Q. Obviously NBI or “Network Business Intelligence” is a derivative of Business Intelligence. Can you explain what NBI means and the underlying principals of it?
“It is basically network monitoring and control that you gain from this NBI. Telecom operators have a lot of different types of traffic from fixed, mobile and broadband services so in order of course to keep a high customer satisfaction level you need to have a very good up time of these various services. This is where NBI comes into the picture, basically ensuring that you have good network management.”
Q. The concept of NBI is not limited to only telecoms, but in your opinion is the telecom industry particularly a good fit?
“Well I have a telecoms background myself where I have worked for both the Danish incumbent and later for their primary challenger and it is really a problem we have experienced in the past that when you don’t have good network management you really get a lot of bad customer experiences. For example in the enterprise segments, it is really key that you have a good and stable network with a high up time for your phone calls.”
Q. What are the tendencies of the telecom sector with regards to NBI at this time? Is it a growing trend? Are more and more operators becoming aware of NBI and adopting it?
“I definitely think so and especially because we have this proliferation of different networks. We have 2G, 3G, 2.5G, HSDPA networks. You have broadband and fixed networks. So you really have a lot of networks out there. Also machine to machine networks is something that we will see emerging very soon. So it really is a key challenge for operators which are active in all these different kinds of networks to have a good and stable network. Also when you see operators bidding for new licenses which they do from time to time, then it’s really important that your traffic planning is in place. Locally in Denmark we have had some bad experiences with the 3G network. The first operators which were active in this area really had a lot of problems with the up time and fault correction so it really took them quite some time before they became good at managing their network and that has given them some bad reputation in the market. Further we have seen in general, there’s this cost focus and focus on minimizing cap-ex (capital expense) costs and this is where NBI can help out in minimizing costs because it is basically very expensive to run, for example, the repair services of technicians so you really have to make them as effective as possible.”
Q. You mentioned the proliferation of so many network technologies fighting for a dominate position and that there is no apparent end in site. So in your opinion, do you think the need and the trend for adoption of network business intelligence is going to continue just in the same way that these new emerging technologies are going to keep on coming?
“Yes I think it’s really very interrelated and I haven’t really seen that any specific type of network will win. There have been a lot of discussions about Wi-Max versus LTE (long term evolution) which covers most of the existing technologies like 2G, 3G and 4G that are emerging. I really think these different networks will supplement and complement each other so this network proliferation will definitely continue. And as I mentioned, machine to machine communication is one of the key growth areas in many telecoms and that has some very specific network requirements as well.
IP communications is another area that is a new type of
network that needs to be managed so it really is exploding
at the moment.”
Q. Given the highly competitive nature of the telecommunications industry, the business decision makers are always looking for ways to gain an edge over their competitors. The obvious areas of focus would be pricing, services and support. How could NBI give an edge to an operator over his competitors
in any of these areas?
“There are different ways to avoid unhappy customers but I think a very basic thing for a customer is that your network is working. In general, telecoms have a lot of data. Not only traffic patterns and such but they also tend to have a lot of different type of customers which are not necessarily homogeneous, so again here you have another need for business intelligence. In general, you need to analyze, segment and make categories of these customers to find out which ones are the good and the bad customers. And I think if you can combine NBI with general business intelligence solutions that is a very important thing. Basically getting to understand your customers as well as possible. Another thing is that most incumbents have a wholesale business as well and these wholesales are definitely very keen on getting a good network because it is their life and blood to ensure that the network is continually up and running. A third thing is roaming which of course is an important area for telecoms because there’s a lot of revenue involved and it can be quite difficult to control because it is international and it’s very key for an operator to get proper control of your roaming traffic.”
Q. Knowing that the bottom line is the most important factor in all business decisions and that includes not only earning revenue but also preventing the loss of revenue, how do you think in general a Telco could benefit from adopting NBI in terms of ROI and attaining business goals?
“If you look at the telecom sector as a whole, one key challenge is of course revenue growth. If you look at the whole industry then it’s really something that they are struggling with and this is why they turn their focus to cost control and as I see NBI, it’s more focused on costs than generating new revenue. Of course the next step will be to use it more actively in revenue generation, but firstly it is about saving costs and most telecom operators are measured on EBITDA and it’s really key for them to get as high an EBITDA margin as possible so they continually looking for ways of improving their cost structure and this is where I think NBI can help out.”
Q. Obviously the challenge of adopting NBI would be directly related to the size of
the company, but can you identify some of the complex-ities that would be involved in adopting NBI?
“I think you need to consider the human factor of this. Most people working with NBI are probably engineers or technical staff and NBI is about data management so you need to think about probably upgrading your human resources in this area making sure that the people have the right training and ongoing support. Just as with any other software, make sure you have some super users within this area. And another thing is of course data quality, ensuring that you get the right data is key in every business intelligence solution. ‘Garbage in … garbage out’ that’s what you’ll get if you’re not completely confident with the data that you’re putting in.”
Q. For a new company looking to adopt NBI, if they were to take care of all of the items you just mentioned such as the human factor, training and data quality, how quickly do you think they could start feeling the impact of NBI and get their ROI?
“I think it’s quite difficult to give a general view on that since it really depends on what kind of Telco you are, but I think the more different types of network you have then the more important NBI becomes. I think you get a better return on investment with the more networks that you have and the more different types of networks that you expect to have to manage in the future.”
Q. So, in conclusion, what would your advice be for a telecom that has not yet adopted the NBI concept?
“One is to at least try a test version. Second is to look for any good reference cases that look like your company perhaps in other countries that you can compare yourself against and gain experience from them.”
