Experian Decision Analytics’ Telecom Forum 2007 brought together industry experts from key market players including industry associations, operators and manufacturers to discuss the current issues, developments and concerns of this rapidly evolving business.

During the event, representatives from Experian Decision Analytics, Experian’s leading economic forecasting business, Future Foundation, and respected international organisations such as Seat Pagine Gialle, Nokia and GSM Europe, took part in a roundtable session to discuss the telecoms business of tomorrow.

Whilst discussing the management of customer relationships and risk in both traditional and next generation telecom networks, the participants agreed that the main challenge for the industry is the convergence of services available, thanks to the deployment of new technologies. As Barry Clark from Future Foundation illustrated in his presentation, approximately 70% of the EU population has a positive attitude towards the integration of new functionalities in their mobile devices.

Ed Heal, Head of Telecommunications for Experian Decision Analytics UK, pointed out that: “The two biggest strategic developments over the next few years are convergence and m-payments”.

From an organisation’s point of view, this development will involve many changes, both to the offers made to its customers and the need for enhanced organisational integration. For example, with m-payments, financial services will be fully integrated as part of the leisure media proposition. As a result of this, the risk and marketing departments will face the challenge of developing effective working practices and synergies.

Heal added that Experian Decision Analytics is working on this integration with a valuable proposal to help the industry to tackle the expected challenges. The company’s solutions are designed to optimise the package of services offered to the customers as well as improving the risk management to cater for the increase in exposures from multi-product offerings in the new scenario.

The telecommunications industry not only has to face the new challenges but also reduce new threats. Kaisu Karvala, from GSM Europe, stated that: “One of the problems that the market has to fight against is the increasing number of handset thefts, which is estimated to have increased by 500% in recent years.” Karvala went on to mention some of the implications this has had on the market, such as the significant churn of customers and the increased insurance underwriting costs. In her opinion, governments should reinforce their position against the handset black market with the deployment of consistent legislation, revising tax strategies to lower taxes on legitimate handsets and collaborating in an international level to reduce this problem. But the key factor in this battle is to involve manufacturers and operators to commit to improving levels of handset security and to share stolen handset data.

As a conclusion to the session, the audience recognised the important role that credit risk policies will play in the future. The new services will bring increased credit risk exposure and customer management challenges due to reduced margins and complex service provider relationships.

Only organisations that are able to shift from volume to value, from quantity to quality, will succeed in the fierce competitive environment. The key is to sell value-added services focused on the value of the customer; therefore, companies will require the tools to make the decisions to do this, and these tools must combine a unique blend of marketing criteria and financial perspective.

If you would like to register your interest for next year’s event, you can do so here.

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