Big data and analytics – Telco strategies, investments & use cases

As the volume of data being created has grown exponentially in the past decade new technologies have emerged and been embraced by organizations in all industry sectors for a number of use cases. The amount of data being generated in the telecoms sector is colossal and there is a clear opportunity for communications service providers (CSPs) to analyze this data themselves and also, subject to legal and regulatory conductions, to sell it to other organizations. Telecoms operators are embracing big data analytics (BDA) with enthusiasm, but while many report that BDA is fully operational and already contributing benefit to their organizations others are still at the exploratory stage of addressing its potential. The key challenges operators face are a lack of BDA skills, organizational issues and siloed data.

Scope

• In the past few years CSPs across the world have been working with technology providers and consulting firms on a range of BDA projects. While there are strong indications that virtually every CSP has a BDA initiative, it is still early days for BDA in the telecoms sector.

• Improved customer satisfaction is key driver. Customer satisfaction / churn reduction is the most important driver of BDA implementations among the firms surveyed for the purposes of this report. The ability to personalize services for individual customers is the next highest and also linked to revenue generation. Of importance too as a driver but less so is network optimization, which is focused on cost savings.

• No pattern to how BDA is structured within organizations. A total of 40% of the organizations surveyed opted for a centralized approach when setting up the BDA function in their organization. A third opted for a decentralised approach while just 20% set up a separate business unit.

• The main challenge for telecoms operators nowadays who seek to implement BDA within their organisations is to make important changes to the “culture” of the organization to allow this to work. These changes may not be the same for every organization but there will be some common themes. Telecoms firms tend to be large organizations with traditional hierarchical structures that present a challenge to any new initiative to be deployed across the organization.

• A key factor in a successful implementation is to demonstrate success at an early stage. With this is mind it is essential that the organization does not fall into the trap of setting too many goals and trying to please everyone at once. Even with senior level support for the initiative and a senior person leading the project it is important to be able to show positive results in order to fully demonstrate the benefits of the process. Conversely, by taking the analytical process in small steps it allows the team the flexibility to change direction if any early objective isn’t achieved

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