CASE STUDY - Business Intelligence at Tata Teleservices Ltd.
Commentary by Ramanuj Rao, Senior Manager, Business Intelligence, Tata Teleservices Ltd.
Customer Profile
Tata Teleservices Ltd. (TTSL), operates India’s largest branded telecom retail chain. TTSL, incorporated in 1996, was the first company in India to launch code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile services. Together with Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd., it pioneered the 3G1x technology platform in India and offers services to more than 19 million customers covering 3,400 towns. TTSL has partnered with Motorola, Ericsson, Lucent, and ECI Telecom to deploy a reliable, technologically advanced network.
TTSL offers an array of telecom services, including mobile services, wireless desktop phones, public booth telephony, and wire line services. Value-added services include voice portal, roaming, postpaid Internet, three-way conferencing, group calling, Wi-Fi Internet, USB modem, data cards, calling card services, and enterprise services.
The company was the first service provider in the country to launch an online outlet offering postpaid mobile connections. It also launched prepaid wireless desktop phones, public phone booths, new mobile handsets, as well as new voice and data services such as BREW games, picture messaging, and polyphonic ring tones. It also offers interactive applications such as news, cricket, astrology, etc.
On the Radar
The formerly government-run telephone system in India opened to private players in the 1990s. With liberalization and globalization, the telecommunications business is undergoing a major sea change. Telecom activities are flourishing, enhancing the infrastructure and helping technology penetrate India’s diverse society. In the past two decades, the number of telephone connections in India has risen by more than 75 percent. Yet telecom market penetration is still around 20 percent.
The Challenge
Stiff competition from several other private players in India’s telecom industry presents TTSL with challenges. Measuring operational efficiency and business performance is crucial, along with developing highly focused marketing strategies and financial planning. Business intelligence is the need of the hour.
Solution
BI in alignment with business processes provides a single version of truth with agreed definitions of key performance indicators and standardization of reports using business metadata. TTSL has partnered with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to develop and maintain a BI environment. TCS has implemented its telecom model, tBIDs, as the core solution.
A communication and awareness campaign plays a major role in synchronizing BI with business, which is achieved through road shows, newsletters, etc. To meet this need, business intelligence solutions are integrated with BSS/OSS applications, which help get the cluster and correlation across the captured key performance indicators.
Tangible Benefits
BI is helping to improve TTSL’s operational and business efficiency. TCS achieved this using various solutions such as subscriber base management, loyalty management, OGB reduction program, revenue usage, predictive churn, customer segmentation, TAT matrix, decay analysis, and zero balance depletion program, to name a few. All these solutions give cluster and correlation across various business dimensions. Closed-loop BI was deployed in critical areas to facilitate implementation of operational action plans.
We also put into place a loyalty management program using BI—a classic example of operational and business efficiency. This program revolves around subscriber aging, recharges, and demographic patterns. It identifies subscribers per loyalty business rule and mediates credit values to an Intelligent Network Platform using TIBCO interface. Loyalty ROI is tracked in BI.
Outgoing barred (OGB) reduction program is a proactive approach for analyzing OGB customers to take corrective actions with an objective to reduce churn. This focuses on identifying key parameters on which OGB patterns can be monitored. Using closed looping, business takes corrective action to achieve reduction in OGB as well as churn.
Technology
- OLAP and Reporting: Cognos 8.2.4
- ETL: Oracle Warehouse Builder 10.1.0.4
- Current DW Size: 8 TB
This article originally appeared in the issue of .