Accelerate the path to digital transformation and revenue growth through modern BSS

SPEAKERS

Sachin Saraf and Ken Wieland

Ken Wieland
0:00:00
Welcome to the Light Reading Executive Spotlight Q&A. This is Light Reading’s sponsored podcast series, exploring the people and technologies moving the industry forward. My name is Ken Wieland, and I’m joined by Sachin Saraf from Comviva, where he’s EVP for DigiTech Business. Sachin, thanks for joining me.

Sachin Saraf
0:00:31
Thanks, Ken, for having me on this podcast. No problem.

Ken Wieland
0:00:35
Now, what we’re focusing on today is how modern business support systems can accelerate digital transformation for operators and crucially help them grow profitable revenue. And as a way of introduction to this important topics, Sachi, I’d like to start off with a couple of very broad questions. What’s the general mood of the industry right now? And what trends are you seeing in discussions with your customers?

Sachin Saraf
0:01:02
Interesting question, Ken. On the mood in the industry, I would say the last few years has been very optimistic. Customers were excited about the whole 5G stuff. However, with the recent situation, the pandemic and the later macroeconomic environment and the recession and the inflation has added some caution to that optimism. So some of this has impacted the trains as well. And let me just give you a quick summary of that. Billions of data connections, we are saying closely around eight to nine billion data connections consuming around 10 to 12 GB bandwidth every month. We are seeing a trend where this will increase by four to five times in the next few years, which means there is going to be huge demand on the bandwidth and that’s going to put a lot of challenges on the network infrastructure and also the systems which are monetizing the network, which includes OSS and BSS of the world. Also, which means that the traditional business models that are there today, which are dependent on the data download features are not going to be any more relevant as customers will have unlimited data download features or requirements. In addition to this, 5G has been very strategic to most of the customers. And to respond to these different challenges that I just talked about, 5G is cornerstone of their strategy. This means 5G will help in terms of defining new use cases, not only because of technology and efficiency, but also in terms of how enterprises will leverage 5G, how cable companies will launch MVNOs and different consumer market will move from traditional prepaid to contract-based postpaid services and higher data packages. So, while this all is happening, 5G is not cheap. This is this new slot of investment. So, if you look at all these points and try to summarize in two points or three points, I would say the trends of the industry are driven by two curves. One is the cost curve, which is not only for the network, but for acquiring customers and the systems like OSS and BSS that will help to drive Forex capacity three times the customer base and still maintain the same cost. Second is the revenue curve, where customers expecting to pay the same price, which means less revenue for the operators and maintain the same cost on which they are running their current systems. So these two points, the cost curve and revenue curve would be the trends that will dominate in coming years. Okay, well, let’s just talk a little bit more about that all-important revenue curve.

Ken Wieland
0:04:24
Now, revenue growth is, of course, a challenge for most operators, and we’ve seen increases in prices as a response to higher inflation. It is simply raising prices as a sustainable long-term strategy. How do you see revenue growth shaping up for operators in the near future? Yeah, good question, Ken, again.

Sachin Saraf
0:04:45
And we are seeing operators responding to this cost situation or revenue growth curve by increasing the prices for the services that they are offering to the customers. And while we see that in short term, there is a revenue growth for many operators, there a train that is leading to increased churn of the customers. They’re changing their loyalty to different operators and emerging operators, I would say. So in long-term, increasing price is not going to be a right solution for operators. However, the cost structure has gone up because of inflation, which means they need, definitely need more revenue. So what it means is that the customers and the operators will have to get into a different engagement model. The operators will request for more money. However, they will have to deliver more value to the customers for that increased price, which I’m calling it as more value for more price. I can give a quick example. In a family home today, individuals are subscribing to different services from different service providers, whether it’s connectivity, whether it’s voice or entertainment or sports or gaming. There is an opportunity for an operator to sort of bundle these services in an innovative way that will generate higher revenue for that operator, but at a lower price for the family or the household, and will create a win-win situation for both the parties. This more-for-more is a strategy that will dominate coming years, and that’s, I think, the right strategy for revenue growth for the operators. Another area I would say there’s a potential good revenue opportunity for operators is a fixed broadband. With 5G coming there and fixed wireless convergence happening, the fiber market evolving fast in North America and other parts of the globally, there is significant opportunity to sort of get the fixed wireless broadband as well as the fiber based broadband. The cable companies are not going to lag behind. They would launch new wireless services to compete with the wireless operators and offer new bundles. So this competition is going to, you know, create new opportunities. And you will see operators trying to drive more for more strategy, even with more rigor and focus.

Ken Wieland
0:07:45
Okay, well, can you talk more about the tenets of a more for more strategy for US operators? I mean, what are your proposals?

Sachin Saraf
0:07:53
More for more is, yeah, as we’re saying, more value for more price. So some of the trains that are helping to drive the strategies, basically building a customer profile. So using all the data of the customers, as well as the network data, the usage data, an operator can create a comprehensive customer profile. can be leveraged by some great real-time marketing platforms and drive new offerings for the customers through personalization, through contextual offers, through upsell and cross-sell different products and services, and creating a strong loyalty with those customers. This can help in reducing the churn and customers would buy more and more those services from this operator leading to more revenue. Now, driving these new contextual bundles or intelligent bundles, you need a different strategy on your IT systems, whether it’s OSS, BSS or on the network. You need systems that can build those offers quickly, launch those products to the customers within hours and respond to different data trends and build new offers for the customers that is relevant to them. This means operators having customer and revenue management systems that can help them to introduce these offers quickly, not only in the new offers, but also in the traditional products and services. So in summary, leveraging data within the operator ecosystem can build new revenue lines, new revenue channels for the operator by keeping the cost at the same level. I think this is one strategy in North America is being used extensively to support this more for more. Okay, well how does Comviva’s solution actually enable this for operators? I mean if you could share some examples that’d be great. Yeah, so as I said all the service operators are looking for systems which can respond to these features that I just talked about. Systems that can support more for more. of technology, it means systems which are more agile and they can help to build processes quickly. They can scale horizontally and vertically with CI, CD toolchains. And these systems become even more important when you see the service providers are acquiring number of systems, there are mergers and acquisitions happening between lines of business, leading to complex network footprints and multiple systems delivering same functionality. And in this kind of systems environment, operators struggle to sort of build these new offers and products and bundles in real time and deliver that great customer experience. Comviva’s BlueMarble platform is built to solve this problem of complexity. And this platform basically is a cloud native microservices based platform that can abstract the complexity out of the existing legacy systems and can build a federation layer and decouple the customer experience from the complex system stacks with the operator and deliver these new products and services and bundles in near real time. For example, Comviva has deployed BlueMarble platform for a tier one European operator where the operator was going through multiple mergers and acquisitions leading to a situation where there are siloed operations, different brands, different solutions and multiple stacks. So Comviva offered an omnichannel solution on top of this existing complex legacy architecture and created a single sales channel or a federated digital layer that could solve this problem of launching services that are consistent for all the customers, sales process that is consistent for all the channels and sale bundles services across all the customers, leading to almost 50% savings on their cost and average handling time. Another operator in North America, Comviva has deployed a BlueMarble retail solution where the operator was facing operational challenges and siloed systems that were leading to inefficiencies. They were not able to get a real time view of the business. BlueMarble retail streamline the operation, help to streamline those operations and automated the workflows. Also help the field to have a consistent view of their business in near real time. Overall, it improved the efficiencies significantly for this operator in the very first year. So Blue Marble is a perfect solution to drive more for more strategy for operators.

Ken Wieland
0:14:15
Well, thank you, Sachin, for sharing your insights and how a modern digital BSS can help operators accelerate digital transformation and grow profitable revenue. And thank you listeners for tuning in until next time goodbye goodbye

Sachin Saraf
0:14:30
Thank you!