause for that anomaly so that it could be prevented in future? Instead of getting lost in analysis paralysis amidst thousands of fancy statistical metrics; a simpler, actionable and reliable predictive analytics solution is the need of the hour.

With the right mix of domain knowledge and analytics advantage, centered around the actual requirements of the network planners; Subex has come up with the concept of actionable predictive analytics. Network planners should be enabled for efficient, reliable and cost-effective capacity planning. Hence, here the focus is more on what matters to the telco network teams, i.e. the business values such as capex optimization, network performance improvement, customer experience enhancement and operational efficiency; rather than on underlying analytical components such as configured models or feature engineering.

Here are two of the most important aspects about Subex’s approach to predictive analytics which are different from the traditional forecasting models –

Multi-variate analysis

Unlike the traditional forecasting systems which predict the future trends for a metric based on the historical pattern of that given metric, in multivariate approach, the system understands the lagging or leading effect on the given KPI from other KPIs. With this, the telco can predict, in near real-time, what is going to happen in the future and adopt appropriate measures to prevent capacity issues. A multi-variate, self-learning forecasting model which runs on the in-house machine learning platform is complemented by domain-specific configurations and expertise which is equally essential for intelligent forecasting.

The figures below compare a multivariate model scenario that considers the lagging effect of KPI1 (e.g. customer complaints) on KPI2 (e.g. capacity utilization) with that of a traditional model that does not give such insights. In the first case, the operator does not get accurate results as yielded in the second case because there is a direct relation between traffic and customer complaints. For example, if there was an aberrant increase in traffic, the operator can take that fact into consideration for accurate prediction of future customer complaints.

One more use-case could be accurately predicting the time to capacity exhaust for a site if one of the neighboring sites is planned for decommissioning soon. In this case, with the help of geo-spatial analytics, the additional load on the given site due to decommissioning of the neighboring site would also be considered for calculating time to capacity exhaust.

Domain Specific Insights

Be it wireless or hybrid fiber-coaxial networks, even an accurate capacity forecast is incomplete without the required domain-specific insights. Without a proper root cause analysis for a network element exhausting soon (in terms of capacity), the network planners won’t be able to make the right decision about its proactive mitigation.

These are some questions to consider when developing your network augment action plan:
- How many customers will be impacted when a given network element hits a capacity exhaustion threshold?
- Will prioritizing the given candidate for capacity augment above other options result in the best customer experience improvement and maximized ROI?
- What is the reason for this capacity exhaust? Is it because of seasonality, periodicity or cyclicity? Is it an anomaly due to some one-off event?
- Will new Capex be required to address the capacity bottleneck, or are there alternatives to new spending?
Some of the insights that could be useful for the planners leveraging predictive analytics for capacity planning and management are shown below –

Apart from the above two key differentiators, some other important aspects for a pragmatic, accurate and reliable predictive analytics solution are scalability and flexibility.

Multi-variate forecast models need to run thousands of simulations across the network to identify the correct correlated metrics for accurate predictions. Such models need to be configurable, flexible and easy-to-understand for non-data scientists.
September 17, 2018
Are Traditional Data Warehouse Challenges Affecting Your Business?

With data emerging as the new currency for businesses, data warehousing demands a new approach in dealing with the challenges. As Gartner puts it, poor data warehousing practices “undermine the organization’s digital initiatives, weaken their competitive standing and sow customer distrust.” Telecom operators are among the most affected by data warehousing challenges as they handle billions of customer data generated from multiple sources like files and probes (SS7, SIP, SIGTRAN), as well as the massive volume of data streamed from social media platforms.

As the volume, velocity, variety, and veracity of data generated continue to grow; the traditional data warehouse approach flounders while managing and analyzing the data. With conventional data warehouse analytics offerings, answering even seemingly simple questions such as “Who are my ten best customers?” could take up to 5-10 days. Even after the team figures out the right criteria, compiling and analyzing the data could again be a time-consuming process. As the questions grow complex, the burden only grows further.

While in-memory databases have helped alleviate the problem to some extent by providing better performance but with rigid data models, it makes data analytics workloads more and more compute-bound. Even it is well understood that traditional data warehouse approaches have become arduous due to the IT dependency and upfront data modeling. As a result, the time to value grows longer, and the outcome materializes only when the business can start to use the reports and insights provided by the data warehouse. Since this approach is rigid, it may also call for data modeling changes, which will further delay the process execution.

Working with data always carried an inherent risk that false or incomplete data could lead to uninformed or even misinformed decisions. Telcos have a winning edge as they are the custodian of largest repository of customer data in the world. Therefore, businesses can no longer ignore these challenges as new business opportunities are emerging around data usage. Look at the sheer size of the data generated during a typical business day, an operator serving 80 million mobile subscribers generates around 20 billion Detail Records (xCDRs) daily.

Worldwide several Telcos have identified opportunities around data monetization – both internal and external. The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) has largely contributed to this upswing. Telcos’ growing engagement with content providers, IoT companies, VAS companies and others prove they are striking it right. At this juncture, it becomes crucial for telecom companies to revise their data strategy around modern big data analytics tools.

Working with poor-quality data can also bring damage to the existing business, especially concerning customer value. As you know, customer preferences are evolving, so ensuring customer satisfaction and loyalty mostly relies on how quickly you address their issues. Big data and real-time analytics gain relevance in this context.

Hence, a robust big data platform is no more a luxury but a business imperative! Stay tuned to know more about Subex’s approach in handling the complexities around a traditional DWH and data quality issues.

For more information on how Subex is helping Telcos address gaps in their analytics approach through an end-to-end framework, attend a webinar we are hosting with Telecoms.com entitled, Bridging the Analytics ‘Trust Gap’ Within Telcos.

Register yourself here: https://bit.ly/2NzFXJF

September 11, 2018