Tecnotree Newsletter
Issue 2

Taking operators’ business online

There’s a pot totalling $41.4 billion that 900 mobile operators worldwide will spend on OSS/BSS solutions during the next 12 months. This investment will build a platform and pave way to a new kind of an approach to offering digital content and services, and serves as an opportunity for operators to take their business further online.

According to Operator Trends 2012 research results, by 2017, almost two-thirds of all operators could offer fixed-mobile-broadband-cable/internet TV packages. The key to this evolution of service bundling is allowing the customers to choose the content and third party services they want. In fact, a whopping 83 per cent of operators surveyed think it is commercially beneficial to offer bundles where customers can choose whatever content and services they want from a product catalogue.

Content and comfort is king

In another words – content and comfort is king: if operators want to optimize their revenue stream, they need to make discovery and consumption of services as easy as possible. The selection of content and services also matters, and mainstream brands and applications need to be included. However, only six per cent of the respondents thought that exclusive content as such is the driver for consuming bundled packages. OTT services, often seen as threat to operators’ traditional business, should be included as well.

The respondents of the survey believe three digital services will add the most value to their product offering: video on demand, cloud storage and mPayment services. In fact, mobile payment services are seen as the most valuable content service to be introduced in the next 3-5 years. Service discovery, together with the ability to make transactions is an incredibly powerful tool and one that CSPs in mature markets have learned to better be involved with.

For developing market operators the survey results clearly signpost the direction for the future. Due to the expected smartphone penetration growth, mobile Internet access of services may well be the first online experience for customers in developing markets. 

Finally, based on the survey results operators will in the near future compete upon a few primary elements such as bundled service packages, price and additional consumer benefits. We look forward to witness examples of such competition and offerings in the markets!

Download the Operator Trends 2012 research paper

Solving the problem of services bundling

To understand Operator Trends 2012 research implications from the product perspective, we interviewed Timo Ahomäki, Tecnotree Vice President, Product Management in MWC2012, Barcelona.

Timo confirms that according to the survey, operators are willing to do product bundling and intelligent marketing on bundles. However, systems issues such as lacking IT infrastructure or processes are hindering operators from doing so.

The above represents an interesting opportunity to prove the power of a broad and integrated portfolio. Furthermore, Timo highlights two products being key for solving the bundling problem: the integrated product catalogue and a customer lifecycle management system that analyses the customer behaviour and tries to predict future buying trends. These are exactly the two product areas where Tecnotree will be putting most of its new product development effort in 2012.

Watch the interview

Available whitepapers

Downloading a research paper or whitepaper from our website is now easy!

If you wish to take a look at e.g. both the recently published Bundle Services for Every Taste whitepaper or the popular Voice Services Consolidation whitepaper, just go to tecnotree.com/whitepapers.

Tidbits:

‘New opportunities are emerging through intelligently bundling of services across the businesses’ – Bundle Services for Every Taste whitepaper

‘Increasing cost efficiency by consolidating access to voicemail and IVR services through a common media server’ – Voice Services Consolidation whitepaper

‘New services for both business and consumers involve the resources from multiple suppliers to define, deliver and support the offering of personalized services’– Meeting Customer Needs - Service Offer Personalization and Partner Collaboration whitepaper

Events

6th Annual OSS BSS Asia Pacific Summit

The 6^th Annual OSS BSS Summit by Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan looked into the changing world of communications marketplace. This year, Tecnotree was a proud gold sponsor of the event. Our exhibition stand was manned by our regional team; Jeevarathinam Ravikumar, Vice President, APAC, Desmond Ong, Sales Director and Sofian Rahman, Customer Management Director. In addition Timo Ahomäki, Vice President, Product Management, came over to give a speech on the topic of ‘Driving New Business Models From Real-Time Billing and Policy Management’.

The summit was characterised by highlighting the ever-increasing speed in which new trends and drivers emerge and define new roles for business and operations support. The facilitator of the event, Karl Whitelock, Stratecast Director Strategy, OSS BSS, emphasised trends such as social networking, cloud services, changing regulation and consolidation amongst service providers to push CSPs today to redefine and fine-tune their operational procedures and underlying IT systems. Specifically, Karl highlighted two new trends for 2012 and beyond: proliferation of mCommerce and mobile payments as well as an increasing need for real-time decision-making. He explained the latter being driven by the rising usage of data hungry apps and services which in turn push CSPs to enforce real-time policy control. Unless they do so, they will have challenges to meet the service levels they have committed to.

In an upcoming video interview Carl will share his thoughts on evolving customer experience management and initiatives he thinks service providers should undertake in the months to come. Stay tuned to the Tecnotree YouTube channel!

EurAsia Com

The 8th annual Eurasia Com conference and exhibition gathered stakeholders from across the Eurasian region. Tecnotree was present at the conference for the second time in a row, represented by Kai Honetschlaeger, VP Europe and Frank van Gumpel, Business Development Director Europe. 

Tecnotree had meetings with operators such as Avea, Tukcell, Vodafone Turkey and Turk Telecom from Turkey, Bakcell and Azercell from Azerbaijan, Eagle Telecom, BH Telecom, and MTS. Special interest among the operators was generated by Tecnotree’s new offering on Customer Lifecycle Management and Unified Product Catalogue.

A brand new thing organized for the first time at the conference was Speed Networking. The representatives from the telecommunications operators met the sponsoring suppliers for quick 1 minute sessions in order to get a first impression of the portfolio of the suppliers. As a result there were more intense meetings organized if the operator was interested in what the supplier had to offer. This was a very effective way to get connected and to identify opportunities.

Upcoming events

The following are upcoming events Tecnotree is organizing or participating in:

• IQPC Maximising Customer Loyalty & Profitability 2012
• Tecnotree Europe Customer Forum

Full details of events

In the next issue

Some of the topics we will discuss in our next issue

- Bundle Services for Every Taste: how to launch service bundles faster, at the same time delighting your customers with a compelling customer experience and improving your operational efficiency.

- Update from one of our sales regions