Operators seek to launch services faster with Subscriber Data Management (SDM)
Campbell, CALIFORNIA, August 10, 2010-As part of its Continuous Research Service (CRS) series of analyst notes and surveys about the next gen OSS and policy market, Infonetics Research this month published SDM Deployment Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey. The survey provides insight into operators’ subscriber data management deployment strategies, including the primary drivers behind their investments, vendor selection criteria, and SDM integration efforts.
ANALYST NOTE
“Creating a consolidated source of subscriber information poses a significant challenge to operators, which a growing number of operators are overcoming with the help of subscriber data management (SDM). The results of our recent survey show that operators view SDM as a valuable tool for quickly rolling out new services and for better identifying cross-sell and upsell opportunities. With consolidated and analyzed subscriber data, operators can take a more sophisticated approach to their service delivery strategies, including customer segmentation, marketing, and customer retention and loyalty programs,” notes Shira Levine, directing analyst for next gen OSS and policy at Infonetics Research.
SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS: SDM DEPLOYMENT STRATEGIES
The top drivers for operators to deploy subscriber data management tools are to speed up the delivery of new services, upsell new services to subscribers, and to better understand subscriber preferences
The success of any SDM initiative depends on executive-level endorsement and collaboration across data silos
Machine to machine (M2M) services represent a hot growth area in the SDM space, with 75% of respondents reporting plans to use SDM to support M2M by 2013
Operators are deploying SDM hand-in-hand with complementary systems, particularly identity management and home subscriber servers (HSS)
ABOUT THE SURVEY
For the SDM strategies survey, Infonetics Research interviewed purchase decision-makers at telecom service providers in North America, EMEA, and Asia Pacific that have a subscriber data management solution currently deployed or plan to have one by 2011. Respondents also have detailed knowledge of their company’s SDM software and integration services and subscriber databases, including HLR, HSS, and ngHLR. Service providers participating in the study represent a broad cross-section of the communications industry, including two of the largest operators in North America and one of the largest operators in Asia, smaller emerging wireless operators in Europe and North America, and several operators with strong machine-to-machine (M2M) offerings.
Service delivery platforms going mainstream
While service delivery platforms were initially viewed as platforms to enable content services, as the SDP market continues to mature, we're seeing operators taking a more sophisticated approach to the applications and capabilities they're using SDPs to support, including convergent billing and single sign-on to enable flexible service bundles. This kind of approach will take SDPs mainstream.
Convergent charging market a $2.6 billion opportunity in 2014
The economy may be improving and operators may be investing again, but very few will be doing the full-scale billing transformation projects that we saw in the past. Yet it has become clear that their existing billing systems-both prepaid and postpaid-are increasingly falling short, lacking the flexibility, speed and/or real-time capabilities required to support new convergent business models. Convergent charging allows operators to address that challenge without the high cost associated with a large-scale billing replacement and, even more important, without introducing additional vertically-integrated silos into their operational environments. They can quickly and efficiently roll out truly bundled services, up-sell and cross-promote services, and improve the customer experience at the same time.