Cerillion Blog

After a year of unforeseen global disruption, we look ahead to what is in store for the telecoms sector in 2021, a year that will be defined by recovery and resilience, and ask what major developments will come to define the industry.

There is a common misconception that recurring billing and recurring payments are one and the same thing – a misunderstanding that can have profound implications on the likelihood of subscription success. Dominic Smith runs through the key differences between billing and payments, and explains why companies embarking on a subscription model need to look carefully at their recurring billing needs to avoid a Winter of Discontent.

With a variety of factors leaving consumers still largely in the dark as to the promises of 5G, how can DSPs address this failure to communicate and convey its full potential? Guest blogger Teresa Cottam of Omnisperience examines a new approach to customer engagement.

Making the switch from product sales to subscription services comes with the inherent risk of alienating your existing customer base. How can you encourage your customers to become subscribers, rather than one-off buyers? And what does “swallowing the fish” have to do with it?

With an overabundance of subscription offerings all vying for the attention of potential customers, businesses must ensure that their free trials, the gateway to their service for many, provide a rounded customer experience without misleading expectations. How can subscription businesses accomplish this – and leave them wanting more?

Now more than ever, it’s critical for subscription businesses to automate billing processes. How does Cerillion’s assisted implementation service ensure that a customer’s bespoke charging and billing platform is ready for launch in as little as three weeks? We break down the onboarding process from start to finish in simple terms.

With more and more enterprises turning to multiple cloud services, a move to distributed cloud set-ups becomes increasingly likely – perhaps even necessary. What are the differences between these two discrete cloud implementations, and what are the relative benefits and drawbacks of each approach? Cerillion Product Director Brian Coombs writes.

In the final of our three-part healthcare series, we take a look at how subscription teleconferencing applications across the world are bringing consultations out of the surgery.

Large service providers are relying on smaller dealers and distributors to do the heavy lifting of product or service sales. How does a subscription billing system like Cerillion Skyline create a unified sales repository for these various resellers?

In the second of a three-part series, we explore how subscription telehealth services, augmented by wearable tech and home devices, are delivering medical care outside the surgery.

Integrations are essential to guaranteeing that customer data remains synced between your various software applications. These integrations come in many forms, with their own merits and drawbacks – what are the differences between these?

With the world facing the biggest healthcare crisis this century, subscription telehealth services are being deployed at an unprecedented rate, using mobile apps to deliver medical care outside the surgery. What are the pros and cons of telehealth treatments – and who foots the bill?

Facing falling ad revenues, Twitter is looking at introducing a premium subscription option to its platform. How viable is a subscription social network? And what can we learn from previous attempts at such a model?

With Netflix announcing their decision to close the accounts of inactive customers, should other subscription businesses reconsider how they deal with “zombie accounts” who pay their fees but don’t engage with a service? Is the decision a strictly moral choice, or is there a financial benefit behind it too?

We cast our minds back to the beginning of the year, once again, and to the five predictions that Cerillion made for the biggest trends for the subscription industry in 2020; how have recent developments treated these expectations over half a year later?

Now over half-way through 2020, a year that has seen massive disruption to traditional business operations, we take a look back at the predictions we made for the telecom sector’s trends and how those expectations have fared so far.

Businesses across all industries are identifying new and increasingly innovative sources of revenue, thanks to the ever-growing opportunities presented by the Internet of Things (IoT). How can subscription businesses capitalise on the potential of embedded sensor-based technology?

In the second of a two-part examination on the environmental impact of the telecoms sector, we explore how businesses are making it easier for customers to do their part, including how CSPs can incentivise positive actions in customers.

Ofcom has introduced new rules to crack down on unfair mobile & broadband contract price schemes, and ensure customers know that they’re on the best deal; what effect will these changes have on consumers and CSPs?

Millennials and Generation Z account for a significant majority of users of subscription services. As their share of the public spend increases, how can businesses ensure their offerings meet the expectations of this diverse, difficult audience?

Since its purchase by Microsoft in 2011, Skype has struggled to capitalise on the proliferation of video conferencing over recent years, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. How did such a formerly ubiquitous service lose its edge over the market it once dominated?

The latest release of Cerillion Skyline, our subscription billing platform, introduces powerful balance management features, extending the monetisation capabilities of your usage-based services with the addition of flexible unit and money-based allowances.

The goal of any major software project should be to solve a business problem or streamline a business process in the most cost-effective way. So, when deciding on mission-critical software for your business operations, what are the relative merits of building in-house versus buying an off-the-shelf solution?

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to bite into everyday lives, consumption habits have been massively upended by closures and social distancing measures. We’ve previously covered how the telecoms world is faring amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, but how are the many subscription services responding in this time of crisis, and what lessons are there in these cases?

Service providers are outdoing one another to make 5G and FTTP announcements. But where are the new revenues going to come from to pay for these investments? Many are turning their attention to the business market. But with more people working from home - either for environmental reasons or, latterly, for business continuity purposes during the global coronavirus crisis – and many others becoming entrepreneurs or juggling side gigs, the business market itself is changing. Guest blogger, Teresa Cottam, looks at these changes and offers some pointers as to how to position for the new opportunities being presented.

Last month, Cerillion was joined by clients from around the world for its latest product forum – the first to take place wholly online – setting out the roadmap for its software solutions for the next year. Adam Hughes reports back from the virtual meeting room.

Cerillion is a couple of weeks into remote working, with every department striving to ensure that it’s business as usual. Adam Hughes spoke with Amit McCann, Delivery Director at Cerillion, to see what effect the coronavirus is having on the company’s projects.

The global outbreak of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, continues to dominate the news cycle, as it wreaks havoc on all aspects of life; the telecoms industry has been no different. With providers having their usual processes disrupted and users even more dependent on their communications services while in isolation, how is the industry responding to its greatest ever challenge?

Once the standard-bearers of subscriptions, print newspaper revenues are increasingly under threat in an ever more competitive market of 24-hour and online news. With papers betting big on digital subscriptions to keep the presses running, what strategies are the biggest publications adopting to avoid becoming tomorrow’s fish and chip paper?

Despite all the focus on the business dividends, it’s the consumer who is the ultimate beneficiary of the subscription billing model. While subscriptions have been around for decades, the unprecedented level of service control now offered has not. But beyond the mere convenience, what are the biggest benefits of subscriptions for customers?

Commuters, rejoice! The gradual rollout of 4G connectivity on the London Underground begins this month; how will this change your Tube journey? And why has it taken so long to get connected?

For all the success stories of the booming subscription industry, we cannot forget there are some high-profile failures of the model too. MoviePass, the cinema ticket subscription service, was once the stuff that dreams are made of; now it’s a business for ants. Adam Hughes performs the post-mortem on this now-bankrupt cinema subscription service to see what their mistakes could mean for other subscription businesses.

MWC Barcelona is coming up once again, with Cerillion demonstrating its full product suite alongside the latest industry developments, innovations and more. Brian Coombs, Cerillion Product Director, shares what he hopes to see around the exhibition and compares this with what he expects to be the reality.

2020 promises to be an exciting year for the telecoms industry with new-age technologies, new ecosystems and advanced use cases coming to the fore. Rupali Srivastava examines the top five trends expected to propel the industry forward this year.

As we usher in a new decade for the subscription industry, there is no doubt that businesses in the space will find more ways to engage customers, create new revenue streams and innovate with unique approaches. Shashank Venkat looks into the trends that mark the beginnings of a period where the subscription model is poised to become the default for most businesses.

AT&T has joined the likes of T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint in launching the commercial rollout of its 5G network in the US. Starting with 10 cities, the telco is aiming for nationwide coverage in the first half of 2020.

Recently, Vodafone surprised the telecoms industry by announcing that it is thinking about shifting its entire European mobile sites to Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN) technology. MTN has also announced a new partnership with Parallel Wireless to deploy 5,000 OpenRAN sites in Africa. Is this the spark OpenRAN needs to succeed?