Globetom to provide major cloud-based electronic prepaid solution to IML Group

South African ICT provider, globetom has been appointed as the electronic prepaid distribution partner for the IML Group, a leading field service marketing company that operates in 13 countries in Middle East and North Africa. The appointment effectively sees IML moving over its prepaid operations to electronic distribution, enabled by globetom's cloud-based GP3 charging and fulfilment solution.

Globetom will also be highlighting the IML appointment as part of its participation at the 15th annual Africa Com telecoms and ICT conference, held from 13 to 15 November 2012 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), in the Western Cape.

"We are extremely pleased with the partnership with IML Group. The adoption of electronic prepaid and payment distribution in the cloud is an ideal way to rapidly expand a distribution network - spanning multiple countries - from a single infrastructure," says Philip Stander, MD of globetom.

He adds: "The use of a cloud solution under a software as a service (Saas) commercial model optimises technology costs and creates a vested interest for globetom as a supplier to assist our customers with agile technology."

"Any business must always look at opportunities to move forward and be a leader in its field; I believe this partnership will do exactly this for both IML and globetom. This opens the door for new and alternative ventures and moves IML in a different and competitive field of electronic prepaid and payment distribution, a totally unique field for the IML Group," says Vernon Joubert, GM of DHI, the distribution division of IML.

The IML Group has established a comprehensive footprint throughout MENA, which includes a recent market presence in Iraq, which it believes will enjoy significant interest in the near future - to existing and new clients - due to its size and improving stability.

The solution

Globetom will be providing IML's distribution division, Distribution House International (DHI), with a complete, cloud-hosted electronic prepaid distribution solution that will enable it to roll out a secure digital channel for prepaid distribution.

The GP3 electronic prepaid solution will, among others, allow DHI to optimally manage its retail outlet network, which includes PoS (point of sale) devices, in-store operators, outlets and the holding company. This will include retail outlet purchases, commission management, service provider revenue assurance and their own revenue controls.

"Our GP3 solution will, for example, allow DHI to provide critical, up-to-date information to its entire partnership channel, which includes revenue assurance, stock levels, sales and commission reporting," explains Stander.

The benefits

The globetom GP3 charging and fulfilment offering includes important features such as horizontal scalability and multi-tenant ability, therefore allowing multiple distributors to operate from a single platform deployment - ideal for cloud-based environments.

Vouchers and other prepayment options are controlled centrally and newly created denominations and product offerings can be made available across the entire electronic access channel within a matter of minutes. Access to specific offerings can be segmented across sales agents.

Key features include:

* Subscriber management - professional management of subscribers and service subscriptions;
* Voucher management - full prepaid and promotional voucher life cycle management;
* Online charging function - online charging enabling real-time service charging for event and session-based services;
* Rating function - sophisticated rating and policy management;
* Balance management - carry on-board balances, manage multiple accounts and maintain multiple currencies;
* Revenue assurance - sophisticated revenue management functions; and
* Scalability - the solution is extremely scalable, and owing to its commoditised hardware environment, distributors benefit from the ability to scale easily to meet fast-growing electronic distribution channel demand;
* Business process management - the entire prepaid distribution technology platform is based on the globetom GEF SOA platform, and transaction fulfilment is controlled through business process management (BPM) and business process orchestration (BPO).

The first phase of the globetom electronic prepaid distribution will be rolled out to DHI's airtime services in Qatar. However DHI will expand the service offering to offer a variety of innovative prepaid, payment and service fulfilment transactions accessible at the retail outlets in its network.