Abundance of Scarcity

After a long time I had a thought or a line of thoughts that I wanted to pen out ...

So it all started with  me wondering what would make for an effective target for customer base..which led to what I would think if I were to grow a country and take it to the next level. How do I survive the current environment and be ready for the ambiguous future?

Would I think of the present and consider what investments I need to make to make the current abundance to the best possible profit? aka Resource Utilization
OR
Do I think of the future and think of the issues I will face when I run out of current resources which are now in abundance but might not be in future? aka Future Planning
OR
Do I think about how best to make of the current scarce resources so that I reach an equilibrium and do not depend on anyone for my future and present? aka Strategic Independence

What led me next to the though that any planning on a country level has to consider all the above and maintain a fine equilibrium with the current financing the future but not getting too late for the future.

This might seem very 'common sense' to most people but it was definitely new to me as it was simple and out there in front of me..waiting for me to discover this..

Let us look at it from Mid East level...

What does Mid East have in abundance..
a) Oil
b) Diversity of people

What are the consequences
a) Energy abundance
b) Collective Intellect

What does Mid East have in scarcity
a) Water

What are the consequences:
a) Food import due to scarcity

So what are the Verticals that an organization needs to concentrate on in current state as well as be in line with future
a) Oil & Gas
b) Energy
c) Training & Education
d) Agriculture & related industries

Now for each one of them there is a set of applications that can be easily mapped at a very high level for the requirements
a) Oil & Gas - Integration of multiple applications viz Fusion Middleware, Transportation of material viz OTM, Energy distribution to consumers i.e. Utilities
b) Diversity of People - Training and education of the existing and coming generations i.e. PeopleSoft Campus Solutions.
c) Water - Agriculture related planning and operations i.e. JD Edwards Grower management, Water distribution i.e. Utilities

The next step for any country or region is that every resource is getting consumed at a higher rate than at which it is being replenished. So all countries in general go by the common thought of shifting their economies from manufacturing/producing to services.
This in turn relates to getting a smart population to service the next generation in the immediate future and satisfying their requirements by making the current environment futuristic. hence the requirement for a connected world which feeds the egos of the upwardly mobile and Generation Z who will contribute to the economy. This in turn will lead to IoT at all levels and all services and activities of the government being showcased on a transparent level across all channels!!

The one major backbone to the entire set of planning and execution is a world class infrastructure that will support the operations of the present and be ready for the fast moving future!

Customer Experience in the Banking Industry

 When was the last time that we had to go to a bank to complete a transaction as it was impossible to do the same over the net? Well..for most of us online banking is a boon that saves us a lot of time which we can then dedicate to our professional or personal lives.
 Customer across the globe utilize mobile and internet banking to get in touch with their bank and complete as many transactions as the bank would allow them to.
 Now the hard truth.....not only are most bank sites limited in terms of granting customer privileges to complete their transactions but the ones that do so.. lead the customers down an often confusing and frustrating path of figuring out how it all works. Add to that the fact that the presence of banks on the mobile networks is very limited and is in it's early days.
 Contrast the above with the large number of millenials being always online and demanding the ability to transact and interact with the bank through all the channels at their disposal....and what you have is a very dangerous scenario of banks losing out on their existing customers and inability to acquire new ones.
 The need of the hour is for the banks to be able to not only to interact with their customers but also to be able to engage with them through the digital channels available now.
 In effect the complexity of managing customer perception (or Customer Experience management) thus increasing their trust and affection (which leads to increased loyalty) has increased manifold. At the same time with the increased frequency with which customers interact with banks has made it absolutely necessary for banks to be able to manage all the points of interactions and engage their customers but also be able to live up to their expectations from the bank.
 Needless to say that Customer Experience Management now needs to be the topmost priority at a bank for them to be able to retain their customer as well as increase the net value of customer portfolio with them. banks need to be able to provide their customers with the ability to start any and all transactions over mobile and web as well as be able to continue the transaction over another channel. At the heart of this multichannel transactional capability lies the bank's ability to identify the customer over the given channels.This in turn would provide bank with the ability to understand the customer's behavioral patterns better so as to be able to present him with a personalized product portfolio with a much higher probability of acceptance as against a generic "shot in the dark" approach at marketing to their consumers and prospects.
 At the same time, SRM (Social Relationship Marketing) needs to be leveraged by banks to be able to listen to their customer's voice and respond to their needs in real-time. Banks would do well in the current scenario to be able to understand their perception over the web by monitoring micro-blogging sites as well as Facebook and other channels. This would then provide greater insights into their marketing planning to be able to plan the message and channels for the various geographies to be targeted to achieve maximum returns from the campaign.
 Banks not only need to listen to their customers positive responses over the web (and reward them for the positive influence on their followers/friends) but also need to be able to resolve their problems not only over the social media but also through the web and telephonic channels. Customers should be able to contact their customer support representative in case they are unable to resolve their issues using self-service options available. The support representatives on their part should have a complete view of the customer's value and be able to pre-empt their needs when contacted.
 In the current "Age of the Customer" (as Forrestor calls it), banks need not only be able to manage their customer's experiences over the multitude of moments of truth that a customer journeys through, but need to be able to unify the response and message delivered across each of the touch-points.
 The bottom line is that Banks not only need to figure out their value differentiation strategies and execute them across different customer touch-points but also need to be able to leverage greater insights about customer behavior over them to generate operational efficiency and improve business performance.

Customer Experience @ Moment of Truth

As a business is managed by people you would expect them to  know what goes into a typical buyer's mind when he makes a purchase and keeps adding to your revenues.....in fact very few can exactly pinpoint what goes into making a purchase..much less how to insure that the customer comes back for seconds.. Well that's the harsh reality of today's world filled with customers who want more than lip-service and demand a superior experience with their purchase. This management of the complete buy, experience and service cycle that a typical customer goes through is known as Customer Experience Management.
 Now CX or CEM is a very broad term and actually complements the CRM initiative for an organization. So much so that both are at times used interchangeably but the major difference lies in the fact that CRM initiatives are inside out whereas CEM is outside in. Well..to put it simply, CRM is the organization's perspective at what it needs to do to sell more to their customers and increase revenue. CEM, on the other hand, is the way of looking at the customer's perspective and trying to understand what the customer really wants when he does business with you. CEM then begins to evolve as an initiative meant to manage customer touch-points in a favorable way for the customer or in other words, manage "moment of truth" interactions that the customer has with the brand or organization.
Now I have already covered in brief about CEM in an earlier blog and will cover more in later blogs when we try to understand it's importance in each of the different industries.
That brings us to the most important building block of CEM viz. "MOMENT OF TRUTH". Simply put, moment of truth is an instance of interaction between the customer and the brand that gives the customer an opportunity to form an opinion about the brand or organization.
This term was first used by CPG retailers and coined by P&G to segregate the different instances at which the customer experiences the product.
The first moment of truth (FMOT) is the point at which the customer has awareness of your product based on targeted marketing and walks up to the aisle and adds the product to their shopping cart.
Further, the second moment of truth (SMOT) is when the customer uses the product after the purchase.
However, the biggest moment of truth for the customer in certain industries is how the organization manages to resolve their service requests.
And now Google has jumped into the fray with proposing the Zeroth Moment of Truth which deals with how the customers perceive your brand even before they have encountered it. ZMOT is about how customers today search and find out about the product online before they make a buying decision.
In effect, we are talking about each and every interaction with the customer (it maybe with the product, sales process or service resolution).

In the real world, the customer's MOT is not just restricted to a few interactions but encompasses a much broader range for eg..
The initial phone contact......did you keep the customer waiting for too long? and then did you finally resolve their query? most importantly ...did you identify the customer and were able to provide information that was useful??
OR
When they walk in through the door......did they like what they saw? are they greeted immediately? do they feel welcome? how quickly were their problems taken care of?
OR
Discussion with the support/sales staff.....did you understand their requirements? were you able to listen to their requirements/issues? did you provide them a resolution in a reasonable time frame?

In effect the process of evaluating customer's MOT is relatively simple. On the other hand...the ability to influence MOT to drive a mutually beneficial interaction is much more complex and encompasses all the business entities across the enterprise and hence requires C level participation to get it right. The benefits from such a initiative would be huge....and would justify the heavy lifting required to get a strategy in place for managing customer experience...maybe it is time too....

Airlines Industry: Problem of plenty

Even before the whole world woke up to understand what globalization even meant...the airlines industry was knee deep in it and to some extent was the major causal for it. Airline routes were already criss-crossing across the continents connecting business and leisure flyers alike to their choice of destination, no matter how far it was and at a fraction of the total time taken by other known modes of transport.
Over the years their routes have become increasingly widespread...creating a web like structure across the globe connecting the smallest towns to the biggest cities. It started off being a playing ground for a few major airlines then it became increasingly competitive with smaller feeder airlines coming into play. To complicate matters even more, the era of travel portals came in which allowed flyers to compare the prices across airlines and push down airline margins. Margins decreased twofold..firstly with the price sensitive buyer moving to a lower cost airline that would give them the same destination at a fraction of the cost and then because these travel portals demanded a commission from the airlines for the seats booked over their portal. Not to say that this was received well by all...as it led to some airlines pulling the plug off the travel portals only to come back to increase their seat utilization and reduce the risk of not being available at a global marketplace which was now being dictated by the price sensitive buyer.
To complicate matters, there has been a gradual shift in focus on the regions which deliver the maximum revenue with China becoming a major hub for air travel. Considering that the Chinese government is putting its weight behind making their country connected by new airports at even the smallest cities, airlines started looking east. More and more airlines are getting into code sharing agreements to increase their presence in routes which are otherwise non-profitable  to them. This shift to Asia for maximum revenues is also due to the increase in air travel as an option as a country's per capita income has grown. Given this statistic, more of Indians and Chinese would prefer to travel by air but then the infrastructure required is still lacking in India and a lot of political influence is keeping big airlines away.
So the most obvious question is what can the traditional airlines do with so many competitors and options available to the valued flyer? How can they make sure that the customer stays loyal  to them and not move to a cheaper no frills airline? How do they decrease their cost of operations? And most importantly, how do they still adhere to the regulatory norms set for them?
At the face of it, these are very traditional and often faced issues across all  industries but what makes it unique is how it is handled in each vertical based on their business.

a) Increase Customer Revenue:- Like it is said that the business of business is to make profits, airlines have been fighting across the globe on increasing their revenues over the routes they operate on. Customers on the other hand have been more demanding in terms of service provided at the least possible cost. With the problem of plenty for the customer, a bad trip might result in the passenger churn...whereas a good trip doesn't always translate into another one with the same airline.
Airlines over the years have been the first to try and nurture loyal customers by providing them best in class experience...from lounges to in flight entertainment to gourmet food.....and in turn rewarding their loyalty with points that were redeemable. They were also the first to segment customers based on their flying habits and uniquely provide them services that suited them. The problem again is the commoditization of the above and it being no longer a differentiator. So airlines now need to think of changing their loyalty to advocacy and increase the customer value for themselves.
Different airlines have thus used different ways to move customers to their channel and be more proactive in trying to understand and predict their behavior given the vast amount of data they have about the customer's profile.
Starting with Japan's ANA giving it's crew iPads to be able to understand customer's profile and make note of their in-flight choices to serve them better to Qantas giving way to iPad docks on their flights which would allow flyers to subscribe to an app and then finish viewing the movie when they board off the plane (this incidentally also cuts down their fuel costs as iPads are lighter than traditional in flight entertainment systems.....oh and it is locked iPad so don't think stealing one would be a good idea either...).
Airlines have traditionally used analytic platforms to understand the customer behavior but that does not seem to be enough nowadays. Airlines need to go a step further and be able predict their customer's behavior and provide them options to fulfill the same in real time and across all channels. Would it be too difficult to suggest a package to a family that has traditionally taken vacations during a particular part of the year? And would it be difficult to pre-book and fulfill all their requirements based on their last few trips with you?
Airlines and travel agencies are increasingly allowing users to complete their booking through FB or LinkedIn credentials to allow them a different set of services like choosing their neighbor for a selected journey. This not only allows the airlines to provide a more customized experience to the passenger but also gives them access to loads of customer information based on their FB or LinkedIn profiles. This could further be made profitable by allowing this service only on the airline's own website and thus bring in more flyers to their website rather than booking from an aggregator who in turn demands revenues.
Airlines also need to understand that they could add on to their customer's experience and increase their revenue by partnering with 3rd party vendors who would then help in fulfilling all requirements that the flyer has. for eg in it's simplest sense you could provide a cab service and/or hotel reservation options to passengers and then they need to worry about them. But also, more creative airlines could do better by understanding passenger behaviors on different routes and segregate them based on their profiles and then present a more unique experience combining all of the above. Another example is that a price sensitive buyer will anyway go to 3-4 different sites and airlines before he/she makes a booking so would it be a good idea to show the comparison on your own site? 
Airlines now need to move to a smarter re-bundling of services to provide customers with the choice to pick what they need for the trip and thus allow them greater freedom and decreasing airline costs at the same time. Each service, if broken down, and showcased to the flyer to pick and choose for the journey would greatly help in moving passengers closer to the airlines.(Given that Airlines now offer customer specific IFE (In Flight Entertainment) options to their choice of beer to be served on-board, so the level of personalization to allow kids to check in their teddy bears to providing free baby strollers at the airport...there is a lot that can be offered at an extra price). Air Asia even offers the passenger an option of buying the seat next to them for 100RMB, which would be re-imbursed in case the flight is full. But in case there isn't anyone on the seat next to the passenger, he gets to stretch as much as he wants and AirAsia makes another 100RMB on an empty seat.
New trends are also emerging around “Customer Service”. The challenge now is: Is your airline ready to match up to the evolving play and the new standards that an intricately connected world demands?

• 71.4% consumers tweet airlines on customer service issues.
• 11 minutes is how long @Deltaassist takes on average to respond to tweets.
• Voice calls into customer service centers are projected to decline this year.

British Airways has run a very successful customer self-service campaign as AskBA to allow customers to find all their answers on the airline's website itself.
Airlines also need to listen in more intently to the passengers tweets and comments on FB and LinkedIn and use that voice profitably by resolving issues in real time and using their experience as a platform for the next wave of social marketing.

b) Decrease Operational Costs :- Airlines' operating margins have traditionally been one of the lowest across verticals with their margin sinking to 0.5% for the current year as the world GDP has plummeted with one crisis after another. Add to that the new Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) being mulled over by EU that would make airlines susceptible to even lower margins for plying on routes across Europe.
Airlines have traditionally tried to decrease their costs by using various measures like code-sharing and outsourcing of certain services to decrease their operational costs.
 Whereas, code-sharing have given them access to routes to ferry connecting passengers that were otherwise not profitable and hence decreased cost and increased traffic it has a flip side in that it doesn't provide a customer with a unified experience for the entire trip (and hence AirAsia X thinks is a thing of 20th century).
Outsourcing of maintenance and catering besides other activities have been around for some time. SOme airlines have further tweaked it by outsourcing maintenance only on certain routes where it would have otherwise meant a high input cost for low returns.Wherever maintenance is taken care by the airline itself, it needs a sophisticated system to plan the right inventory levels and plan for the parts required in the complex repair and maintenance of the fleet.
 Airlines have further decreased costs on areas like check in counters (eg Singapore Airlines) by analyzing customer behavior and rewarding them for booking and checking in using their mobile devices. This also increases their efficiency as it takes about 4 minutes to do a mobile check-in as against 8-10 minutes over a manned counter.
 SouthWest airlines has been  a leader in the field of decreasing operating costs by looking at smallest of things  like removing their logo from garbage bags to removing olives from martinis served in-flight, a one size fits all approach will definitely not work given the different geographies the airlines travel in and their respective USPs in that region. But that should not deter the airlines from encouraging their crew to take ownership of the airline service and suggest ways to decrease cost and increase efficiency.
 SouthWest also uses an OLAP engine in face of changing customer plans and volatile fuel prices to project cash flows over the long and medium term and thus plan their operations more effectively.
 Moving to a self-service mode of customer care would also decrease the costs of maintaining expensive call-centers (which customers anyway hate for the long queues) and moving to a social platform based interaction model would provide customers more choice while giving marketers a more targeted campaign execution option.

c) Adherence to Regulatory Norms:- Airlines have to adhere to very strict regulatory norms for crew training as well as financial reporting.
A well designed employee HRMS system and an integrated learning application would help in providing the required trainings to the employees as per standards set in the industry.
At the same time, a financial application should be able to provide finance department with the ability to confirm to the reporting requirements in the countries they fly in and then at the same time be able to consolidate all the details to one single ledger in HQ. And then be able to use this unified statement in the required standards as prescribed. And as above, the application should also allow the airline to predict and plan their capital usage and accordingly manage their operations better.

Airlines have traditionally been used to turbulent business weather but the landscape for reaching out and surviving is rapidly changing. There has been a flurry of new airlines from the Mid-East Asia region which do not have the labor unions that other airlines have to contend with and are cash rich with Govt backing. This further tilts the balance against the traditional airlines.
Add to that the pending delivery of new aircraft in the coming years (which has been delayed for sometime due to aircraft manufacturer issues), and we have lot of empty seats in aircrafts and with no-frills airlines further eroding the customer base, it surely is going to be a period when old models will drastically die away and surprisingly new ones will emerge.

Consumer Goods Vertical : Prospering in an increasingly turbulent commodity market

For years the conventional wisdom had been that consumers would continue to spend on the daily requirements which were catered to by CPG industries and that hence these companies were insulated from economic cycles that affect the global businesses. All this has changed in the past few years with CPG manufacturers as :-

i) Companies are struggling to grow in developed countries with an ever decreasing population and hence lower demand for products.
ii) The demand or pull is from emerging markets where traditional selling and marketing methods no longer work and companies need to adapt to the new product requirements as well as regulatory pressures in the new geographies.
iii)All across the globe, consumers becoming increasingly price selective and less brand conscious in all markets. Consumers are more likely to go with a fixed budget and spend more on certain products while tighten their spend on other ones.
iv) To add to all their woes, the commodity prices have been increasing year over year whereas consumer spend has not been growing at the same rate.
v) Brand loyalty has taken a back seat and price consciousness is the new mantra for shoppers around the world.
vi) Supply Chains have become increasingly complex and large retailers have their own plans for promoting and stacking products to achieve their business objectives.

Now, more than ever, CPG companies are looking to consolidate and stay ahead of their competitors by:-

a) Increase market penetration and demand in emerging economies :- CPG manufacturers are looking towards new markets in Asia and Africa to bring about the much required spurt in volumes. Whereas, the population in emerging economies is growing fast enough to make the overall world average of 11% population increase, the population in developed economies is decreasing with each passing year. These emerging markets need a different mindsets and a different approach like Unilever has incorporated in India by using women in villages as their primary salespeople under the "Shakti" initiative for women empowerment. This has given them the much needed penetration in rural markets to fulfill demand generated from media channels. Each of these emerging markets, in turn, have their own regulatory issues that the manufacturers and retailers have to adhere to while still being in line with their global reporting requirements.
This requires a consolidated reporting mechanism to aggregate different financial data from each of the geographies and then use it to automatically generate the balance sheet and reports for the HQ. Not only this, but would also require financial management tools like period end closure and disclosure management as well as financial planning tools to be able to cross the hurdle of multiple reporting laws in different geographies.

b) Grow global and local sourcing and supply networks to decrease costs:-  CPG manufacturers have increased their product mix over the past few decades and hence the number of suppliers has increased manifold. if that was not enough then consider the choice of lowest price supplier with the lowest cost of sourcing the raw material from. On the demand side, emerging economies still have a large populace situated in smaller towns and villages which do not even have proper mode of road transport available. For example, for the price conscious Indian buyer where a large population still buys from the "mom and pop" store next door (due to their ability to sell on credit), the larger supply chains of developed markets are no longer viable and smaller, more effective product mix and smaller batch sizes of supply have to be maintained and supplied with minimal cost.
CPG manufacturers need to work closely with their retailers and decrease the cost of inventory by closely monitoring the demand from the shoppers. This would require an advanced and collaborative planning solution for optimizing inventory maintained at the retailer and sourcing quantities from the suppliers.

c) Innovate and introduce new products based on geographical demand and conditions :- Consumers increasingly need to be provided with innovative products to generate demand in previously unknown categories as well as increase respond to the latest market trends.
Launching a new product and ensuring that it is successful individually as well as in the context of cannibalization of similar products from the manufacturer needs to be considered. moreover, a halo effect that would result in increased buying of other related products would be an added advantage.
Companies would need to assess the costs involved in developing new products as against the projected revenues generated from the launch, both in meeting short term and long term strategic objectives for the manufacturer. CPG manufacturers need tools to help them accurately project the new product launch's performance based on alternative scenarios and assumptions as well be able to predict demand.

d) Streamline promotional spend and  get more value for marketing budgets allocated to retailers :- CPG manufacturers have long realized the benefits of "Shopper Marketing" and that they need to be able to generate demand by targeting their end-customers who are the shoppers and not the retailers. Customers need to be targeted by creating brand consciousness as well a unique experience associated with the brand across multitude of channels.
Manufacturers need to sense the demand from the shoppers and accordingly plan and execute the next wave of marketing campaigns and promotions to increase their revenues. moreover, the inputs from the demand should go into planning the inventory quantities at the respective retailers and consequently tied back to the sourcing quantities from the suppliers. CPG manufacturers also need to effectively plan the next promotion to generate the required lift in volumes as per the stated objectives as well as manage their funds to attain the same. Lastly, manufacturers need to tie back the demand from shoppers and trade promotion effectivity to plan the execution of retail supply and use the data collected from the visit audits to monitor out of compliance issues at the retailers.


There is no doubt that the next battle for retail dominance and shopper-mind-share is going to be fought in emerging markets for the consumer goods' manufacturers, but at the same time companies need to continually innovate in their existing markets. For eg, ConAgra foods started a whole campaign around using their sauce and related ingredients (also from ConAgra) to create unique recipes as part of their campaign which resulted in  not only an increase in the base sauce's demand but also generated a halo effect on other products recommended in the recipe.

Communications Vertical - Trends and opportunities

Communication technologies have been the single most important market drivers in the current century. Not only people but enterprises too are heavily dependent on it to be able to do even the most basic of day to day activities. This has led to a revolution of sorts which started with the proliferation of mobile phones and giving everyone the ability to stay connected at all times.
Telecom companies too have had to evolve very fast from being basic fixed line service providers to being able to provide mobile, data and cable services. The latest addition to this has been their ability (albeit of only a few) to provide cloud based services.
Telecom companies have had to be on their toes as the landscape has changed very fast and the consumers expect their CSP (Communication Service Provider) to be at the forefront of providing them the latest and greatest technology available in return for their loyalty. This in turn has resulted in ever growing complexities in managing their clientele. On the other hand, like all challenges this provides CSPs with an opportunity to be able to enhance the customer experience and increase ARPU (Average Revenue per User).
Telcos have thus been constantly scaling the challenges thrown at their OSS (Operations Support Systems) and the market driver BSS (Business Service Systems).
Some of the recent challenges and the opportunities thrown are :-
a) Personalization of Customer Services :- Truly speaking in a B2C space, with the advent of mobile phones and the ability to connect to the internet using them has given the consumers choices to choose from the content and services available online. More and more consumers are using the same device for connecting to the web and downloading content when needed. Telcos thus have a challenge in upgrading their BSS and OSS systems to allow for real-time rating of the consumers rating.
This has in turn prompted Telcos themselves to provide apps to their consumers which has become a new stream of revenue for them. At the same time, they are fast moving towards complex tiered pricing/rating model to segment their customers to increase their revenue while encouraging them to consume more. Also, this gives them an opportunity to expand to cross-industry application using which the customers can use their data devices to connect to non-Telco enterprises like hospitals, banks,etc.
For software providers, in turn this has thrown open the doors for recommending systems that will not only support very complex pricing but will be able  to do so in real-time.Moreover, the system should be able to provide the correct bill based on revenue shared with the cross-business entities whose service is provided over the CSP network.
b) Decreased time to market for new services :- In the fast paced and changing customer focused Telecom industry, companies need the ability to be able to provide the latest and the most relevant services to their subscribers.
Telcos have long realized that one of the major differentiators for their subscribers is the CSP's ability to provide the above. CSPs have traditionally had to handle disconnected systems for BSS and OSS to offer a new service. Any change in one system would require changes to be made in all the other downstream systems to be able to provide the service to their subscribers. And to top it all, the changes have to be in synch for it to work.
This calls for a solution to handle the service definition at only one place and then be able to automatically propagate it to the downstream systems. In simpler IT terminology, it requires a Product hub to create the product and use SOA to send to each of the BSS and OSS systems the required attributes for them to make it available to subscribers to use. This rapid design and delivery of service would not only make introduction of new services faster but will also decrease the margin for error in providing it.
c) Bundling of services :- Customers are more likely to stay with a CSP if they use more than one type of service from the provider. From the customer's viewpoint, it offers him a single bill to view all their usage and only one agency to interact with for all their communication needs. This in turn decreases customer churn. Loosely speaking, more the services that a customer uses from a CSP, the harder it is for him to move to another CSP.
CSPs need to be able to provide a different pricing promotion for customers who use multiple services by offering discounts to retain their highest ARPU entities.
d) Customer Care :- One of the most important functions for BSS systems in Telco has been to provide subscribers with superior support for the service offered.Customers need the ability to transact with the CSP without having to be queued at the operator point. Also, they would want their transactions to be completed over multiple channels.
From a CSP perspective, a more informed customer will be able to resolve his/her own queries over the web and this would in turn decrease the burden of having to manage huge call centers. Providing customers with transactional amd informational data online can also bring about the possibility of strategically placing new offerings which the customer might be interested in.
Customer facing BSS systems need to be able to provide them with an easy to search and intuitive knowledge base that they can leverage for resolving their queries. More importantly, they also need the ability to be able to chat or call the customer care rep from the same interface. This would also require a back-end system that is fully integrated to the customer's profile and his current transaction to be able to recommend the latest services or an upgrade service to the customer.
e) Customer Experience :- Customer experience in Telco consists of not only the customer's experience with the brand over the communication channels but also consists of the ability to provide superior grade coverage of network services which is called as Customer Service Assurance (CSA). CSA also entails collection of all customer data and re-use it for decreasing staff efficiency and data leakage.
CSPs today are understanding the need for a superior CEM for the customer as well as CSA being an integral part of the strategy to keep a customer satisfied.
CEM solutions should not only offer the customer a unique brand experience over multiple channels and ability to transact across them but also be pro-active in providing service coverage from the OSS systems. Companies would need to tie together all the information they have from the various customer touch points and this would then require a SOA connected system that ultimately enriches the customer information using a Master Data Management (MDM) solution. CSPs would also need to provide the customer the facilities for calling over the mobile/fixed line as well as provide them the ability to chat/call over the web. Most importantly, the solution should be able to understand the customer's profile and behavior and be able to provide real time offers to the customer across channels.
f) Business Analytics :- Customer information has traditionally resided in a disjointed set of applications with the CSP but now, more than ever, with more systems being added to handle different systems, it becomes necessary to be able to analyze the customer value and behavior.
CSPs need to invest in systems that would allow them the ability to integrate with their multiple BSS and OSS systems and bring out the tru value of the customer as well as reduce revenue leakage. A business analytics solutions should also be able to use all this information to provide the customer with real time product buy/upgrade offerings to increase profitability.
g) Ability to handle Cloud Services :- Enterprise customers are increasingly enthusiastic about the Cloud based services being offered by their service providers, be it SaaS (Software as a Service) or PaaS ( Platform as a Service) or simple IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). This provides a huge opportunity for CSPs to be able to leverage their existing infrastructure to provide cloud services and add to their revenue.
Complexity in cloud based services comes with the on-demand nature of services as required by businesses and CSPs need to be able to not only be able to provide them the same through their OSS systems but also be able to rate them in real-time. CSPs can then not only price their offerings using their tiered pricing but also be able to price for data stored in their managed servers.

2012 is largely being thought of as the year of inflection for CSPs with the global sales of Smartphones have for the first time outpaced the global PC sales.

Moreover, this is also the year when China mobile replaced Vodafone from the Top 6 global CSPs in terms of revenue.

CSPs are moving fast to cover lost ground and be able to deliver to the subscriber's expectations and even surpass them by upgrading their OSS and BSS systems. This is a tremendous opportunity for software and hardware manufacturers in Telco segment to use this as a huge revenue generating exercise as well as increase CSPs under fold.

Customer Experience

Customer Relationship Management or CRM has been around for years and is thought of as the main reason why companies have been able to position the best product to their most profitable customer and increase their ROI from the whole interaction. This works just fine when the market was not as segmented as it is now and customers would buy your product no matter what if you were the best or only option available.
Customers today are highly mobile and are more demanding. A customer would like to interact with the same company over multiple channels and still be able to have a consistent experience across each one of them. After all, how many of us would like to be asked about our details when we move from a web interaction to a mobile one? Customers today have a variety of choices available and brand loyalty is a thing of the past and continued patronage from the customer is the company's privilege and not the other way around.
So how do companies engage with the customer so that they have a favorable experience? How do you make the customer identify himself with the brand or product? And most importantly how do you get him to come back for another purchase?
The term CEM/CX was coined in early 2000s and the main aim was to identify and resolve the above mentioned problem. CEM or Customer Experience Management would enable a company to provide a customer with a unique cross-channel experience that would go beyond the traditional product placement rules preached by CRM.
CEM should not only be able to provide a customer with the ability to interact over any channel of his choice but also be able to continue his transaction over a channel of his choice, at every step providing a unique experience that helps him/her identify with the brand.
The first step for an organization is to be available to the customer over every channel possible, mobile or web or social or whatever else the customer may choose.
The second important step is to be able to identify the customer across channels and allow him to be able to start or continue a multichannel transaction.
Lastly, provide a user experience that is unique and similar irrespective of the channel of choice. Deliver a consistent brand experience!
Most importantly, the organization should be able to monitor the customer's behavior across multiple channels and be able to analyze and predict what would be the next interaction with him/her and over which channel. After all the best place to get the second order is where you got the first one!
CX solutions are required off every vertical and increases in complexity as the channels grow. Surprisingly, most companies are yet to start on this journey and at best are in the very initial stages of the same.
Companies have incomplete CX available, in the sense that you might be only able to do certain transactions over a certain channel or customer discovery re-starts every time you change channels or the brand positioning and visibility and experience is totally different in each channel.
It is about time that companies look at Apple and their like to see how a streamlined CX could help generate greater revenue from the same customer than was possible earlier.
In my opinion, a great UI across channels is like putting a perfume outlet at the entrance of a mall, relaxes the customer and allows him to spend more that he would have.
Also, CX would allow companies to suggest multiple cross-sell and up-sell products with a far greater conversion rate than having a one size fits all approach.
Maybe it's time that organizations understood the benefits of CX and started investing in it...before they are too late and have a lot of catching up to....