DST Group is in the middle of a converged billing transformation project, which started in March. The first phase of the initiative, implemented by Redknee, replaced DST's existing wireless postpaid billing platform with a real-time converged billing and customer-care solution.
The main objective, DST CEO Idris Vasi said, was to improve its customer service operations by using subscriber data to increase loyalty and revenues. The next step is to move beyond postpaid and enable cross-bundling between mobile, broadband and potentially its pay-TV and ISP services.
DST, the leading provider of mobile and mobile broadband service in Brunei with an 82% market share, offers 2G, 2.5G and 3G mobile services in addition to mobile broadband via a nationwide HSPA network. The country has a mobile penetration of 105%.
Vasi and Redknee CEO Lucas Skoczkowski talked recently to Telecomasia.net about the drivers and challenges behind the project.
What are the key drivers behind your move to transform your business?
Idris Vasi: We want to be more agile in rolling out services, from a time-to-market perspective, but also to give customers more variety and options -- things that we weren't able to do before with flat-rate billing. Our billing transformation is also tied to the network transformation side, because the billing systems have to integrate with our network infrastructure equipment. But the primary driver is on the services transformation side.
What were the key benefits that DST was looking to achieve?
Vasi: It is about flexibility -- the ability to do converged billing, billing policy management, session management and provide much more choice and control to customers.
One of the challenges is that between 10% and 20% of customers use up 80% of the bandwidth. They use a lot of video, they create a lot of peer-to-peer traffic. One way to manage this issue is to limit or stop these customers, but that is not our intention. Session control and subscriber management are important to us. Billing systems play a major part, because you need your billing system to be adaptable to look after all these different scenarios.
Lucas Skoczkowski: Operators that have moved to a converged billing platform, replacing their legacy postpaid billing platforms with next-generation solutions, are able to offer real-time promotional campaigns, improved customer care and hybrid payment options. The results in greater levels of customer satisfaction and, of course, reduced churn. Retaining and developing existing customers provides the foundation from which to grow new business.
With a phased implementation, which part came first and how long will the rollout of the entire project take?
Vasi: We are very conscious on making sure that first and foremost our customers do not experience any disruption to their service throughout the transformation. To do this we have engaged groups from across the business, including customer care, marketing and billing operations, to ensure complete alignment.
The transformation of postpaid will also certainly see a move beyond flat-rate billing and will enable DST to have access to intelligent information on bandwidth and usage at certain times of the day. This can then be used to create new campaigns. The next step will be to see how we can expand the benefits to all of our customers.
Skoczkowski: All operators in the Asia-Pacific region face a similar challenge - which is to keep customers satisfied while not worrying about the backend. But transformation is not something providers should be scared of. Operators are continually transforming to meet customer needs and remain competitive. We work closely with our AsiaPacific customers to work out their primary need and help them put in place a staged approach that the customers will be entirely unaware of. Implementing TCB has empowered DST with real-time access to subscriber data and analytics which lets them both cross-sell and up-sell.
What are the benefits for your subscribers?
Vasi: Increased control and visibility are the big bonuses to customers. For example, online and mobile games have a variety of billing options that come with them. Some are zero-rated, some have a flat-rate fee, paid by PayPal or direct debit, some through operator billing. We needed a system with the flexibility to cope with this variety, one which offered more visibility as well as a reduced cost of ownership.
Flat-rate billing is sometimes taken as the easy option, with many operators using it because their competitors do. DST's aim is to eventually offer fully-converged billing across all aspects of our business.
Skoczkowski: DST will be able to offer more targeted promotions and new services that will drive increased customer loyalty and revenues – the key to growth in the rapidly-expanding Asia-Pacific mobile telecom marketplace. Next-generation mobile services require operators to be in full charge of subscriber data to provide subscribers with tangible benefits.
What do you see in the future, how will things move forward for DST and other operators?
Vasi. At DST we have various properties - we have a pay-TV operation, we also have a small ISP operation, and we also offer mobile broadband. In the past we haven't really leveraged these properties - we haven't for example done cross-bundling for our customers. That's something that is possible with a converged billing system -- cross-bundling between mobile, broadband and potentially pay-TV and ISP services.
One opportunity is of course revenue, another is customer satisfaction, because we are providing more options to customers. Preventing customer churn is also key, because if we offer differentiated service bundles that our competitors cannot offer, then the problem of having to prevent churn just goes away.
Skoczkowski: In the not too distant future truly converged billing systems will be standard. This approach reduces both capital expenditure and operational expenditure, which also delivers value to subscribers over voice, data and content. By addressing such core business needs through the implementation of smart billing systems, forward-thinking providers can reap the benefits.