Telecom industries are facing huge challenges of ever changing market conditions.
They therefore need information to anticipate these changes and quickly make smart decisions. Decision-making in the telecom industry today demands high-quality intelligence. This is where Business Intelligence (BI) solutions play the critical role.
Any business can be successful only if the sales end is strong. The same principle could also be applied for the telecom industry most especially with telecom service providers. Business Intelligence plays a large role in telecom service providers especially in making profit because it deals with large amount of customer data. Hence getting this customer data in a useful format is “Business Intelligence”.
As mentioned previously, in any business to be successful, sales plays a very prominent role and should be supported by strong marketing practices. Well next question would be how is this possible? Some of the focus areas are:
1. Providing strong marketing support:
To give a good marketing support it is necessary to understand the market well. Having a good strategy is the foundation for a strong marketing. Two basic strategies, which can be pursued, are:
General strategy:
Companies usually come up with products that are quite generic. Advertising plays a major role in selling these products. Even though this has been a common practice, profit margins from these products are quite low because the specific needs of the customers are not met.
Customer strategy:
Basically understanding the customer needs and tailoring to their individual needs are part of business strategy. Thus Business Intelligence plays a major role in analyzing the customers that optimize profits by nurturing value added customer relationships.
Strong customer relationships are attained by customer centricity. Customers drive the business and it is very important to understand the following:
• Customers’ requirements
• Customers’ expectations
• Customers’ changing behavior pattern
By understanding the above points it is possible to build a strong customer strategy model. This customer strategy model directly influences the following:
• Product pricing / tariff plans
Product pricing plays a key role in pushing business, by understanding the customers it is possible to categorize them into different groups based on their needs. Pricing can be decided by striking a balance between customers’ group needs and profits of the company. This can also be easily tested with the help of Business Intelligence. Implementation of the model for a trial period and comparing the sale figures is possible to get the profit margin. Business Intelligence useful information can be provided to different departments in making the right decisions in a short period of time thus analysis becomes easier and designing the product pricing (tariff plans) becomes efficient.
• Advertising plans
Advertising plays major role because major money is involved in this. Thus channeling advertising according to customers is very important. Advertising conveys the right message to the right customer and can be achieved by profiling the customer’s data and checking their behavior patterns. This can bring more profit on the company.
2. Sales Analysis:
Analysis can be in terms of customers, performance, revenue, volume, and margin. This can be viewed in terms of reports or charts and competitive planning that can be developed. By this analysis any strategic decision taken by management will be based on proof and not by just guessing and can also predict the performance of the company for the next quarter or so. Business Intelligence capabilities are illustrated below to improve customer loyalty services:
Fraud control - with Business Intelligence it is possible to track the call pattern and its abnormalities, call duration, etc. Timely intervention can reduce the profit loss of the company.
Call records - with Business Intelligence it is possible to view call pattern and possible to understand their call history. Thus it becomes easy to get any records of particular customer or a group of customer with common call fashion.
Billing and other services - with Business Intelligence it is possible to send electronic billing to customer on related dates without any manual intervention. This will help customers to view and analyze easily their own bills. Business Intelligence also helps in giving valued-added services to get more customer satisfaction thus improving business.
Building customer retention models
Customer retention is one of the major challenges faced in any industry. Retaining a customer is always cheaper than getting a new customer in case of any business. Business Intelligence helps in building certain customer retention models by basically looking at customer data and their call behaviors.
A well-designed customer retention model can reduce customer churn to a greater extent. The positive impact of this is in customer loyalty that delivers a large increase in profitability. Business Intelligence can also identify the behavior of customer data, therefore helping the company to determine which customers are likely to leave and take the appropriate action in advance.
On a conclusion, we can say that if Business Intelligence is properly implemented and used in the telecom industry can help in boosting the profits to greater extent.
Vinod Plakkal
Telecommunication Engineer
Working as B.I. Analyst
+919951989599
vinodplakkal@gmail.com
http://www.articlesbase.com
