23 August 2019

Anshoo Gaur, chief executive officer, software business at Sterlite Technologies talks data monetisation

Multi-billion dollar companies, yes, but more importantly, these companies leverage the full potential of data and analytics to offer personised experience to their customers. 

If numbers are to be believed, then the volume of data that will be generated by 2020 will amount to over 44 zettabytes (ZB). But, data in itself has no value. However, when it’s sieved through analytics, the same data can change the course of any business. 

Telcos are uniquely poised in this data-driven future as they are sitting on a powerhouse of customer data. Considering the changing digital customer perspectives and stiff competition from digital service providers, it has become inevitable for telcos to reinvent themselves in sync with the changing market dynamics. It is time that telcos start treating their data as an asset, work towards building their big data and analytics capabilities and take a step towards promising Network Data Monetisation.

Big data brings big opportunities

Analytical intelligence-driven Network Data Monetisation is one of the most prominent ways of bringing out the value of data. Network Data Monetisation can be effectively used in optimising a company’s business both internally and externally. Telcos can give an in-depth analysis of the operations, services, productivity and customer connect to enhance the functioning within the company. Externally, analytical intelligence can assess the performance of newly launched products, gauge customer’s expectation and introduce relevant products with minimal risks, creating new revenue streams.

This opens up a huge opportunity for telcos to build partnership models with B2B and B2C segments to provide data analytics services and grow with Network Data Monetisation.

AI-powered business intelligence

Intellza – Functional Architecture

This is where the AI-powered business intelligence solutions gain prominence. Intellza is an AI-enabled real-time personalisation solution of Sterlite Technologies that optimises the monetisation opportunities of telcos and equip them to provide more valuable service to the customers via contextualisation without any extra spend. The assimilation and unification of customer data are not limited to usage patterns. It also covers channel-campaigns responsiveness and recent/current personal contexts. 

By mining this consolidated data, advanced AI/ML algorithms provide personalised insights for the next best engagement. The monetisation opportunities that are abstracted and mapped to the unified customer intelligence are made available on a single platform. It allows the telcos to put together smart product-bundles, craft hyper-relevant offers and choose right engagement tactics in real-time. The insights from Intellza are equally beneficial to marketers, campaign managers, CXOs, customer experience managers, customer retention teams and citizen data scientists. 

Interesting use cases

The accuracy of data analytics depends on the five ‘v’s – volume, velocity, volatility, validity and variety. 

• Volume: Telcos have access to zettabytes of data volume 

• Velocity: High-speed internet brings in the high velocity of data usage

• Volatility: Telcos have to sieve out data inconsistency and unpredictability for uniformity 

• Validity: Data accuracy amidst biases, noise and abnormality is a major challenge for telcos 

• Variety: Accuracy in predicting customer behaviour come from accessing data from a variety of sources

Analytical intelligence weaves the Vs together and creates the sixth V, which is value. Today, Analytical intelligence is benefitting a wide array of industries. 

Here’s how AI-powered data analytics play a major role in some of the key areas.

Actionable insights to optimise network experience

Machine learning is applied to analyse the network performance data and build predictive patterns to help optimise the network. Intellza provides a user app for network experience which allows the end-users to check their network experience dashboard on demand. 

Network experience scorecard

Network Experience Score measures each subscriber’s network experience from a data application and call experience by analysing various parameters such as Remote Administration Tool (RAT) type downgrades, upload, download volumes, abnormal releases, cause for the record closures and call failures as recorded in the Internet Protocol Detail Record (IPDR) and Call Data Record (CDR) logs. 

Based on these inputs and past history, the telcos use an AI-based ML algorithm like XGBoost to predict the customer network experience score. This also helps the telcos gauge the ability of the network to deliver a high-quality experience to the customer. The scorecard reflects the performance during peak usage and compares with the benchmark or the expectation for each application - Web Surfing, Video Streaming, Social Media, Real-time Gaming and Voice Applications. Understanding network health based on industry-benchmarked KPIs is an effective indication of the quality of the customer’s experience.

Intelligent offload to ensure smart connectivity

Intellza helps to improve the customers’ network experience and it also helps the telcos manage the expensive network spectrum with the Smart Wi-Fi Offload solution. Edge application and AI-enabled Central Policy Manager help the users to automatically offload to Wi-Fi when the users have a good Wi-Fi connection. 

The switching and authentication happen seamlessly without any user intervention. It reduces the cost for the telcos and the customers. The smart offloading allows the operators the flexibility to cost-effectively increase bandwidth and capacity, as the usage spikes in public areas.

Predictive customer journey to maximise customer engagement

AI-driven data analytics ensure the next best action and transform every customer to a highly-satisfied customer by sensing the context of their interaction, enabling multi-dimensional data view for successful personalisation strategies and maximising real-time engagement across channels.

Telcos can use AI-driven data analytics to:

• Unify data from a variety of sources (customer relationship management (CRM) logs, social media, network, feedback & survey)

• Create  dynamic customer personas using AI 

• Fine tune and iterate the customer persona based on action/behaviour at the event 

• Real-time personalisation and next-best engagement by bundling products, intent and persona attributes using predictive models

• AI triggered notifications to a customer over the channels of their preference

Intelligent fibre for a hyper-connected world

Intellza powered machine learning techniques are used to detect anomalies in sensor signal with a granularity of approximately one meter and a response time of sub-seconds along with the classification of anomalies in a response time of 3-4 seconds. The fibre’s adaptation to environmental changes and false positive and false negative error rates even below 10% can be detected. The Probability of Detection rate of the system is 95%.

Bring new dynamics to your business

To sum it up, data in its raw format is utterly useless. With analytical intelligence, data can form a pattern and weave a story presenting actionable insights. Telecom operators, who handle the flow of zillions of data, can analyse each stream of data, understand the patterns and bring in new dynamics to any business. 

Hence, network data Monetisation aided with Analytical Intelligence is the future of telecom industry and it is the only route for organisations to re-evaluate the value of their business. It is a win-win situation for both telcos and organisations to unlock the potential and opportunities that the data-centric future holds.

By Anshoo Gaur, chief executive officer, software business at Sterlite Technologies