As the telecommunications market in Africa continues to grow and mature, mobile devices are not only getting smarter, but cheaper too.
So says Mark Parker, CEO of Itemate, who notes that this results in an increase in the numbers of subscribers requiring access to telecommunications services.
Parker explains that mobile phone penetration in Africa has reached over 649 million connections, with the bulk of these connections being prepaid. This figure is second only to Asia.
This situation is resulting in the development of new service offerings and technologies that are changing the way mobile operators have to do business.
These operators are embracing technology and investigating how new tools will enable them to do business more effectively, says Parker.
A key element in operating a successful prepaid business is efficient management of the logistics of PIN generation, voucher printing, warehousing, its distribution and eventual PIN redemption for recharge, adds Parker.
As a consequence, a number of voucher management systems have been developed, providing operators with the tools they require to more effectively manage this side of their business, says Parker.
However, he says few of these products offer a complete prepaid lifecycle management solution, with many focusing only on specific aspects of the business.
Parker points out that this was one of the main reasons the company identified the need for a voucher management system that not only administers the data generated by all prepaid activities, but allows operators to control vouchers, handsets, SIM cards, and every other area of the pre-paid lifecycle.
"As a company built on allowing operators to track and report on in-channel and subscriber deferred revenue, we felt that we were ideally positioned to help our customers manage their entire product ecosystems," says Ian McGinn, Itemate's CTO.
"The decision to take our product portfolio forward in this direction was rooted in our understanding of the market and the needs of our customers, and the ability to easily integrate a solution of this type into our existing offering.
"The solution is platform independent, highly secure, is highly scalable, and integrates with the operators' existing platforms, including the Huawei, Alcatel and Ericsson platforms, among others. Due to the high risk of fraud or mismanagement, tracking of all areas is vital in the prepaid environment. The sheer size of the data involved in managing the lifecycle of any product makes this even more challenging, and our objective was to offer our customers a solution that simplified their operations."
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