Opportunities for growth via Big Data Analytics in telecom space

By: Rajesh Razdan, Founder and CEO, mCarbon

We all are a witness to the unprecedented growth that smartphone universe has seen in the last decade and how consumer priorities have shifted from air time to media or content based services. I believe society has reached a stage where we might forget anything of our daily routine but surely not our Smartphones. From the iconic Status Symbol of Apple to a low end multi-purpose utility phone; smart phones have become an integral part of everyone’s life. The expansion of mobile handset market has led to a steep upsurge of subscriber base especially in developing countries thus creating a holistic revenue market for all telecom operators. The stature of the industry can simply be related from the fact, the industry stays like a boiling pot in news every now and then for some reason.

This upsurge has also changed the market dynamics and operators who are unable to provide relentless support are unable to garner higher revenue figures. The advancement of Smartphone industry has brought cut throat competition in the telecom industry with major players playing with little or no margin of error to sustain a subscriber. Service providers who want to excel in the market have to be innovative to analyze and give real time customized user solutions to capitalize volume and variety business. A mobile phone nowadays is not just a device but a Data Bank where a large chunk of data flow happens in and out daily.

Non-Responsiveness to real time data has made telecom service providers suffers massive revenue losses across the globe. Majority of data working till date happens on historical data; data analytics provides an opportunity for real time data analysis making the telecom operators prepared to face tomorrow in a better way. Telephone Calls, Social Media, Application Usage, Data network usage; telecom industry has scope for phenomenal growth if proper data harnessing can be done by the organizations.

360 Degree user view

Telecom industry is blessed with readily available terabytes of data pertaining to each and every user. From telephonic usage to data network usage, application usage to social media data, even to the extent of a user’s Demographic bifurcation of usage, the industry is blessed with figures wanting to be deciphered. Real time data analytics provides several marketing opportunities for organizations to monetize and move closer to the consumer. This wide array of figures gives telecommunication service providers an opportunity to explore never before realized intelligence for making quick customized solutions for consumer.

Innovation

Data stored in silos and scattered all across the organization is an opportunity to be harnessed for operators to have a substantial revenue hike. Data Mining and predictive analysis provides an opportunity to innovate and gain unprecedented growth at every single subscriber level. Customer retention is of paramount importance and organizations are spending heavy to increase the user affinity towards the organization. Data Analytics provides an opportunity for better understanding of the customer needs, thus giving an opportunity to customize solutions as per the usage.

Pinning E-Commerce

One of the Key aspects of market success of E-Commerce industry any day would be expanding mobile handset base across the nation. There is no big market player in the e-commerce industry that could make a substantial market presence in the absence of a mobile compatible website or a mobile application. Many E-commerce portals have moved on to an only Mobile Application approach, while others are reporting majority sales from mobile phones.

Customer Engagement

Data mining provides an opportunity for organizations to customize the way they interact with their customers. Availability of information regarding user behavioral patterns of mobile usage services provides an understanding of user needs and demands. Customization user interactions as per the usage patterns lead to a better user experience and increased customer loyalty.

Large pools of data flowing in from various touch points regarding social media usage, application usage, Cal l patterns even demographic bifurcation of usage provides an opportunity to apply data analytics to create pointers that can help increase customer loyalty.

Having mentioned the benefits / opportunities that big data and analytics behold for the telecom industry, I would say in order to reap all the above benefits companies need to follow a defined and structured approach than blindly jumping into it. The fault lies in the approach that telecom companies generally adopt under the big data analysis process which is that most companies opt for a top-down approach. Here, companies first define the specific business problems that might be tackled through big data analysis. In this process, generally the problem becomes so massive that data looks insufficient or else there is lack of understanding of the practical approach. To side-step this, companies should inverse the approach. In this method, companies should first analyze the current available data and then determine the problems that might be solved using data analysis. And then, if required, companies can look for more of related structured and unstructured data that might be of vital importance in solving the business problem.