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The Indian telecom industry has been going through a rapid growth
phase, with the mobile subscriber base growing exponentially. It has
also led to greater levels of penetration and adoption across mobile,
pay TV and broadband technologies. The proliferation in value-added
services (VAS), such as ringtones, ring-back tones, premium SMS
services etc have pushed India to the forefront of widespread mobile
content and applications use. In the midst of this rapid upward trend,
communication service providers (CSP for short) are wary of the
challenges imposed by increasing penetration levels, the need to focus
on the lower-ARPU rural markets for sustained subscriber growth levels
and the imminent introduction of mobile number portability (MNP).
All these factors have been instrumental in elevating the role and
importance of Operational and Billing Support Systems (
in a CSP's infrastructure.
OSS/ BSS Adoption in India
The CSPs in the Indian market have been early adopters of packaged
software application that address certain aspects of the OSS and BSS.
Well thought through mediation, billing and service activation systems
have been deployed by Indian CSPs for several years. The focus in
recent years has shifted to systems that address the less tangible
business objectives, such as operational efficiency and customer
satisfaction and experience. These business objectives call attention
to specific process related areas such as customer care and
relationship management (through CRM systems), automated service
fulfillment (through order management systems) and network asset
optimization (through more functional inventory management systems).
These (CRM, Order Management, Inventory Management) are all critical
aspects of the BSS/OSS solution set and it is a sign of the maturity of
the Indian CSP industry where focus has shifted in this
direction. Technology, no doubt, has become a strategic business
enabler for telecom companies. Greenfield operators are using
technology for faster rollout of their services, while existing players
are using it to retain their customers and maximize ARPU.
Challenges for Service Providers &
Opportunities for IT Suppliers
The challenges posed by the changing market landscape (see above) as
well as the increased focus on operational efficiency and customer
satisfaction manifest themselves in a few areas. As is common with any
challenge, there is a concurrent opportunity, both for CSPs and
partners and suppliers to the CSP community.
Challenge # 1: Cost-efficient operations as the drive into
lower-ARPU market segment gains momentum
Service providers are looking to greater cost efficiencies across
all aspects of their IT and network operations, as they dive head-on
into the lower-ARPU segments in the Indian market. Some of the new
mobile service providers, who have launched services in the last 12
months, have upped the established operators in this area by investing
in integrated BSS/OSS applications suites. Integrated BSS/OSS suites
that provide rich functionality and pre-integration in critical areas
of service fulfillment, billing and assurance, help reduce incremental
costs of development, integration and pre-roll-out testing.
Challenge # 2: Addressing the needs of the enterprise customer
segment
For long, the enterprise (corporate) customer business units have
received less focus and attention from marketing and customer servicing
operations. This is beginning to change as CSPs have realized the
“value” of this segment and have begun to focus their energies in
building these business units into larger self-contained growth
engines. This presents a significant opportunity to suppliers and
partners alike, especially in areas of BSS and OSS that address network
inventory management, complex order management, sales force automation,
differentiated promotions and pricing, flexible bill aggregation and
distribution, self-service for fulfillment of services and
trouble-reporting etc.
Challenge # 3: Multi-service convergence
While convergence in various forms has always been present in the
Indian market, the need for changing or optimizing internal processes
and systems to support effective multi-service operations is being felt
more acutely these days, by CSPs. As operators evolve beyond
pure-communication services, to embrace content, media, financial and
retail services, across a variety o delivery channels (mobile, Pay TV,
high-speed internet and - in future -
existing investments in BSS and OSS components are being stretched
beyond their comfort zones. One of the most challenging decisions for
CSPs in this environment is whether they should continue to tweak and
modify existing systems or they should invest in new application
components or even suites. While there is no single answer across the
entire CSP Diaspora, this problem presents significant transformational
opportunities to suppliers with modular, rapid-deployable application
components that are built on the latest technology paradigms (SOA,
J2EE, in-memory data grids) and industry standards.
Conclusion
Even as the Indian telecom market stands out as an icon on growth
and innovation, service providers are preparing themselves for the
challenges posed by decreasing ARPUs, cost efficient operations,
uniqueness of customer segments, convergence of services over divergent
networks and the focus on customer retention and satisfaction.
Addressing these challenges would require CSPs to revisit the
principles on which their BSS and OSS solution sets have been built and
operated. While across-the-board replacements of existing systems and
technologies may not be feasible, there are advantages to be gained in
selective adoption of new technology/applications and a
transformational re-look at business processes and systems. The
need of the hour is for CSPs to evolve to more state-of-the-art OSS/BSS
architectures that enable faster rollout of services and also mitigate
risks, costs and complexity.
Raghu Prasad, Senior Director, Business
and Technology Transformation, Oracle Asia Pacific