The telecommunications industry is evolving rapidly and witnesses unique challenges compared to other sectors. The telecom industry stands out by way of its requirements for massive capital investment over a wide geographical spread. This requirement also extends itself to the network assets operators need, which have to be refreshed more frequently than any other industry.
With growing changes in technologies and ever decreasing technology cycles, the telecom industry is under immense pressure to make smart Capex investments to stay competitive in today’s market. Add the auditory, regulatory requirements, and transformation from legacy to next-gen technologies, it becomes imperative for the operators to know the rate of change in their network when it comes to:
- Rolling out new networks
- Optimizing investments made in existing assets while ensuring seamless migration to newer technologies
- Decommissioning and monetizing end-of-life assets
Of course,
Enterprise Asset Management software has a role to play in terms of handling network assets in the right way, to ensure Capex and Opex are kept in check. At the same time, regulatory and audit compliance is adhered to. However, operators have several
asset management solutions to choose from, making it difficult to choose the right solution within the plethora of offerings.
In such a scenario, it would be easier for CSPs to understand what features are key to their operations as a guide for choosing the right telecom asset management solution. Below is an indicative list of the top 5 features every CSP must look for within their Enterprise Asset Management software.
1. Centralized Asset View
With the proliferation of new technologies and service offerings, many assets are being onboarded on the network. The network and finance teams require a comprehensive view of the assets, their lifecycles, and cross-functional data.
CSPs need a solution that can provide them with a 360
o view of their assets, encompassing asset information across finance, supply chain,
network planning, network operations, historical events, contract summary, licenses & security information. Such a feature also needs to provide cross-functional asset information, which is stitched into a seamless view and made easily accessible through a user-friendly UI. This will provide users the flexibility to access other functional asset data in the same place for a single, federated view of assets.
2. Asset Tracking
Asset Tracking during site deployments, daily operations, or decommissioning is critical for operations managers. Performing audits and highlighting process deviations are essential to fix process issues and identify operational gaps.
CSPs need a solution that can perform electronic audits on the network to automatically identify the addition/movements/removals of assets in the enterprise and sends alerts to users if these changes are deviations from tracked workflows. This information can also be used to suggest process improvements.
3. AI-based Contract Management
Managing contracts in a telecom environment is a complex activity covering a broad spectrum of contract documents to be handled. It is increasingly vital for telco teams to have comprehensive contract management with automation and AI capabilities.
Operators need a
Contract Management modules that can ingest contract information from any data source, including ERP systems, map each contract to applicable network assets, and notify specific users or teams on expiry and cover contract line items. By Applying Artificial intelligence to the contract ingestion mechanism, heightened efficiencies and accuracy levels can be achieved.
4. Spare Management
Operator teams see a strong need to forecast the spare assets based on operational data and make data-driven decisions.
An ideal Spare Management module can track spare assets across the network and provide spare asset information and spare levels (min, max) and spare classifications. It should also provide users with the option to initiate workflows to move spare assets for excess returns, repair and fault replacement requests. A spare management module also needs to leverage predictive analytics to compute every network site’s exact spare levels, based on historical fault data.
5. FAR Reconciliation
Misalignment of inventory system data and the actual network can cause operational issues that lead to poor customer experience. Similarly, mismatches between Fixed Asset Records (FAR) and the actual network can cause regulatory non-compliance and financial cost leakages.
Operators can leverage a FAR Reconciliation module to identify discrepancies between asset data recorded within the Fixed Asset Register (FAR) and actual assets in the network. By syncing FAR records and actual assets, operators can witness better regulatory compliance that ultimately helps better assess insurance costs and reduce tax liabilities.
Leverage end-to-end Business Intelligence across the enterprise asset lifecycle to yield significant network savings.
