Omni channel engagement may be the Holy Grail when it comes to delivering a truly customer centric model, but successful execution can still be elusive. So says TIBCO Software‘s CTO EMEA, Maurizio Canton.
Responsible for generating 4.2% of global GDP in 2015, telecommunication is a sector with significant scope and clout, yet it has been caught napping. With a tendency to pursue siloed channel strategies that fail to bridge the physical and digital strands of its operation, the result can be a lack of cohesion across the various customer touchpoints which undermines brand reputation and loses sales.
If operators are to capitalise on new growth areas and evolve to become digital experience full service providers, they need to address this fundamental challenge.
It’s a plight that has garnered more attention due to the challenges and disruption facing the industry which are set to escalate over the next few years. Summed up by the oft cited Telco 2020, if predictions bear out, this is the year we will see the number of connected devices rise to 50 billion, fuelled in part by the traction in sophisticated wearable technology.
Meanwhile, the rise in video mobile traffic and the expectation to deliver content to any screen is putting more pressure on existing telco infrastructure, turning attention to networking technologies including the transformative potential of software defined networking (SDN).
This greater convergence between the physical and digital and intensive data usage is presenting opportunities and challenges which demand a rethink in terms of the partner models and eco systems used.
Traditionally the sector has fallen short in terms of using data to understand and segment customers and the reliance on mergers and acquisitions to support sustainable growth will no longer cut it. Now, as millions of terabytes of digital information flow daily, astute operators capitalising on the value from big data recognise the need for a business model which can access and integrate information from different customer and operational data sources and cover multiple services.
This is why digital experience platforms are increasingly fitting the bill. Following in the footsteps of platform proponents including Facebook, Airbnb, Uber and Google, this collaborative approach taps into wider resources and innovation from digital partners through an API gateway, boosting the scope and quality of the service offering, all with rapid scalability and less risk.
Greater simplicity brought to the development and deployment of data analytics applications delivers insights at the moment of critical customer and employee decisions, enabling theaccessible and continuous decision making needed to meet the expectations of the digital user.
This 360-degree view becomes a critical factor in driving innovation and maintaining a competitive advantage, enabling that exploitation of a nanosecond opportunity to up or cross sell or identify the risk of customer defection. Predictive analytics sit alongside fraud detection using historic data to learn how to spot risky or abnormal behaviour exhibited by transactions, clients, suppliers.
Along with live profiling of behaviour, real-time personalisation and closed loop monitoring, it is a powerful and integrated proposition from which to build future offerings in a tough environment. Now that’s a good call.
The author of this blog is Maurizio Canton, CTO EMEA, TIBCO Software
Comment on this article below or via Twitter: @ VanillaPlus OR @jcvplus
