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Tag: Digital Billing

  • How the Power of 5G will Redefine Partner Management

    How the Power of 5G will Redefine Partner Management

    For an industry struggling and grappling with the speed at which new technology innovations are gaining relevance, 5G promises to be a serious game changer and the claim is completely merited. But nevertheless, telecom operators and their partners are very optimistic with the promised power that 5G will bring but are wary of the super-organizational efforts it will take to have real bottom line impact. 5G will change the equation for the industry much like the advent of cellular phones and services did when they shook the world with its possibilities.

    One Promise, Myriad Applications

    With adjacent technologies like Multi Access Edge Computing and Network functions virtualization to AR/VR that will thrive, the emergence of 5G promises to increase the number of connected smart devices.

    The use cases are many, and some are life changing. Video delivery and adverts are two areas that will significantly gain from enhanced speed, making the experiences highly personalized. The Quality of Service and SLA for each of these use case will depend on the criticality, and the acceptable thresholds will be adjusted based on the services. Quality of Experience (QoE/QoX) models will evolve for newer applications.

     

    With the ability to service numerous connected devices, the levels of quick and agile responsiveness are going to shake up the current equation. 5G will provide low latency needed for AR/VR enabling high speed data transfer. The impact of all these of course is a significant improvement in quality and experience!

    The impact of 5G thus, affects telecom operators of course, but also sees a lot of across industry use cases. The discoveries of new use cases will lead to the rise of modern partnerships in areas such as IoT, AR/VR, smart homes, virtualized networks, distributed cloud amongst others. So, hospitals as enterprise partners for remote surgeries, augmented reality shopping experience for brands, collaboration apps that are reinventing mainstream games – these are just some of the possibilities that will impact enterprise business as well as retail.

    However, as we move ahead, there are two aspects that need to be clear:

    • The basics of what this promised change is in terms of technology, capability and regulations
    • What operators need to do to fully optimize the powerhouse performance that is expected from 5G

    Yes, they could both be moving targets and rapidly adapting is the need of the hour.

    A Careful Hope

    The reason why caution must be exercised though it is easy to get carried away in the excitement is that the basic systemic problems remain unchanged. Tightening regulatory norms and increased compliance requirements, the global debate on privacy and data breaches, intense competition translating to depreciating profit – all these are very much alive.

    5G must be embraced by operators but there needs to be a method of adoption. There is greater scope for perimeter security and 5G will mean increased efficacies, but all of this will only come to fruition if these exercises are balanced with understanding the now-more-than-ever-importance of data analytics, AI and machine/deep learning and understanding how all of these components will be needed to offer improved service. What this means is that network operators finally have a chance to take somewhat of a centre-stage in ascertaining more control over two critical aspects

    1) Re-building their customer experience so there is a shift in perception and hopefully loyalties and

    2) Finally finding a way to ensure monetization is addressed

    Changing the Paradigm with 5G

    The journey towards 5G implementation is going to be a long and arduous one. While 4G is not something that operators can ignore entirely and shouldn’t, there must be a re-look into the operators’ own business models and relationships with key stakeholders. They need to see where deeper relationships can be forged to understand the customer’s somewhat limited yet exaggerated expectations of 5G.

    For the 5G promised change to make a significant difference, industry require alertness towards the variegated forms that disruption and transformation are going to take. The definite actions to make this happen will simply make all the difference between success and failure for the world’s telecom operators.

    To know more about Subex Partner Management solution.

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  • 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.