Telecoms is truly a VUCA world, and the volume, velocity, and veracity of the data involved make it more complex. Finding the right vendor who can help you navigate these complexities is crucial. As telcos are struggling with declining ARPU and increasing churn, growth is possible only through a truly customer-centric approach that is contextual, relevant, and real-time.
The product-vendor combination is thus crucial to delivering a successful project. The product must be comprehensive, dynamic, and futuristic, and at the same time, the vendor must be a thought leader with the ability to envision the future and the challenges that would come up while having a diligent focus on customer support and the right attitude.
We have worked with many operators across the world, participated in hundreds of RPF’s. Based on that, we have curated a list of top 5 factors a Telco should include in the evaluation process before finalizing a vendor.
Deep Telecom Expertise
In-depth understanding of the telecom domain, know how for the telecom complexities and issues gives the vendor an edge over others. A vendor with years of experience with global Telcos and strong track record across different business models of all shape and sizes such as post-paid, pre-paid, quad-play, etc. should be able to deliver a right solution.
As Telecommunication is different from other industries such as Banking or Retail because of the sheer volume of transactions (running to billions) that happen each day. This scale poses a challenge of a different magnitude. Not many vendors can build solutions that can scale to handle hundreds of millions of customers generating billions of transactions every day.
Therefore, it is imperative to consider aspects such as implementation timeline, business expertise, and support capabilities.
Domain Knowledge
Depending on the subscriber base and scale of operations, Telecom Marketing can be a sophisticated function consisting of multiple teams and processes. Therefore, the product-vendor combine should untangle complexities through the availability of comprehensive solutions. Only a domain expert can offer a suite of connecting solutions that can bring together teams and resources on the same platform.
Thus, telcos should consider a vendor who has experience with all types of telecom business models in developed and developing markets with futuristic solution capabilities.
Availability of a Comprehensive Suite
A campaign management solution needs to work with multiple systems within the telco environment. Today, the biggest pain point of stakeholders in telecom is to bridge the communication and compatibility issues of various solutions, often from different vendors.
Telecom operators should consider vendors who offers all the apparatus required for seamless Telecom Marketing operations under a single roof that addresses ARPU and customer churn challenges. Telcos benefit significantly from the availability of all these solutions in an integrated suite as this leads to cost synergies on implementation and maintenance. Further, the interplay between these solutions can also result in several business benefits.
Very few vendors offer the following capabilities under a single banner.
- Contextual Marketing
- Loyalty Management
- Data Monetization Platform
- Customer Journey Orchestration
- Streaming Analytics
- Real-time Data-driven decisioning
Want to know how mViva is helping customers with all the above capabilities through one single platform? Get in touch
Solution Strength
The solution should be capable to increase business velocity, enhance customer-centricity, empower users, and incorporate agile methodologies. These are important differentiators in today’s world of instant gratification and compressed business cycles. It should bridge the business and technology gap and provide a unique combination of AI/ML-based Analytics with strong customer segmentation and workflow capabilities.
The ability of the solution suite to inspire telcos to change orbits in business maturity quickly can be a critical evaluation criterion.
Customer Facilitation
It is an adage in the industry that even the best solution will fail if not supported by a capable vendor. A vendor with deep knowledge of Telecom and experience should understand the value of customer support and how that becomes a core differentiator. Round the clock support, ability to fix issues proactively/reactively, and a diverse team with varied skillsets should have a say during the assessment process.
The Multi-Channel Marketing Hub suite of products from Pelatro offers cutting edge solutions for global telecom companies using AI-ML techniques. To know more about Pelatro’s solutions can boost Telecom Marketing efforts in your organization, visit pelatro.com/products/
