Matt Roberts, Amdocs' product marketing director for big data and strategic innovations, insists that telcos must embrace big data to remain competitive and the end goal is about more than monetization
CEM & Big Data: Why do telcos need to make big data a top priority?
Matt Roberts: Even though telecoms is typically at the cutting edge of technology, it has lagged behind other industries in its adoption of big data analytics. Internet companies such as Facebook and Amazon are underpinned by big data, as are retail businesses such as Target.
It's been a buzzword in the telecoms sector for so long, but it has been misrepresented and misunderstood. The use of big data was seen in many cases as being about pure monetization - in other words, how do we sell all this data about our customers.
However, big data offers telcos much more - the chance to get rare insight about their customers to drive better operating efficiencies, provide new revenue streams and optimize network performance.
Why have so many lagged behind in moving in this direction?
Many operators in the past decided it was not a priority for them. This was partly due to the fact that telecoms is heavily regulated and therefore there was an inherent caution about big data usage.
The main reason, however, could be the fact that the operator organizational structure is complex and siloed, which creates challenges for an efficient and effective big data organization. Combine this with not having a full understanding of the benefits of big data, and you can see why it hasn't kept pace with other industries embracing this technology.