The IT mindset of Telecom providers in the early 2000s was very cost-centric. CSPs had to provide BSS and OSS through their physical network and operations to their clientele, which involved significant infrastructural investments and hence was capital intensive. That in turn meant very high entry barriers and a fairly low number of players in a particular market. It was a “golden age”.
However, outbound market players from the traditional Telco sphere, who are digitally enabled and digitally efficient, capitalized on technological developments and adapted their business models with the advent of ubiquitous, speedy and stable internet connection. Digital Natives such as Whatsapp and Skype took away Telco’s value as a communication enabler.
They did not need to own any infrastructure yet acted as value vampires who provided a classic Telco service – local & international calls – at little or no-cost to the end-user. In return they gathered what has become today’s most prized commodity: Data.
Telecom provider services on a global scale are increasingly regarded as a simple utility, like water and/or electricity, with eroding margins, and fail in comparison with other industries to establish a strong relationship with their customer base. Loyalty is absent as their service is merely regarded as a commodity. It has also been under extraordinary network infrastructure stress to provide adequate bandwidth to work-from consumers since the advent of Covid-19.
This implies the IT mindset of Telco providers is to be reimagined. CSPs need to reassess the role of IT in their core operations for it to become more impact-centric and become more open about their architecture. Telcos need to change their cultural mindset and redefine their relationships with their customers, starting with developing their Digital Identity.
The Telecom sector remains at the forefront to develop and use technology to provide customers with a personalized ecosystem of secure cutting-edge digital services & content and develop a new business model that is agile and data-driven, with flexible business processes and automated zero-touch operations that are fit for the 5G and beyond world.
We are at the dawn of what is known as the “Machine Economy”, which relies on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), the Internet of Things (IoT), and other “smart” technologies that work at a high speed and degree of availability. For instance:
Smart Networks: With the help of AI and machine learning algorithms, “smart” networks have the ability to self-optimize. This allows telecom providers to anticipate network performance problems, improve network quality, reduce latency, ease congestion, and prevent service interruptions.
Data analytics: Data analytics gives the telecom industry a deeper understanding of consumer behavior, allowing for the creation of more individualized services and an enhanced end-user experience.
Internet of Things (IoT): IoT networks are enabling predictive maintenance of physical assets as well as new business models (smarter industries, cities, and households).
Smart Automation: Telco companies are now able to deliver immediate, individualized real-time support to their consumers thanks to automated customer support solutions like chatbots and intelligent digital assistants.
As the Machine Economy matures to increase efficiency and improve service delivery, large 5G technology and optical fiber investments need to be recouped by Telcos with the B2B corporate services market while maintaining B2C customer care and service quality. This also means the volume and variety of data required by these new smart technologies is stretching traditional data management infrastructures beyond their limits. Without adequate governance, several data management challenges may hamper innovation and create bottlenecks across the ecosystem that need to be addressed by a expert team, namely:
– Exploding data volumes
Organizations are experiencing an explosion in both the amount and the types of data that need to be collected and stored from a growing number of sources, including but not limited to transactional data, data from machine learning algorithms, IoT networks, sensory or location-based data, etc., social media strings, videos, and/or external partner data sources.
– Talent shortages
Demand for data experts far exceeds supply, leaving many institutions without the resources to keep data safe, accurate, and readily accessible. This includes data engineers that are responsible for designing data pipelines and data architectures that can handle complex data management processes, data management teams who ensure data availability while preventing data breaches and ensuring compliance with local regulations, as well as data scientists who extract valuable insights.
Establishing ecosystems to assemble the elements of customer offering can both strengthen Telecom providers’ value proposition and shorten delivery cycle times. Using a set of standards such as open-API and common platforms are paramount for efficient data management and a successful digital transformation, whether it is for the public or private sector.
It is also paramount to have a strategic view of data. Making data and common components accessible to developers will enable city, community and commercial applications. Telecom providers need to champion this joined-up approach and avoid inefficient siloed digital transformation initiatives.
At OREDATA, we promote the digitalization of telecom companies’ business operations and contribute to the enrichment of their value proposition by enabling their digital services using Cloud Technology, Big Data, Machine Learning And Advanced Data Analytics to maximize ROI and reduce operational costs. Our team of Data Engineers and Data Scientists will ensure your business does not have to endure data duplication, data quality issues, and data integration challenges. No need to spend a lot of time and money trying to track down your data sources.
We work in collaboration with your teams across your departments to automate activities in marketing, sales, network, finance & procurement. For instance, we can help develop an early warning system to detect anomalies, provide a single 360 customer view to better understand their behavior, increase customer acquisition & retention using real time data and provide insights that indicate the risk to churn or the propensity to become a new customer.
We also provide managed services and assist in the data preparation and management of projects throughout their life cycle by applying agile methodologies and providing technical profiles such as project managers, service managers, and subject-matter-experts, among others. OREDATA will guide you in your business processes and do the heavy lifting to provide you with data insights while you focus on your added-value core business. This includes:
– Data discovery to identify data sources
– Data profiling to determine data attributes and data quality
– Data ingestion into data warehouses or data lakes using complex ETL processes
– Data cleansing to deal with data errors such as missing data, wrong data, or illogical data
– Data enrichment to fill in missing information such as location or date
– Data transformation to convert data from one format to another