redefining pre-paid landscapes the real-time difference Your business technologists. Powering progress

Transcription

1 redefining pre-paid landscapes the real-time difference Your business technologists. Powering progress

2 The pre-paid models you used five years ago no longer deliver or differentiate. This is true for both consumer and business customers. Their expectations have changed, and the choices you make regarding prepaid service management are critical in winning and retaining business. There is good news. The Atos convergent model for real-time voice and data monitoring and management sets new standards in customer experience, boosting business opportunities for forward-thinking service providers. 2 IN

3 Real-time relationships Don t think about the evolution of pre-paid services simply as an advance in operational efficiency. Your ability to manage converged customer services in real-time is more about differentiation and excellence in client experience than it is about administrative smarts. Your customers now live and work in a supermobile landscape. They expect the same performance and experience across fixed and mobile platforms and that means achieving consistency as they swap one device for another: tablets, smartphones, TVs and laptops are all part of their daily mix. The simple voice or messaging services of just a few years ago have been transformed with new choices too. Every device now becomes a vehicle for every kind of communication watching and publishing video, diving deep into social media, and, as always, chatting with colleagues, family and friends. Your customers want all this and they want it: At the highest performance levels with 4G as the new standard At clear, predictable and attractive cost so transparency is crucial With complete confidence making security and confidentiality a must-have With simplicity often through a personalized contract bundle Can your legacy systems cope? Many communications service providers are still attempting to manage this rapidly changing client service landscape with tools and processes which were never designed for the job. Siloed charging systems are inherited from an era of fewer and simpler choices. Systems designed decades ago to manage the first voice and GPRS data services still survive today. They were engineered to service widely-spaced offline batch processes this was fine in the days when the only variation between clients was in talk and text volumes; when bills arrived through the letterbox; when pre-paid was the only service; and when VoIP had only just begun. Today, the systems and processes you need to manage pre-paid services and their associated charging systems have very different requirements. Look at this altered landscape from the perspective of both your customers and from your own position as the communications service provider. For the customer Your customers are ready for smarter services over which they have more control - they expect a more personalized proposition. I want more than just a simple pre-paid phone I expect voice, data and back-up in one bundle I will pay for value-added services, including entertainment I want one contract to cover multiple devices and services I like community contracts family and friends for personal and colleagues for work I expect my providers to work hard for my business it s easy for me to switch For the provider You can achieve differentiation through real-time relationships with both business and consumer clients and drive out the cost of supporting heritage voice and data models. We face commoditization across all basic services. This increases the pressure for continual and rapid service innovation Our tight margins dictate exceptional operating efficiency We must target opportunity as it happens we need to measure in a window of hours and days, not weeks and months We have to be ready for immediate compliance in the face of regulatory change managing elimination of roaming bill shock, for example. We need to accept that pre-paid customers can also have high- ARPU profiles and want valueadded services. IN 3

4 Silo busting for advantage now We believe that in three years, every communications service provider will be using converged pre-paid service management and charging systems. This creates a window of opportunity right now for those providers willing to take the initiative in making this inevitable change. Until now, there has been little clear incentive for communications service providers to consider the switch from siloed to converged charging systems. The standard industry approach was to manage monitoring and charging for voice and data on different systems using different tools. Not ideal, but more or less OK as long as: Everybody did the same Customers accepted the consequences The business case for the implementation of real-time systems was weak too with the cost of supporting real-time costing management significantly greater than any projected return. The situation has changed. Three-way convergence Atos is ready to help you achieve the three-way convergence needed to respond to this new and rapidly evolving pre-paid landscape. Services As basic services are commoditized, your ability to market new and innovative propositions keeps your customers close, and your ability to innovate ahead of the competition buys time and advantage. You must be able to develop once and deploy many allowing the same service innovations to be offered across fixed and mobile networks, whether SIP, 3G, LTE, or VoLTE. Charging Post-paid and pre-paid charging converge too, allowing communications service providers to benefit from new hybrid models. As subscribers expect to spend less on pure commodity services, so providers must maximize the effectiveness of charging and billing. Convergence makes a real contribution. Converged and hybrid charging also facilitates the exploitation of tiered pricing models. These can be used, for example, to manage rule-based offers for both family and business bundles. Customer expectation and behavior now demands the agility of converged management The cost of evolution is now less than the potential cost of failing to change You cannot deliver the quality and agility of service required without converged charging and management. Failure to achieve real-time convergence will leave providers struggling to survive on diminishing commodity margins. By decoupling service functions from the underlying network technology, we can help you speed up time-to-market, and gain competitive edge and position as a perceived innovator. You will drive out development costs too, by keeping your talent focused on creating value and minimizing the need to re-platform. Networks With your new focus on value-added services, you need to be able to monitor and manage usage consistently and in real-time across all networks - mobile circuit switched, IMS packet switched, and PSTN. For the service providers, converged charging also has an important role to play in providing the control mechanisms needed to minimize bad debt. Taking control of this three-way convergence between services, networks and charging is possible and it is possible now. The longer you leave it, the more dependent you become on those systems designed to support business in an age which has already passed. This is already in scope in most communication services providers Fixed/ Mobile Convergence strategies. Your newly converged view of your customers network usage needs to span not only the device and network access, but also the contract profile. You require a transparent and timely view of total network use which applies equally to both pre and post-paid subscriber profiles. 4 IN

5 convergence with Atos Atos makes it possible for communication service providers to integrate voice and data monitoring, reporting and billing within a single framework. The capability turns rigid customer contracts into real-time relationships. This framework and its associated services becomes a real-time resource. This is a positive benefit both for your customers and your operations: Consumer and business customers can see their spend and account status at any time, making it easy to identify and add new services Your operations teams maintain the accurate and timely view of all activities, essential for effective planning and intervention and most importantly for building dynamic customer relations To achieve this, we combine two winning solutions. We integrate the operations and output from: Atos Telco Network Products (TNP) for all voice services The advanced Online Charging System of specialist partner Matrixx for all data services This combination makes it possible for you to give your customers a real-time picture of personal usage which is entirely independent of the underlying network technology. With this model, you shift the focus immediately from the network technology which is of little interest to the customer to their actual spend and behavior, which is what they really care about. An end to bill shock Bill shock is one of the most damaging collateral effects of today s service-rich and highly mobile communications landscape. For consumers, this can result from any combination of unexpected roaming charges or from signing-up to new services without being aware of tariff structures. For the service provider, bill shock is damaging to relationships, reputation and profitability. Not only does bill shock lead to problems in payment, it also adds to the cost and burden of recovery. By adopting a fully converged approach for services, network and unified charging, you can eliminate the problem altogether. Customers can be made fully aware of the cost of service in advance, with appropriate options to tune or even disable. They can also keep an eye on spend as they are actually using the services, allowing them to keep costs under acceptable control. What s your scenario? Atos will act as your end-to-end partner in making the transition from siloed heritage systems to a fully converged future. The pace and focus of the journey will not be the same for all. Our teams of business technologists will help you identify and implement the most effective adoption scenario. Your choices will be influenced heavily both by the status quo and by your immediate business priorities. We understand that in some cases, the initial focus may be on a strictly delimited operational function. You may, for example, have an immediate requirement to replace an outmoded Call Control system, while leaving the associated pre-paid functions untouched in the short term. We can work with you to design an incremental implementation plan, scheduled to meet your precise business and operational priorities. An implementation scenario could, for example, follow the following five phases: 1 Call Control I Replace the original Call Control for pre-paid 2 Online Charging Add the new Online Charging System from Matrixx IP PABX IP Centrex IMS Core Post-paid VoIP Home Zone IN Missed Calls 2G/3G Core SDP SDP Unified Online Charging Services Subscriber Focus Network 3 Extension Extend pre-paid voice to include all data services 4 Call Control II Extend pre-paid Call Control to include SIP and other devices From multiple siloed systems To rationalized, client-focused convergence 5 Converged Services Fully converge all pre/post-paid service administration, managing pre- and post-paid charging via the Online Charging System IN 5

6 Future-ready and future-proofed Whether you adopt an incremental or transformational approach to adoption, you can be sure that what you put in place today will be ready for the business challenges and opportunities of tomorrow. Because Atos TNP decouples the management of voice functions from the underlying network technologies, the converged pre-paid practice you put in place will continue to deliver across LTE and beyond. Traditional service concept TNP service concept Devices Wireline Mobile PABX Services CLIP CW Voic VPN Home Zone Voic Conference Switchboard Voic Atos Enables Devices Mobile-2G/3G Mobile-VoLTE SIP phone PABX extension MS Lync VPN Services CLIP Home Zone CW Audio conf. Voic Switchboard You can be confident not only that the cost of managing converged operations will be kept under tight control, but that the decisions you make today will lead to more profitable and sustainable relationships with your customers. The Online Charging Infrastructure built around Matrixx will deliver clear and quantifiable performance and cost benefits. In addition to eliminating the cost of multiple third party database license costs, Matrixx estimates that its OCI solution frequently achieves hardware and datacenter savings of 50%. 6 IN

7 Convergence in Pre-Paid now Different communications service providers are at radically different stages of the journey to full convergence. Whatever your status, Atos is ready to help you engineer and implement the essential change to a new pre-paid landscape. Making the change will deliver clear benefit: Increased loyalty your business and consumer customers want a joined-up experience with clear and competitive costs and compelling high-value services Increased revenues loyal customers will do more business with you and spread the word on your behalf Timely intelligence - the quality of customer experience is built on your knowledge of customer behavior and only convergence paints the full picture Viable personalization combine new customer knowledge with the operational efficiencies of convergence, and you will create winning and profitable personal bundles Atos offers discovery sessions designed to show pre-paid convergence in action. Our discovery sessions are designed to help both commercial and technical teams establish a clear and practical pathway to adoption. We are keen to help you develop meaningful pilots and proofs-of-concept in the very short term. Take advantage of building real-time relationships now, and your position will be differentiated to advantage with both business and consumer customers. redefining pre-paid landscapes the real-time difference IN 7

8 About Atos Atos SE (Societas Europaea) is an international information technology services company with annual 2012 revenue of EUR 8.8 billion and 76,400 employees in 47 countries. Serving a global client base, it delivers Hi- Tech Transactional Services, Consulting & Technology Services, Systems Integration and Managed Services. With its deep technology expertise and industry knowledge, it works with clients across the following market sectors: Manufacturing, Retail & Services; Public sector, Healthcare & Transports; Financial Services; Telecoms, Media & Technology; Energy & Utilities. Atos is focused on business technology that powers progress and helps organizations to create their firm of the future. It is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic and Paralympic Games and is quoted on the NYSE Euronext Paris market. Atos operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting & Technology Services, Atos Worldline and Atos Worldgrid. For more information: Please contact marketing@atos.net or visit atos.net atos.net Atos, the Atos logo, Atos Consulting, Atos Worldline, Atos Sphere, Atos Cloud and Atos Worldgrid are registered trademarks of Atos SE. August Atos.