Converged Partner Management: Will It Address Telco’s Concerns?
Over the past decade, we have seen how the growth of IP-enabled networks has impacted Telco’s business models. The competition from Over-the-Top (OTT) players brought drastic decline in their traditional voice and message revenues. The discussions on improving Average Revenue per User (ARPU) for Telcos thus chiefly revolved around enabling new service models around Digital, but without compromising the overall budget. The transition of Telcos from traditional Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to Digital Service Providers (DSPs) thus became indispensable but at the same time challenging. One of the top challenges faced by DSPs during this transformation is to manage the diverse ecosystem of partners linked to their business.
Why Converged Partner Management is Important?
Considering the complex business environment a DSP operates in, partner management becomes crucial not only to simplify operations but also to optimize revenue streams. Legacy partner management systems have limitations especially due to their lack of flexibility and automation capabilities. By implementing a converged partner management strategy, Telcos can maximize profitability and minimize partner disputes. By integrating the service with ERP and other connected processes, they can also reduce the operational costs considerably.
Before going deep into the converged partner management solution, let’s explore the scenario in a DSP partner management landscape. The complexity in partner management starts right from “defining the partner business.” Here we have the traditional partners like wholesale and roaming providers whose contracts may revolve around setting bilateral deals for defining traffic and event details for voice, data, and SMS services. On the other hand, there are digital partners like OTT players, VAS/content providers, and IoT players whose contracts may revolve around other metrics such as clicks/impressions, downloads, meter readings, etc.
The wide variety in partner businesses also brings associated challenges in partner settlement, another major worry for DSPs. Each business entity requires different sets of rules, which need to be applied to the events to generate the final revenue reports. This is not easy considering the exhaustive DSP ecosystem comprising the traditional interconnect, wholesale, and roaming providers as well as the new digital partners for services like OTT, content, VAS, IoT, and M2M. Then, there is another set of entities like MSOs, integrators, dealers and resellers who require different types of contracts and settlement rules.
The dynamic and evolving DSP ecosystem also makes partner onboarding a tricky affair. There needs to be a system that can track frequent partners and in multiple formats, and build mediation capability across them in a seamless manner. Attaining real-time visibility across each platform is important for accurate rating and charging, without which the DSP ecosystem will not work smoothly.
The concerns over partner management prompted us to think about a converged partner management solution that could deliver an all-in-one package for DSPs. The innovation aimed at delivering real-time visibility into DSP’s end-to-end wholesale business and revenue sources. Our interaction with stakeholders in the telecom landscape helped us sort out the pain points quickly. With the insights gained from the industry, we have now come up with a new ROC Partner Management solution that addresses all aspects of partner management including partner onboarding, partner self-care, end-to-end revenue visibility, and communication under one umbrella.
As mentioned in the beginning, converged partner management strategy helps Telcos gain end-to-end visibility and drive cost optimization across its service channels. The scalable partner management architecture makes partner onboarding hassle-free. It also enhances the DSP’s service capabilities as it allows them to identify, test, and analyze different contracts before they are implemented.
To understand more about Subex ROC Partner Management offering, please download the whitepaper.
Subrat Saurabh is a Product Pre Sales Director responsible for driving the partner ecosystem management initiative at Subex. He primarily focuses on enterprise solutions and Billing & Settlement while engaging in digital transformation consulting for telecom and other B2B enterprises.
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