Top global telecommunications companies call on Business Objects

"Some of the largest international telecommunications companies now rely on business intelligence to increase revenue, customer loyalty and decrease costs," says Gary Lawrence, country manager of Business Objects in SA.

Companies such as AT&T, British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, NTT, SBC Communications, Verizon Communications and Vodafone use Business Objects solutions to increase operational efficiency and improve customer relationships. *(full list below)

"Business Objects has significantly simplified the process of segmenting our customers into meaningful groups. By applying filters, we can reduce lists of millions of customers down to much smaller groups, enabling us to answer very specific questions about that segment," said Deepak Singh, head of business information services at One 2 One, a T-Mobile, Deutsch Telekom company.

"As a result, we understand our customers better and can launch very specific marketing and promotional campaigns which provide value to our customers and improves our business performance."

"Business Objects is enabling telecommunications carriers to turn the massive amounts of data they collect into actionable business decisions and profits," said David Hawley, analyst at The Yankee Group.

"Telecommunications companies worldwide need to better understand their customer base, as well as their revenue streams. Whether they are looking to provide more value to the monthly billing interaction, decrease customer churn, or increase the understanding of their cost structure, more and more carriers are embracing the capabilities of business intelligence platforms, such as Business Objects," says Lawrence.

Telecommunications service providers are using Business Objects solutions to increase profitability by recognising the untapped potential of information assets. For example, business intelligence can:

* Increase customer loyalty -Telecommunications companies use BI to look at patterns that can lead to customer churn. By identifying customers in the vulnerable segment prior to defection they are able to launch appropriate retention campaigns and keep their profitable customers from signing up with the competition. They are also able to differentiate their services by providing added value to normal customer points of interaction, like billing. For instance, a major UK mobile operator uses Business Objects to offer online billing analysis to its corporate customers. This has resulted in higher customer satisfaction as customers have information regarding their bills, they can see how their communications expenditure is spread over various services and manage the cost of communication more effectively. This translates to a competitive advantage for telecom companies and differentiates their service.

* Generate revenue - Telecommunications companies are using BI to understand their customer usage profiles, and up-sell and cross-sell other services to existing customers thereby increasing the average revenue per user (ARPU). They are also using BI to provide more information to their distributors and partners to increase channel revenue and loyalty.

* Decrease operating costs - By deploying end-user friendly BI solutions, telecommunications companies put information at the employees` fingertips when they need to make decisions. This improves operational decision making in the supply chain and distribution channel. For example, users in the distribution channel can see inventory levels of various products at the supplier warehouse and use this information to decrease their inventory carrying costs. In addition, with the changes in the regulatory environment, telecommunications companies are facing new and additional reporting requirements. This can be costly if the reports require information from systems with inconsistent information definitions or those not designed to work together. Business intelligence helps companies combine data from disparate sources, automates reporting, and provides analysis of service assurance issues so telecommunication companies can reduce costs.

"Telecommunications service providers tend to be a visionary and innovative group. They were among the first to implement packaged applications like enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM), to improve business operations and customer service. They are again leading the way by using BI solutions to improve their understanding of the customer," said Lawrence.

"In telecommunications companies there is tremendous opportunity to harness information and use it to improve customer service. With Business Objects, employees can discover new trends or inconsistencies, and can uncover problems or opportunities to improve business, marketing and network operations."

Business Objects telecommunications customers worldwide include: AT&T Dutchtone Telecom Italia AT&T Wireless 3GIS Telecom Italia Mobile AOL Time Warner Inc KPN Telefonica d`Espana Belgacom Mobile MTN Telenor BellSouth Corporation Nextel Telia Bouygues Telecom NTT Telstra British Telecom Orange Telkom Cegetel Qwest Communications US Cellular Cingular Wireless SBC Communications T-Mobile Cox Communications Skanova Verizon Wireless Deutsche Telekom Sonera Vodafone Hutchison 3G Vodacom. Business Objects is used by MTN, Vodacom and Telkom in SA.