A new Telecommunications e-Business Support Systems Portal Plus Intelligence (Telecom B2B+I), from Sybase, will give customers of service providers the self-service ability they have been seeking. The pre-built, Web-based integration support system application was announced at the company's recent TechWave 2000 Conference.
Sybase says research indicates that service providers' clients are demanding more electronic self-help functionality over the Web. It claims this new portal will enable providers to accelerate and improve their ability to implement integrated Web projects, such as account management, reseller support and business customer acquisition and retention programmes - at a lower cost and with greater functionality than might be achieved by starting from scratch or with a less fully developed architecture. It will also leverage the company's Enterprise Portal (EP) solution, the industry's first such product, and further extend Sybase's Industry Warehouse Studio for telecommunications-related analytical customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities.
Julie Tomlinson, marketing manager of Sybase SA, says the development of this product is in line with Sybase's initiative "to focus on vertical markets, and those where we have traditionally been a player, as well as those in which we are experienced".
The company is already well established in the financial sector, where it has a suite of applications for the finance, banking and insurance industries. Its second target area is the telecoms market, especially in the US and Europe. "It is easy for that to be the next logical move," says Tomlinson.
She says the EP shipped in May, but the telco portal is still under development. It will be available at the end of the year as a packaged product tailored specifically to the telecommunications industry.
In SA the Telecom B2B+I will be aimed at customers and markets such as Telkom, iTouch and the cellular phone operators. In addition, "Some portions of the portal might be used by satellite companies, communications groups, cellular phone manufacturers, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) - but not the whole package," Tomlinson says.
Telecom B2B+I will contain a data warehouse tuned to the queries service providers need for analytical CRM applications, so deploying a data warehouse can be accomplished in months because only the carrier's unique queries need to be defined. This will help providers get closer to true one-to-one mass marketing by enabling them to:
Identify which carriers are receiving the most interconnect traffic.
Track where traffic is terminating and determine if greater capacity for a service is needed there.
Recognise where they are leasing lines to customers who have churned out.
Distinguish which customers they are selling across product lines.
Discern which resellers are bonded to them electronically.
In addition, the Business Intelligence (BI) embedded in the product will enable business customers to view and analyse bill information across the service provider's offering of products and services. This will be done by integrating multiple convergent billing systems where required, and providing business customers flexibility in viewing, analysing and reporting on their own bill data.
Applications such as online catalogues, order services and contract management housed on the portal can provide content and applications that are non-stop, integrated and personalised via a single point of access. The initial suite of applications is expected to feature: Electronic bill view, analysis and payment; integrated operational CRM systems, analytical CRM, and provisioned services notification between carriers and resellers.
Sybase will also introduce a new partnership programme, the Telecommunications e-Portal Alliance. This will provide select support system vendors and service providers in the telecommunications market, as well as e-business dealers, the opportunity to integrate Sybase Telecom B2B+I with their industry offerings.
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