Telecom Service Providers Want to Tap The Whole Digital Ecosystem: Yael Shatzky

Yael Shatzky is the Head of Marketing for Amdocs Optima, which was set up about 18 month ago for mid-sized communication businesses,MVNOs and digitl enterprises. In an interaction with Voice&Data, Shatzky talks about Amdocs Optima and the changing facet of telecom.

Voice&Data: Tell us something about the different areas Amdocs ventured into of late…

Shatzky: I think over the past 5-6 years, Amdocs has gone into very interesting domains and verticals, including mobile financial services. We have customers here in India and we’ve gone into network. We’ve acquired companies like Actix and Celcite, the two companies with solutions such as Self Optimizing Networks for RAN (Radio Access Networks). And we have been very instrumental in developing the NFV. We have been going into IoT too. We have acquired Vindicia and we are completing our offering in the OTT entertainment domain. And of course, you know, the business unit that I represent is the Amdocs Optima. It has been established about 18 months ago following the acquisition of Converse BSS assets. We have acquired basically those assets and with them we got about 160 customers who are present globally.

Voice&Data: Tell us something about Amdocs Optima

Shatzky: Amdocs Optima has been designed for midsized communication businesses and digital enterprises of all sizes. The new platform consolidates and expands on Amdocs’ offerings for midsized communication businesses, mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) and digital enterprises, including acquired products, and introduces a unifying business integration layer and a sophisticated user interface with a common, cloud-based architecture.

Unlike Amdocs, which serves greatest and largest service providers in the world, including AT&T, Vodafone and Telefonica and all the big ones, Amdocs Optima is for small service providers throughout telecommunication industry. So what Amdocs Optima does is, first of all, we are serving, of course, our telco base, which is a very strong and a stable base, consisting of tier 3, tier 5 service providers. We are also serving MVNOs and MVNEs.

Voice&Data: How do you see the transformation of telecom service providers into digital service provider?

Shatzky: Today, service providers do not want to end up being mere dumb pipes, they want to tap on to the whole digital ecosystem and become more than just the telecom service provider, becoming basically an entertainment company and connecting with media and content and being able to deliver that. We see that roll into that direction all through around the world. I think Gartner said couple of years back that 85% of the service providers in the world would go on to become multi-players.

Companies that haven’t gauged the digital transformation would lag behind. There are figures available which indicate that digital customer service has actually increased the customer satisfaction level.

Amdocs is very well positioned in actually helping them in taking on this digital journey, helping them to go that way and with special solution to solve their specific challenges in the markets. Amdocs Optima has a very special and strong proposition because A, we have Amdocs behind us and B, we bring in information, depth and experience in our projects. We actually harness all that power, all that knowledge and we think that with 160 customers that we have, we actually know so much more than any of our competitors about what they actually need and what they want and how to help them grow.

As per specific requirement of the customer, it’s also more channels which is a unique contribution for the MVNO and MVNE market, so we can basically harbor on the same structure. There are shared structures maybe from the cloud even cost effective – more cost effective and the idea is to make the way very cost effective. We are future ready and very enabled new revenue stream like for example--we are enabling a multi-play system.

On top of that we are implementing, of course, we are third party partners, we are implementing chat box and artificial intelligence to again make sure that our customers are getting everything that they need from the start to end.

Voice&Data: And what kind of role are you going to play when it comes to MVNOs businesses in India?

Shatzky: Well, I can tell you that I hear different things about the Indian markets basically, because I hear from one end I hear that MVNOs are very old. They are going to come and they are going to be very big and we have the MVNOs. We are supporting almost 40, 39 MVNOs throughout the world. In India, there are lots of MVNOs that want to come, but I don’t think that they are coming just yet.