Well, the Winter is at last behind us and the joys of Spring are just over the horizon. It's the time of year when the sap rises and the thoughts of young men in the telecoms industry lightly turn to thoughts of new billing systems!

One of the delights of mid-Winter for those of us in northern climes is the annual trip down south, these days to balmy Barcelona, for the GSM Association's 3GSM World Congress. The yearly conference and exhibition has been a February fixture for many years now and since the event outgrew the facilities of Cannes, on the French Riviera, and moved down the coast to Spain and Catalonia it has even got bigger and better.

The event is now an absolute must visit for those with any real interest in the development of the mobile comms industry; and that's not just those who work in and with the globally-dominant GSM technology but also for people who, whilst owing allegiance to other mobile standards, want to get a good look at the roadmap leading to convergence and worldwide 3G services.

This year's 3GSM was incredible. The industry is booming and confidence is high and this was reflected in the record-breaking number of exhibitors and delegates. More than 50,000 visitors from all over the world were in Barcelona to do business, to network and to find out about the latest developments and trends in mobile communications.

3GSM has now cemented its reputation as the premier mobile event in the entire global telecoms industry with 82 per cent of delegates saying so whilst, in an indication of just how quickly things are changing and that convergence is becoming very much a practical reality, 75 per cent say the show is absolutely vital for the mobile entertainment and content sector as well.

The Congress itself hosted 1,300 exhibitors (including, of course, Cerillion Technologies) whilst speakers at both keynote and breakout sessions featured the biggest names in the industry including Arun Sarin (Chief Executive of Vodafone), Patricia Russo ( CEO of Alcatel-Lucent) and Edgar Bronfman ( CEO of the Warner Music Group) among many others representing the operators, manufacturers, vendors and entertainment and content providers that are at the heart of the new telecoms paradigm.

As you can see in this latest issue of Evolve, Cerillion carried out its own research at the show by way of a survey into user attitudes to various issues affecting the industry. The research shows that the most important factor facing telecoms operators today is the need to continue to reduce costs whilst increasing customer loyalty and reducing churn. Furthermore, most think the most important and influential services over the next year will be triple and quadruple-play offerings, closely followed by VoIP and mobile TV.

Click chart for a larger view

Elsewhere in this edition of Evolve we bring you news of 2 significant wins for Cerillion. engin. the leading broadband phone company in Australia has selected Cerillion to implement a new CRM , billing and mediation solution, and Tele2, one of Europe's biggest alternative telecoms operators has gone live with a new converged CRM and billing system from Cerillion. Working to demanding project deadlines and a tight budget, Cerillion delivered a turnkey system that allowed Tele2 Croatia to migrate painlessly and easily from what was an outsourced billing system to its new pre-integrated solution in less than three months.

Tele2 Croatia began commercial GSM service back in October 1995 and already has in excess of 350,000 subscribers there while the Tele2 group, headquartered in Sweden, operates in 21 other countries and provides service to 31 million users.

So, as the industry continues to power along, all it remains for me to do now is to wish you good reading, good business and a good run up to Summer, when the next edition of Evolve hits the streets.

Keeping things simple for the customer

The joy of events like the 3GSM World Congress is that every new piece of whizzy technology is on display, with vendors touting their latest offerings as being the killer application the telecoms world has been waiting for. Of course many of these services are what are sometimes referred to as leading edge – which fundamentally means new technology which has not yet been market tested. But as with all services, the proof of the pudding will come with the eating. When one of these new services is launched it is essential that everything about that service works smoothly – from initial marketing and customer order, through to service consumption, accurate billing and efficient customer services.

In today’s converged telecoms market, there is greater diversity than ever before in services, providers and pricing. For operators, managing an extensive array of network infrastructures and partners while, at the same time developing a broad service set is an increasingly complex business. One of the greatest challenges in delivering simple but effective service is the sheer range of solutions on offer.

There is a vast array of packages and price schemes available in the mobile communications sector alone.  Operators’ portfolios typically include GSM, SMS, MMS, GPRS, 3G and HSPA basic services, not to mention the range of would-be killer applications and content services on top. In addition, in all sectors of the market, operators have to maintain and bill for a broad array of legacy services. And they need to be able to tailor their offerings to meet the specific needs of a wide variety of market segments - from large enterprises to individual consumers. 

Putting the Customer First

The challenge for operators is to simplify this often convoluted tangle of different service types. After all, looking beyond the headline prices, most end-users are interested in three key elements of the operator’s service.

First, they want high-quality and easy-to-use services.  Second, they need clear and accurate billing. Finally, if they do encounter difficulties, they want a straightforward and reliable way of sorting them out.

This means access to an efficient single point of contact, with the necessary knowledge and expertise to resolve any issues quickly. From the operator’s point of view, the most effective way of delivering this type of simple, effective service is through the provision of pre-integrated CRM and billing solutions which customer-facing staff can use to support the interaction process.

By implementing high-quality CRM and billing systems and integrating them with their surrounding network infrastructure, operators have all the information they need in one place, ensuring they can provide a consistent, responsive and professional service to customers. They also have the reassurance of knowing that no data will be lost between systems, that updated information is available instantly to other users and that their systems provide a joined-up integrated 360° view of their customers.

Look Both Ways

The best of this new breed of fully convergent CRM and billing systems also give operators a bi-directional view of their customer management activities. In other words, they enable them to manage the dataset from the point of view both of the customer and the business itself. They can, for example, highlight not only the types of complaints made by one individual customer but also the total number received by the organisation as a whole, over a given period.

To deliver this functionality, it is critical that operators have not only a tightly-integrated component set but also a single unified database, which links to these components. This optimised technical infrastructure enables them to examine all of the system data associated with a given customer and acts as the foundation for simple but proactive customer service.

At one level, it allows operators to escalate events. As part of most corporate service level agreements, they can define exactly how long they have to action certain events. If this time limit is exceeded, an alarm is triggered, notifying both operator and end customer of an infringement. Receiving this type of information in advance of a customer complaint helps the operator to deliver proactive service to end users, by acknowledging a fault on their system but at the same time reassuring them that the problem is being addressed and rectified.

At another level, the technology enables the operator to define its own business rules about how it sells services. In particular, by providing a stable and robust platform, it allows the operator to configure processes and procedures that build on the functionality of the systems infrastructure and ensure that customers receive a consistently high-quality service. 

Currently, few UK businesses are collating or leveraging their customer data as effectively as this. According to the findings of UK CRM consultancy firm, Detica, only 13 per cent of companies can be categorised as leaders when it comes to collating customer data and subsequently using it to improve customer relationships, while 40 per cent are categorised as 'strugglers', having very little good data and limited ability to exploit what they do have.

The results of the survey clearly illustrate the challenges businesses face in achieving a good understanding of their customers and using the insights gained effectively across the enterprise as a whole.

To be successful in building customer loyalty, operators need to focus more clearly on the customer. With the help of closely-integrated CRM and billing solutions they can manage the relationship from a single entry point. This means ensuring that customer-facing staff have all relevant data about a given customer instantly available as and when required.

There is a multitude of information to be gathered: typically including details of previous interactions with the customer, payment histories, information about average monthly spend, the types of services previously used and so on. Critically, having access to this kind of intelligence should enable the operator to deliver ‘right first time’ customer service.

Ease-of-use is also essential. Any such systems need to be intuitive. When they purchase a bundle of services from an operator, customers must be sure that each service is activated on the network in a logical order and that follow-on services are provisioned, as and when required. The operator’s customer service representative (CSR) should also be able to view the status of these services at any one time.

In addition, particularly in today’s fast-changing telecoms environment, chosen systems need to be flexible enough to manage a broad spectrum of technologies from PSTN to 3G and from ISDN to ADSL. This is critical for operators who are migrating into new technology sectors either through business growth, merger or acquisition.

Keeping it Simple

Today, with an ever-growing number of players in the market, it is increasingly easy for users to switch from one operator to another. In order to prevent churn, therefore, it is vital that operators provide not only the highest quality service possible but also the most straightforward.

Operators can do very little about the increasing complexity of the telecoms marketplace. However, what they can and increasingly will need to do, in order to maintain their competitive edge, is to mask this complexity from the customer. Operators will need to ensure that their multi-play service offerings are straightforward to use, that billing is accurate and that the latest customer information is available to all service staff.  Pre-integrated CRM and billing solutions offer an excellent means of enabling them to transform this vision into a reality.

Dominic Smith
Dominic.Smith@cerillion.com

In this issue of Evolve, Dominic Smith talks to Brett St Clair, Cerillion's new Business Development Manager based in Johannesburg, about plans for growth in Africa.

DS: Brett, welcome to Cerillion. Or perhaps I should say welcome back to Cerillion? Tell me about your role and Cerillion's plans in Africa?

BSC: It’s good to be back! I moved from the UK back to my native South Africa to work in the messaging sector, but now with Cerillion’s further success in Africa it’s great to return to the company after 2 years away. My experience in Africa over the last couple of years has really highlighted the opportunity that remains for pre-integrated billing solutions and I have a firm belief that Cerillion is well placed to address these needs.

My role involves a mix of account management and new business development across the African market. So my first priority has been to get to grips with the existing accounts and now I am looking to leverage these relationships to help develop new business in the region.

DS: What market variations are there across Africa as a whole? What are your plans for growing the Cerillion customer base in this region and what challenges does this bring?

BSC: On the mobile side, Africa is very heavily focused on prepaid due to the lack of credit available on the continent and the high risk surrounding postpaid. But what we are beginning to see in the market is a requirement for prepaid-postpaid convergence. This is happening because the postpaid market is growing due to increased commercial presence and operators are seeing the power of keeping all the data in one centralised platform both from an operational and a reporting perspective.

In fixed-line, the national operators remain dominant though network coverage is still a big problem and mobile dominates the new connections. However de-regulation in some countries is now enabling other international carriers to enter the market. This is bringing new opportunities for interconnect solutions as both fixed and mobile carriers look to improve their interconnect management and optimise their network routing.

DS: Cerillion already has some presence in West Africa, with customers in Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania and Nigeria.  How do you see this market evolving and how are Cerillion addressing these challenges?

BSC: Well the key market changes are definitely focused around growth. The volumes of new subscribers are growing exponentially, which means operators who previously only allocated small budgets for billing and customer care are now needing to re-evaluate their systems to ensure they are scalable and ready for the future. In the more advanced markets such as South Africa and parts of Northern Africa, there is also the need to offer more advanced services to remain competitive. Convergent systems are becoming extremely important as it must be possible to deploy these new services without having to implement completely new systems.

As these markets mature, operators also need to start focusing on their processes and looking at revenue assurance. A key area where they are all suffering huge leakage is around interconnect, where simple systems and many manual processes are causing real headaches.

Cerillion’s pre-integrated product suite is very well matched to the needs of the African market, both from a functional fit and an operational perspective. One of the key challenges across the region is the lack of skilled resources for managing and operating billing systems, so it is essential that the systems are easy to run and maintain and are provided with a professional and responsive support service.

DS: With the growing use of low cost VoIP services threatening traditional revenue streams, how do you see the market evolving over the next 2-3 years? Is this market developing as quickly in Africa as elsewhere in the world?

BSC: This is an interesting point especially in the lesser developed African Markets. If you speak to the VoIP providers they would claim that growth has been phenomenal, however the view of the larger incumbent operators is that they are not a threat. My personal opinion here is that the VoIP providers are making huge inroads however their capacities are not large enough to make the operators nervous just yet.

In the more developed African markets, then it is much more like Europe and Asia with increased VoIP presence and operators looking to counteract this by offering their own VoIP propositions and investigating options like NGN for the future. The international VoIP carriers are also providing POPs across much of Africa and because of the low rates of interconnection that they offer this is a great alternative to the traditional carriers for the African Operators. This market place is only going to grow from strength to strength as international and Inter-African traffic volumes increase.

Looking in general, if the take-up of VoIP services in Africa helps more people to communicate with each other it can only be a good thing.

DS: What does this mean for the carriers' business support systems and how are Cerillion addressing these issues?

BSC: As operators and markets mature, so they will respond by offering more and more IP-based services. Having this kind of infrastructure in place requires the necessary business support systems that can provision, rate, discount and bill across these services hence Cerillion’s proven solutions will be an attractive offer to African operators. However the challenge in Africa will continue to be the availability of local resources with the necessary skillsets to operate and maintain these systems that support the latest technologies. Cerillion has a strong track record of delivering managed service solutions in other geographies and we are now looking at providing this proposition in the African market too.

DS: And finally…Africa is a huge region to cover and there are still some parts where travelling can be dangerous. After several years living in the UK, how easy has it been to adapt?

BSC: I have already done my first trip around Africa to visit all our Clients. It was definitely a challenge doing 6 African countries in 6 days however it turned out to be an adventure to remember. Africa is one of the most beautiful Continents on the planet and it has been sad to see it being damaged over the past decades. But each time I visit a country I can see vast changes in both infrastructure and people’s attitudes. From a safety perspective, it doesn’t really matter where you are in the world – you still need to have your wits about you and travel smart. What I enjoy most about being in Africa is the effect mobile technology (GSM) has had on the economies. Countries which were in ruin due to war or political abuse have really started to turn themselves around and improved communications is playing a vital role in this.

Brett can be contacted at:
T. +27 83 981 6343
E. brett.stclair@cerillion.com

Cerillion Event Report: IIR Interconnect Billing Conference, Prague 19-22 March

Following the highly successful Interconnect Billing workshop at Caricam Mobile 2006, Cerillion recently took part in IIR’s “Optimising Interconnect Billing and Accounting Strategies” conference in Prague. With operator delegates from across the EMEA region, the conference addressed the key challenges of minimising interconnect costs and securing interconnect revenues now and in the future.

Cerillion principal consultant, Chris Ankers, chaired the conference on day 3, bringing his wealth of interconnect experience to the proceedings and running the interactive panel discussions.

Chris also presented a paper “Developing an Efficient Route Optimisation Strategy to Minimise Costs and Build New Revenue Streams” combining his expert industry insight with customer case studies to address the main topics:

• Analysing traffic to optimise Interconnection Costs
• Information required for routing decisions
• Developing an optimal routing plan and implementing the plan in the Network
• Using network measurements to fine-tune the plan
• Identifying key challenges to routing optimisation: tariff processing in an increasingly complex tariff structure, congestion and overflow
• Applying various strategies for optimising the routing tables on differently positioned products

To receive your copy of the presentation, or to find out how Cerillion can help solve your interconnect billing challenges, please contact us on: info@cerillion.com

engin selects Cerillion to facilitate new growth in Australia                      

London, UK, 8 February 2007 – Convergent billing and CRM specialist, Cerillion Technologies, today announced that engin, Australia’s leading broadband phone company, has selected Cerillion to provide a new CRM, billing and mediation solution for its rapidly expanding operations.

engin is a publicly traded company on the ASX and was launched in March 2004. It is recognised as Australia’s largest VoIP telephony provider with approximately 40 per cent market share.

Cerillion is supplying the Mediator, Revenue Manager and CRM Plus products from its unique pre-integrated bundled component suite, providing engin with the means to bring new products and services to market quickly and offering a scalable platform to support engin’s future growth plans. Cerillion will also deploy its Information Manager and Web Self-Care modules and provide implementation and systems integration services for the complete delivery of the solution.

Louis Hall, CEO of Cerillion Technologies commented: “We are delighted to be working with engin on this important business transformation project. engin is clearly at the forefront of development in the Australian VoIP and altnet markets. This further demonstrates our increasing involvement in the service management of next generation services.”

Ilkka Tales, CEO of engin says the investment in the Cerillion system reflects engin's rapid growth in the Telecommunications industry. “The primary aim of the system is to leverage Cerillion’s inherent mature functionality to bring improved services to the engin customer base and internal operations. We expect the investment to payback through operational cost reductions such as improved self-service, as well as increasing revenues through capabilities such as multi-service bundling. engin is looking forward to a long-term partnership with Cerillion.”

About engin

engin, listed on the ASX (ENG), is the first broadband telephony service to be broadly available to Australian consumers and businesses on the shelves of major retailers. engin is headquartered in Sydney, Australia and was granted its telecommunications carrier licence in March 2004 to deliver a digital voice service across existing broadband connections. Winner of the ATUG Best Communications Solution – Small Business 2006 award and the 2005 iAwards AIIA communications category, engin provides affordable telecommunication alternatives for all Australian consumers and businesses. For more information, please visit www.engin.com.au

Tele2 Goes Live in Croatia with Cerillion CRM and Billing Solution

London, 21 February, 2007 – Providing cost-efficient support to its GSM services across Croatia, Tele2, one of Europe’s largest alternative telecoms operators, has gone live with a new converged CRM and billing solution from Cerillion Technologies, the leading business support systems vendor.  Working to tight project deadlines, Cerillion supplied a turnkey delivery, migrating Tele2 Croatia from their existing outsourced billing system to its own pre-integrated solution in less than three months.

The solution consists of Cerillion CRM Plus, a comprehensive CRM system that allows sales and customer service staff to manage all aspects of the customer lifecycle efficiently and Cerillion Revenue Manager, a carrier grade, convergent rating and billing solution which enables revenue generation from any type of service. 

Tele2 Croatia, which launched commercial services over its GSM network in October 2005 recently announced that it was celebrating its first year of operations with more than 300,000 mobile users.

“We are excited to be making a significant contribution to Tele2’s ongoing success in Croatia,” says Louis Hall, Cerillion’s chief executive. “This deal represents an extension to a close, longstanding business relationship between our two companies. It also signals a major expansion of our business into Central and Eastern Europe and will act as a strategic stepping stone to future success in the region.”

Tele2 is Europe's leading alternative telecoms operator and its mission is to provide cheap and simple telecoms for everyone in Europe. Tele2 always strives to offer the market's best prices. The company has 31 million customers in 22 countries and offers fixed and mobile telephony, broadband, data network services, cable TV and content services. Founded by Jan Stenbeck in 1993, Tele2 has been listed on Stockholmsbörsen since 1996. In 2005, it achieved operating revenue of SEK 50 billion and reported a profit (EBITDA) of SEK 6.6 billion.