"Operators must adopt a retail mentality"
By Raghu Prasad
Mumbai, Dec 31, 2007 1433 hrs IST

It's irresistible and irreversible - enhancements in mobile communication and fundamental advances in consumer commerce are driving 21st-Century lifestyle changes. Operators recognize that core legacy billing systems, with after-the-fact processing, are not equipped to meet the needs of this 'now generation' which demands up-to-date instant information that they, themselves can easily manage. These outdated systems limit the operator's ability to maximize revenue since they do not support modern requirements for immediate handling of data and content services, and cannot keep pace with the mobile revolution. In a world where consumers expect the delivery of services to be instantaneous and personalized, a billing system has to deliver much more than just incremental revenue. Operators need a flexible customer care, rating and billing platform that can adapt to the evolving lifecycle of a modern subscriber. But what attributes and characteristics are required to accommodate the modern subscribers? To understand, it's necessary to focus on the end-users, and what they are looking for from 21st-Century communications. Lifecycle Paradigm - Dynamic Convergence Of course, there are many key differentiators between end-users, but subscribers' needs change and expand pending on the various stages of their personal lives. To keep subscribers satisfied, operators need to be dynamic and adopt a retail mentality. They need to be ready to offer and support many types of services, and must anticipate and address lifestyles changes with new offers and flexible packaging. Operators' suite of offerings must be dynamic and should converge many types of services in order to capture the needs of different market sub- segments. For example: adolescence (pre-paid - yearning for more ring tones and other downloads), student (broadband, intensive messaging), early career (hybrid post-paid and prepaid, plus mobile commerce), family (fixed-mobile family account from pre-teens and up), career changes (overseas roaming, complex mobile commerce), all the way to retirement (messaging the grandchildren and getting family photos and video). Convergent Authorization - Handling Interactive Transactions With the evolution of these lifestyles, plus all combinations and variations, almost every interaction a customer now has with their operator is actually an interactive transaction. This new always-on, real-time world requires the ability to handle many concurrent interactive transactions. It could be one subscriber using multiple services or a group of users (a family or a business organization) simultaneously using the full range of applications. With this new, dynamic, converged world of communications, interactive transactions take on different characteristics, requiring a full array of pricing plans and payment options. These types of transactions must now be recognized at a very granular level, authorized, have credit limits checked, priced, rated on a variety of dimensions and ultimately debited from a prepaid account or billed through a post-paid subscription. Each interactive transaction- whether for a consumer or a business - has unique, multi-level characteristics, thresholds and preferences. A new way to accommodate these lifestyles is the hybrid approach (a unified post-paid and prepaid solution) that requires converged billing. Yet, a key requirement for any effective converged billing solution is real-time. Only real-time provides operators with access to instant usage information, and can ensure that there is adequate balance available for mobile-commerce interactive transactions and premium rating. To charge a premium for content and data downloads, the billing system must factor-in timeliness. For example, today's news commands greater value than yesterdays. Only real-time can capture this moment of opportunity for revenue generation. Convergent Real-Time Billing to Manage the Customer Lifecycle In order to grow and maintain an ongoing relationship with subscribers, operators need to embrace a unified customer lifecycle management approach. Customer lifecycle management is about optimizing the subscriber experience at the "Moment of Opportunity" from acquisition to up sell. Real-time converged billing can support the subscriber lifecycle through: real-time authorization, rating, monitoring, communication and marketing. These capabilities enable operators to transform the operator-subscriber relationship into a personalized real-time marketing and customer care experience. Operators are provided with the flexibility to create new offerings instantly and launch timely targeted promotions; thus providing a unique customer experience. Converged billing eliminates redundancy, providing operators with a single billing reference point: one customer care system and a single view of all of their subscribers. This unified method of handling consumer needs allows for service and product bundling and is an effective way for cross selling, opening up a broad array of new opportunities as consumer lifestyles change and evolve. Real-Time Converged Billing empowers operators by providing personalized marketing and customer self-care that attracts subscribers, creates customer intimacy, stimulates usage and encourages loyalty.