Outcome-based decision intelligence can transition telcos to ‘techcos’

Data-driven strategies are crucial to improving enterprise in all manner of ways. Industry research shows Data-driven companies are 162% more likely to significantly exceed their revenue targets than non-data-driven ones. CSPs, as a crucial pillar of the digital society, process huge amounts of data which can be used much more effectively in identifying and capturing business opportunities. However, doing so depends on overcoming structural and organizational impediments such as data isolation and siloed processes, which negatively impact the quality and efficiency of decision-making. Moreover, CSPs need to improve data literacy throughout their organization enhance their means of capturing new business. A standard, industry-wide approach to such issues is key in realizing this data-driven ambition and achieving sustainable business growth.

The Outcome-based decision intelligence for business growth Catalyst aims to achieve exactly this. Its framework empowers high-quality data governance, exploration and analysis and data-driven decision-making for the whole life-cycle of customers' business activities, enabling CSPs to help business transform into data-driven enterprise and explore services beyond connectivity and achieve sustainable development – a key part of transforming the telco to ‘techco’. This framework also guides telcos on how to improve their leadership, organizational structure, culture and technology, all of which are necessary for successful transformation. The framework consists of two key elements: the execution system and the value co-realization pyramid:

Figure :1 Outcome-based Decision Intelligence framework empowers operators to achieve data-driven enterprise towards sustainable business growth

The value co-realization pyramid clarifies the hierarchy of business value and links business outcome and capabilities to data-driven operations. The pyramid provides a guide for how information should flow from top to bottom and vice-versa. The pyramid’s 'top down' approach is demonstrated to have achieved better understanding the capability of the lower layers - it helps ensure the right resources for projects and which data is needed to support and track the desired outcome. The pyramid’s ‘bottom up’ method has achieved higher accuracy, better efficiency, better understanding of customers and faster turnaround time.

The execution system is composed of 4 essential elements:

• Leadership and ambition: executives define the data-driven enterprise transformation strategy and realize value co-creation through data-driven business operation governance mechanism to achieve multi-level goals and empower sustainable growth.
• People and organization: through active implementation of a data literacy program, the ability and awareness of all staff - from top management to data analysts - can be enhanced.
• Culture: by creating an enterprise-level data-driven culture to help staff at all levels apply data-driven decision-making. Transparent and equal access to knowledge and incentives will encourage employees to maximize the value of data.
• Technology: the introduction and application of data intelligence platform that uses innovative technologies for business-driven analytics and decision-making will enable a ‘closed-loop’ for continuous improvement. Additionally, the decision intelligence technology architecture can provide an approach for CSPs to achieve data-driven enterprise transformation.

Figure 2: Decision Intelligence technology architecture provides approach for operators to achieve data-driven enterprise transformation

The Catalyst provides an important theoretical and practical reference model for CSPs to accelerate data-driven business transformation and realize the transition from telco to techco. Driving the outcome-based decision intelligence framework are three project champions – XL Axiata, HKT and China Unicom – who are using the Catalyst to deploy enhanced customer value management, a mobile payment experience for the Qatar World Cup, and a port-based green big data hub, respectively.

According to Derek Chen, Assistant Vice President for HKT, “With outcome-based decisions, HKT can achieve higher accuracy to find target customers, as in our case to find World Cup 2022 and offer them packages that target their usage pattern. With fierce competition worldwide to capture football fans, outcome-based decisions focus on customers wishing to enjoy high quality football matches and not be interrupted by advertisements.”

The Catalyst will provide the basis for CSPs to work more deeply in enabling the groundwork for digital transformation. By achieving and implementing the decision intelligence technical architecture, CSPs will be a step closer to achieving autonomous, data-driven business operations. The result will be more sustainable growth, improved cross-sell and up-sell rates and reduced churn – and crucially, the long-term means to enable CSPs to transition from telco to techco.

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Data-driven strategies are crucial to enterprise performance – and CSPs are ideally placed to support these with innovative digital transformation frameworks