Speaking at the Amdocs Asia Pacific InTouch 2013 event in Singapore, Allen Lew – CEO of the Digital Life Group at SingTel – left delegates certain that SingTel has no intention of being left behind as a dumb pipe provider.
Indeed, in his presentation Lew made it quite clear to delegates that the Digital Life Group would be using every asset at its disposal to make sure that SingTel does not cede ownership of subscribers to the global OTT giants.
Lew told delegates that although the OTT players were always going to be a factor in the marketplace, SingTel has some major advantages over the likes of Apple, Google, Twitter and Facebook - which it intends to make full use of.
In particular, Lew said that SingTel - as one of the world’s leading multi-national telcos - would be using its market reach of 500 million subscribers spread over multiple countries to build a digital offering that would have huge scale.
Lew said that the crucial advantage that SingTel had over its OTT rivals would be the fact – and this is where companies with the expertise of Amdocs come into the picture – that it has a much better knowledge and understanding of its customers and their usage habits than anyone else.
In a memorable turn of phrase, Lew described this customer knowledge as the “new oil” of the communications industry and said that SingTel would be leaning heavily on using this subscriber data to offer highly personalized services to subscribers.
Finally, Lew said that another critical advantage that SingTel has is the fact that right across its operator portfolio - from cutting-edge Singapore to developing markets like the Philippines - it has an established billing system in place with its subscribers.