The Indian Telecom Sector-Going into 2011

India has emerged as one of the youngest and fastest growing economies in the world today. One of the sectors that has shown the signs of profitability and contributed significantly to the country's economy is the telecom industry. In fact, the Indian telecom market has gained recognition as one of the most lucrative markets globally. The vast rural market holds a huge potential to drive the future growth of the telecom companies. Further, the government's initiatives for increasing the telecom connectivity in rural areas, are also likely to aid the telecom service providers to extend their services in the unconnected rural areas.

Customer Centricity

Telecommunications companies recognize that becoming customer centric is key to their long term competitive advantage, as many players offer similar features. Customer centricity depends on having a single view of the customer data that gives clear insight into the customer behavior, purchasing patterns, and segmentation. Telecom organizations need access to data that is accurate, reusable, and productive, so that they can create a holistic, real-time view of their customers.

Opportunities

With the arrival of 3G, various operators in India are particular about providing faster and more robust Internet, better access of data services including e-commerce, social networking, audio-video conferencing, and many other broadband applications with very high speed. The deployment of 3G services is also likely to help the emergence of new VAS. The demand for value added services is likely to surge given that 'Gen Y' are more inclined to use the smartphones and adopt the VAS services. Moreover, with the implementation of mobile number portability, the service providers need to focus more on developing VAS as a service differentiator to retain their existing customers besides attracting the new ones.

Knowledge is Power

Most telecommunications companies face 3 significant challenges: Increasing responsiveness to the industry convergence and consolidation; improving customer acquisition and retention; and, effectively managing within the regulatory environment. Addressing these challenges requires clean, consistent, and accurate data integrated from disparate sources across the enterprise, including network, product, ordering, provisioning, equipment, customer, financial and billing systems.

Convergence, Consolidation, and Competition

Today, numerous industry challenges are forcing telecom companies to streamline operations and increase competitive agility. These challenges include:

• Convergence of Services: Telecom companies are bundling broadband, voice, wireless, video and other emerging technologies together, as well as a variety of value added content, in an effort to remain competitive, offer seamless services and attract more customers.
• Industry Consolidation: Ongoing mergers and acquisitions have resulted in duplicate systems and applications across the organization, which have made it difficult to integrate data, realize cost benefits and capitalize on new revenue opportunities.
• Increased Competition and Diminishing Revenue Streams: With new players entering the market, telecommunications companies are competing strongly and selling products and services beyond their core offerings and at much cheaper prices. This is resulting in less revenue from traditional sources, more pressure on profit margins, and an urgency to find new revenue streams by investing in new technologies such as VoIP or fixed/mobile convergence.

To combat these challenges and improve operational efficiency, telecom organizations are investing in new IT applications that support product and service bundles, enhancing or replacing their existing operational support systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS), consolidating redundant systems, implementing automated service provisioning and customer self service, etc.

Conclusion

The success of the telecommunications sector had been limited to the urban areas till now. Conventionally, voice services have been the key driver for the development of the sector, and the telecom operators will also benefit from the introduction of 3G services in the long term. While broadband connectivity and mobile VAS services are likely to open up newer markets, implementation of new technologies and applications by the telecom players will ensure complete efficiency in the business operations.

Sanjeev Kumar
The author is VP & MD, Informatica Business Solutions, India
vadmail@cybermedia.co.in