BI Vendor of the Year: SAP |
SAP senior VP for industry business solutions Adaire Fox-Martin outlines the company's recent highlights.
Continued demand for SAP Business Objects solutions translated into a number of expansion initiatives from top-tier carriers for use in profitability management, business planning and customer experience management.
This year we continued to strengthen our BI offering. We released further technical details of SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance software. The in-memory computing engine that resides at the heart of the appliance is an integrated database and calculation layer that allows the processing of massive quantities of real-time data in main memory to provide immediate results from analyses and transactions.
What are the key industry trends that have driven your growth?
As the proliferation of connected devices per individual continues in mature markets, and the M2M communications space is set to explode in the coming decade, the pace and volume of customer centric data accumulation will only accelerate for CSPs, which will be forced to sift through an ever greater amounts of data, both structured and unstructured, to maintain successful customer experiences.
Broadband pervasiveness and new breeds of customers such as the digital natives will continue to fuel a do-it-yourself attitude and create a growing appetite for self-service. BI can be an integral part of this push and become an experience enhancer by providing access to personalized data.
The digital experience has already significantly compressed the time span of many activities in the industry. Instant access is the new form of instant gratification for a new breed of subscribers and partners.
How are telcos using BI to adapt to market demand and embrace new business models?
Telcos are looking at the shift in the business paradigm to profitability and not revenue alone. They are revising segmentation and understanding of their valuable customers and products, while testing the impact that changes in pricing and process improvements have on costs and profitability. This gives them the insight to act decisively, with a clear understanding of impact.
CSPs also are looking more closely at partner/content profiles and the profitability and reach of their content. The consumption patterns in turn provide valuable insights for new revenue models like advertisements and sponsorships.