MTN Rwanda’s ‘MAD API’ platform simplifies operations
MTN’s Group Chief Information Officer, Nikos Angelopoulos, provides details of the company's BSS transformation in Rwanda as MTN undertakes a broader, longer-term move to separate its infrastructure assets from its service platforms.
03 Jun 2021
MTN Rwanda’s ‘MAD API’ platform simplifies operations
When MTN Group’s CEO announced the company’s revised Ambition 2025 strategy in March, MTN Rwanda’s business support system (BSS) transformation program was already well underway. Today the new BSS is live, offering a good example of what communications service providers (CSPs) can achieve by using Open APIs to facilitate new service creation and delivery.
MTN Group, which has 280 million subscribers across 21 markets in Africa and the Middle East, is setting out to “structurally separate our infrastructure assets and platforms, such as fintech, to reveal value and attract third-party capital and partnerships into these businesses, over the medium-term,” according to the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita.
During a recent TM Forum webinar to discuss MTN Rwanda’s transformation program, Nikos Angelopoulos, Group Chief Information Officer, explained that the company wants to deliver digital services in high growth areas including Mobile Money (MoMo) and its API marketplace called Chenosis, which provides a market of APIs across industries including communications, financial services and entertainment.
However, success will depend on MTN addressing issues that are all too familiar to many CSPs:
MTN’s technology team put in place a framework called Oxygen to help make systems simpler for third parties and its own business lines to use and to improve operational efficiency. Oxygen represents 28 programs spanning network, IT, operations, digital services and enablers. If executed properly, it will transform MTN from a telecoms company to a technology company, according to Angelopoulos.
A key element of Oxygen is the “MAD API” platform.
MTN worked with WhaleCloud to transform its BSS in Rwanda throughout 2020, deploying 76 APIs, including several TM Forum’s Open APIs, and delivering nearly 1,000 feature points. Once the systems were ready, MTN took a big bang approach to launching them.
“All products and services, fixed and mobile, were switched in one day from the old system to the new system. It was extremely successful,” said Angelopoulos.
MTN Rwanda saw immediate improvements to customer experience and internal operations. These include being able to automatically swap a SIM in under a minute – an operation that could require time-consuming manual intervention, as well as being able to fulfill complex business orders in minutes instead of days.
The new systems also allow business teams to quickly develop simple products for customers without involving the IT team.
He also values simplification when it comes to API deployment and asked his team to avoid adding extensions to TM Forum’s APIs.
“I am a super-big proponent of out-of-the-box capabilities,” Angelopoulos said. “I believe strongly that the core of the operator has to be in excellent execution and delivering fantastic customer experience and recycling products and services rather than doing our own custom stuff.”
He added, “We are benefiting significantly from standardization. The real objective for me as technology director is to enable … simplified operations with standard architectures that can be utilized and re-used across different organizations and different countries.”
MTN Group, which has 280 million subscribers across 21 markets in Africa and the Middle East, is setting out to “structurally separate our infrastructure assets and platforms, such as fintech, to reveal value and attract third-party capital and partnerships into these businesses, over the medium-term,” according to the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita.
During a recent TM Forum webinar to discuss MTN Rwanda’s transformation program, Nikos Angelopoulos, Group Chief Information Officer, explained that the company wants to deliver digital services in high growth areas including Mobile Money (MoMo) and its API marketplace called Chenosis, which provides a market of APIs across industries including communications, financial services and entertainment.
However, success will depend on MTN addressing issues that are all too familiar to many CSPs:
- Lack of 360-degree customer information that can be quickly analyzed
- Disunified customer experience
- Difficulty partnering with third parties on new business models
A release of oxygen
MTN’s technology team put in place a framework called Oxygen to help make systems simpler for third parties and its own business lines to use and to improve operational efficiency. Oxygen represents 28 programs spanning network, IT, operations, digital services and enablers. If executed properly, it will transform MTN from a telecoms company to a technology company, according to Angelopoulos.
A key element of Oxygen is the “MAD API” platform.
“MAD API is our internal name for creating an environment where everything is able to connect with everything through an API,” said Angelopoulos. “It allows applications anywhere in the organization to reuse common APIs to create experiences, to create processes, to try things. Everything we are going to do in next four years will be built with MAD API in mind. Everything … will be interacting in one way or another through our MAD API platform.”
MTN worked with WhaleCloud to transform its BSS in Rwanda throughout 2020, deploying 76 APIs, including several TM Forum’s Open APIs, and delivering nearly 1,000 feature points. Once the systems were ready, MTN took a big bang approach to launching them.
“All products and services, fixed and mobile, were switched in one day from the old system to the new system. It was extremely successful,” said Angelopoulos.
Simplifying more sophisticated service delivery
MTN Rwanda saw immediate improvements to customer experience and internal operations. These include being able to automatically swap a SIM in under a minute – an operation that could require time-consuming manual intervention, as well as being able to fulfill complex business orders in minutes instead of days.
The new systems also allow business teams to quickly develop simple products for customers without involving the IT team.
“I am very passionate about being enable the business to do things,” Angelopoulos said. “For me, the opportunity [for business lines] to create a product is a very important use case.”
He also values simplification when it comes to API deployment and asked his team to avoid adding extensions to TM Forum’s APIs.
“I am a super-big proponent of out-of-the-box capabilities,” Angelopoulos said. “I believe strongly that the core of the operator has to be in excellent execution and delivering fantastic customer experience and recycling products and services rather than doing our own custom stuff.”
He added, “We are benefiting significantly from standardization. The real objective for me as technology director is to enable … simplified operations with standard architectures that can be utilized and re-used across different organizations and different countries.”
Watch the webinar to find out more about how MTN Group worked with Whale Cloud to transform MTN Rwanda’s BSS.
