The document discusses the role of information technology in the telecommunications industry. It outlines several key areas where IT can support telecom companies, including customer management, service management, product management, and revenue assurance. It also notes emerging trends like infrastructure as a service, mobile commerce, and analytics solutions. The document provides an example pitch for an IT company to a telecom, highlighting capabilities around transition management, expertise, and optimization. It includes examples of revenue models and metrics an IT company can use to track performance and account health with telecom customers.

1. Information Technology in Telecommunications
Industry
By Sridhar Radhakrishnan
1

2. Index
1
Organization Set up2
3
Revenue model
Emerging Trends
4
IT in Telecom - Overview
5
Sales Pitch
Operating Plan6
2

3. IT in Telecom
ERP
Customer
Management
Service
Management
Product
Management
Sales / Marketing
Supplier/ Partner
Management
Revenue
Assurance
NW Infra/ Services
Management
Challenges / Expectations from IT in Telecom today
• Managing scale (eg: real time best fit plan)
• Complexity eg: integrate multiple systems
• Reduce time to market and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
• Enrich customer experience – seamless and consistent
The IT needs of the telecom are changing and required strategic business partnering approach
1
Equipment
Vendors
Service ProvidersMarkets
Offerings
Core Areas
Handset
Manufacturers
Services Products Infrastructure Consulting
3

4. Technology then Technology today
Changing technology needs in Telecom
A. Internal facing role
• Billing
• Ops to provision services
• NW & IT infra for employees
B. Development at any cost
A. Customer facing role:
• how to differentiate from
competition
• Self sufficient customer experience
(ordering, service changes etc , end
to monitoring of services they
receive (all by self) eg: move the
banking way of customer interface
to systems
B. Development at a cost
1
4

5. Organization Setup2
Services Products
Infrastructure
management
ConsultingDomain
Experts
Relationship
Managers
Program Managers
Resource
Management
Group
Technical Staff
CEO
- P&L ownership
- Distribute targets to
RM
- Aligned basis Industry
verticals
- Pitching to Customer
- Development & Sustenance of
the relationship
Support
Functions
Assumes one delivery centre, in case of multiple delivery centres, there would heads for each such centre who would report into the head of RMG
4 Service Line Heads
Dual Reporting
5

6. Infrastructure management – Managed Services ( NOC Operations, RF Planning)
Participate in value chain – customize products/ applications which telcos can bundle &
sell to their customers, eg. Sales force automation, inventory management tools -
integrations
Machine to machine applications eg. Vehicle tracking, Smart metering for utilities
Mobile commerce & Mobile advertising
XaaS (Saas, PaaS & IaaS) – Cloud based applications
Asset Management Systems: NW inventory management systems ; GIS based tools
Emerging Trends
1
2
3
In addition to the traditional ways of participating in a Telco’s IT landscape, IT Companies
today can participate in the following growth areas:
4
5
6
3
Convergence of Technology & Telecommunications leading to integrated world
6

7. Typical pitch
Relationship
spread in the
industry
Business
Highlights
Geographical
Spread
Showcase Credentials
• Certifications:CMMI5
• POC’s
• Awards
• Customer testimonials
• Supplier testimonials
Business
Partnerships
Offerings
• Managed Services
Engagement
• System Integration
Engagements
Telecom Labs
Innovation capability
4
7

8. Pitch to a Telco
Capability
ROI
Optimization
Business
Impact
Is there a Value proposition ?
Telcos need IT Service partners
to demonstrate capabilities
1. As a strategic partner
instead of a service
vendor(Ability to manage
strategic systems)
2. Transition management
3. Scale and level of expertise
in the company - CMMI
4. End to end cycle times and
delivery capabilities i.e
improvement in post
production errors,
Focus the pitch on
4
Telco expects - Solutions to be architectured, managed and serviced
8

9. Pitch to a Telco4
Solution Identification Transition Set Up PilotKnowledge Transfer
Planning Phase
Solution Design
Diagnosis
Implementation
Social Marketing : Analytics
-Tools to gain customer insight through
social media
- enable social network promotions
- Understand the brand image
- convert unstructured to structured
Offer Personalized products and services
Next Gen Analytics
- Pre built analytics solutions,
dashboards, KPI benchmarks etc.
- BI tools (SAP, Cognos etc)
- Sales & revenue management
- Customer loyalty programs
- Churn management
(Network parameters, content analytics,
profitability management etc.)
Hosted Solutions
- End to End pre integrated business
support systems in a hosted mode
- Real time billing
- COTS integrated with telco’s systems
- Scalable infrastructure
- Security features
- Consolidate existing systems /
develop new systems
Network Management
- Provided end to end NOC monitoring
- Integration of NW elements to NOC
- Analytics to track NW utilization
9

10. Revenue
Sources
Implementation
Variable Model
Maintenance &
Support
1
2
3
• Man hours / Rate
• License reselling
• Asset recovery
Ancillary
4
Revenue Model
• SLA (Critical &
non critical)
• T&M / Rev share
5
On a ongoing basis – farming of the account is critical to get insights on additional
opportunities. e.g.: use the Business Process consulting route to gain entry into an
implementation 10

11. Metrics to track
Enterprise wide metrics
• Account wise profitability - Gross/
Operating margins
• Compare Projected vs. actual at an
account level
• Pipeline / Order Book
• Training man months %
• Training effectiveness
• Delayed/ on time projects
Account level metrics
• Man months – technical & management
• Revenue market share at the customer
• Billing Rate
• Per person cost
• On site/ off site mix
• Others project costs – infra & travel
• SLA slippages in projects
• Account health check
Corrective action – pointers
• Try to improve on site/ off site mix
• Reduce dependence on contracts in case
the required resource is not available
• Reduce idle time / bench strength
• Train new people and develop a pool of
resources at low cost
6 Operating Plan
Static & Time – series analysis to identify emerging trends & patterns 11

12. Appendix
12

13. Use Case – Example
Sales force
check
NW Feasibility
check
Business case
approval
NW
Implementation
Order Entry
( POS)
BillingCollections
FICO
Capex related – WBSE
Billing posting
Collection posting
The below is an example of the workflow for executing an enterprise sale; this chain
requires interfaces with multiple applications within a telco
Primary
Secondary
Analytics tools
(committed vs. actual)
13

14. Social media in Telecom – example:
IT opportunities exist around developing tools to
1. Gather customer sentiment
1. Pricing, feature, plan, flexibility etc.
2. Brand reputation -
1. Neutral, happy, unhappy
3. Customer reputation
1. Neutral, satisfied & unsatisfied
Integrate social analytics tools to other marketing
tools
Develop
linkages to CRM
For better
customer
engagement
14

15. Thank You
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