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116 Part II • Descriptive Analytics

Application Case 3.1 (Continued)

and cost savings, shortened customer provisioning social networking
times and reduced customer defections by 30%.
The expanding use of social networks is chang-
ing how many organizations approach everything
cost reduction from customer service to sales and marketing. More

Staying ahead of the game in any industry depends, carriers are turning their attention to social net-
in large part, on keeping costs in line. For France’s works to better understand and influence customer
Bouygues Telecom, cost reduction came in the form behavior.
of automation. Aladin, the company’s Teradata-based Mobilink has initiated a social network analy-
marketing operations management system, auto- sis project that will enable the company to explore
mates marketing/communications collateral produc- the concept of viral marketing and identify key
tion. It delivered more than US$1 million in savings influencers who can act as brand ambassadors to
in a single year while tripling email campaign and cross-sell products. Velcom is looking for similar
content production. key influencers as well as low-value customers
“The goal is to be more productive and respon- whose social value can be leveraged to improve
sive, to simplify teamwork, [and] to standardize and existing relationships. Meanwhile, Swisscom is
protect our expertise,” notes Catherine Corrado, the looking to combine the social network aspect of
company’s project lead and retail communications customer behavior with the rest of its analysis over
manager. “[Aladin lets] team members focus on value- the next several months.
added work by reducing low-value tasks. The end
result is more quality and more creative [output].” rise to the challenge
An unintended but very welcome benefit of While each market presents its own unique chal-
Aladin is that other departments have been inspired to lenges, most mobile carriers spend a great deal of
begin deploying similar projects for everything from time and resources creating, deploying and refining
call center support to product/offer launch processes. plans to address each of the challenges outlined
here. The good news is that just as the industry and
customer acquisition mobile technology have expanded and improved
over the years, so also have the data analytics solu-
With market penetration near or above 100% in tions that have been created to meet these chal-
many countries, thanks to consumers who own lenges head on.
multiple devices, the issue of new customer acquisi- Sound data analysis uses existing customer,
tion is no small challenge. Pakistan’s largest carrier, business and market intelligence to predict and influ-
Mobilink, also faces the difficulty of operating in a ence future behaviors and outcomes. The end result
market where 98% of users have a pre-paid plan that is a smarter, more agile and more successful approach
requires regular purchases of additional minutes. to gaining market share and improving profitability.
“Topping up, in particular, keeps the revenues
strong and is critical to our company’s growth,” says Questions for Discussion
Umer Afzal, senior manager, BI. “Previously we 1. What are the main challenges for TELCOs?
lacked the ability to enhance this aspect of incremen- 2. How can data warehousing and data analytics
tal growth. Our sales information model gave us that help TELCOs in overcoming their challenges?
ability because it helped the distribution team plan
sales tactics based on smarter data-driven strategies 3. Why do you think TELCOs are well suited to take
that keep our suppliers [of SIM cards, scratch cards full advantage of data analytics?
and electronic top-up capability] fully stocked.”
As a result, Mobilink has not only grown sub- Source: Teradata Magazine, Case Study by Colleen Marble, “A
scriber recharges by 2% but also expanded new cus- Better Data Plan: Well-Established Telcos Leverage Analytics
to Stay on Top in a Competitive Industry” http://www.
tomer acquisition by 4% and improved the profitability teradatamagazine.com/v13n01/features/a-better-Data-
of those sales by 4%. Plan/ (accessed September 2013).

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