White Paper

BI Solution for Telecom

A Lifeline to Sustain & Grow
This paper highlights the dynamics and challenges for
the telecom industry in the Indian market. It provides
an insight about how a BI solution would address
Data management need and challenges along with
business analytics.

About the Author

Srikar Chilakamarri
Srikar Chilakamarri, a senior consultant with TCS and specializes in
Business Intelligence solutions. He has a Bachelors degree in
Mechanical Engineering.
Srikar has been the architect of BI solutions for some of the
leading telecom service providers. He has worked in various roles
of solution architect, presales consultant and program manager.
He now heads the BI- telecom solutions for TCS. He has authored
tBIDS (TCS BI domain solution for Telecom) and has led a few
complex BI implementation programs.

Table of Contents
1.

Introduction

2.

Market Dynamics - Analysis

3.

Business Focus - Tactics of The Game

4.

Business Challenge - Data Management

5.

The Solution

6.

Business Intelligence Solution

7.

Data Service - Process Flow

11

8.

Business Intelligence Solution - Addressing Challenges

12

9.

Business Intelligence - Approach

13

10. Proposition

15

11. TCS-BI Proposition for Telecom

15

Introduction
The Telecom Industry An ever changing and competing market place. With all the business and data
management challenges, many of the industry executives still feel that their organization is not ready for
a BI solution. A typical BI solution with a strong process orientation is presented to understand its
importance and need to the organization. The inherent advantages of the solution are highlighted.

Market Dynamics- Analysis

The urge to be a leader, to be best in service and to possess maximum customer base for each enterprise
within this industry has resulted in a dynamic market place. The Indian market is seen as a high potential
market with densely populated geographies. A wide variety of customers and customer segments make a
market an interesting place. The dynamics are infl uenced by three players Customer, Organization and
Competitor.
Customer
Customers now have more choices, better offers and more fl exibility for access to information. Service
providers are mere facilitators. The industry needs to align to the needs of the customer. With the
increasing needs and expectations, customers tend to accelerate the competition in the marketplace.
With better choices and varied options, customers are more inclined to look for better services.
Acquisition comes with no barrier of binding the customer to the service provider. It has now become
important to focus on customer retention than customer acquisition. The cost of customer acquisition as
compared to customer retention is now reducing.
Organization
Infrastructure: Investments in infrastructure are at its peak. There has been a continuous drive to reach
the lowest level in the geography with high data availability. Latest technology for effi cient data transfer
and network availability facilitate in propagating the service to the lowest customer segment.
Technology Adoption: Now you can access the Internet on your mobile, Connectivity- anywhere,
anytime Exciting for techno savvy people. This kind of advertisement indicates advancements in
technology. Technology has been fast advancing from the days when mobile phones were being used
only as voice communication devices to today, when they are used as cameras and internet kiosks and for
data exchange by Bluetooth. Technology is progressing and organizations need to adapt to the change
quickly.
Innovative Services: Introduction of Fixed Wireless Phones with advanced value added services have
enabled customers to enjoy the benefi ts of wireless technology at cheaper rates. This innovation has now
eliminated wire connectivity for voice and data communications. It could be viewed as an innovation in
service offering. Such kind of innovative offers often create a wave of excitement among customers, thus
impacting the market place.
Mergers and Acquisitions: With competition at its peak and a risk of saturation of the customer base,
mergers and acquisitions are seen as a viable option. It helps in increasing the customer base of the
organization and in taking a step towards establishing their monopoly in the region. For example,
4

recently the US market has seen two big mergers of Cingular-ATT and Verizon-MCI. Mergers and
acquisitions usually bring in a mixed impact on customers, but create a great ripple in industry dynamics.
It is a greater threat to the players, of either being taken over or losing customers. This has not been
evident in the Indian market, but the day is not too far for mergers and acquisitions to start off.
Competitor
Competition is evident all over. Advertisements, pamphlets, marketing calls and other media provide
information about the increasing competition in the market. A race to offer low, affordable prices and
customized services has created turmoil in the market place. Relaxation of regulations by the regulatory
bodies has helped penetrating the market. In the recent past, introduction of cheaper prices attracted a
huge customer base to an organization, leading to a serious competitive environment in the Indian
telecom market.
With all these factors adding to the dynamics of the market, organizations need to be agile in managing
their operations and offerings, and in meeting customer expectations. Dynamics tend to impact the
customer and the organization. A comparison shows that though there are a few gains and losses to the
players in the game, they tend to balance.
Dynamics impact all the participants of the game. Those who win continue to exist and losers are
forced to quit
Dynamics

Customer

Organization

Customer Centricity

More options, better choices

and independent of service
provider

Challenge of creating customer

excitement and of retaining
customers

Infrastructure

Availability of services at
remote locations and better
services at offered locations

Market penetration and

customer acquisition

Technical Adoption

More features, increase in

expectation for service and
value for money

Increase in customer
expectation.
Increase in data volume and
business complexities

Innovative Services

New features and better

service at affordable rates

Customer excitement and

market expansion

Mergers & Acquisitions

Little or no impact. More

psychological impact

Increase in customer base and

a step towards establishing
monopoly.

Competition

Affordable prices and value

for money

Business expansion and

a market penetration

Table 1: Impact of Dynamics

Business Focus Tactics of the game

The game requires intelligence, proactive thinking and quick adaptability and strategies to welcome the
change. Every organization strives to be a market leader. Some of the general focal points of the game
are explained in the sections below.
n

Customer centricity: The business is driven by the Customer a fact that necessitates knowing the
customer better. Business has to be customer centric. Customer centricity means to understand and
be informed about:
o

Customers requirements and expectations.

Customers changing behavior, demographics and psychology

Customers behavior pattern and activities, and the external factors which impact the customer

Business has to focus more on customer retention and customer care. A greater challenge lies in
influencing the customer to be with the organization.

Product Pricing: A true distinguisher between a competitor and a leader is to be a Leader in setting
competition. Businesses always strive to set a competitive price in the market place well before the
competitor thinks of it. Being proactive in customizing the offerings to offer value to the customer
while maximizing its profit is the prime focus.

Manage costs: Every organization has a drive internally to reduce the cost. It could be the cost of
customer acquisition, retention or the launch of a new product/ service. A single dime saved is a dime
earned. Cost reduction by means of increasing productivity of employees, increasing efficiency of
existing network or expense reduction alternatives have taken priority.

Manage Information Flow: Be informed. The information flow within the organization has to be
healthy in terms of accuracy, availability and usability. Right information available at the right time
helps in taking quick strategic decisions. A successful player is always equipped with the right
information at the right time.

Competitor know-how: Understand, know and predict the competitor behavior. Analyze the impact
and strategize business decisions. Know when is the right time to launch a new product, acquire new
customers, acquire the competitor and predict the risk of being acquired. Organizations always keep a
watch on the competitors. After all it is a tactic of the game.

To win a game, a player has to be well informed and should make quick, wise decisions. Decisions are
effective and accurate if the player understands the other players and their next moves well. This is
facilitated by data and intelligence.

Business Challenge - Data Management

New players are seen emerging in the market. A high potential market and very less time to attract
customers are forcing the players to accelerate their offerings. Data Management has taken a back seat
and is not a priority. This has led to a lot of chaos and dissatisfaction among the customers. Customers
often complain about inaccurate billing, unavailability of network and frequent disruption of their service.
Analysis of the problem results in poor data in the operational systems. Data management has become
difficult due to its volume, rapidly changing business and quick implementation of the IT systems to
support business in the market place.
6

Word of mouth is an excellent marketing technique with no cost. It can be leveraged to its best by
addressing this challenge.
Data management life cycle is a closed loop which starts from data acquisition and reaches the data
exploitation state before starting off with data acquisition. The cyclic nature is due to business maturity
and growth.

Data
Quality

Data
Integration

Data
Management

Data
Acquisition

Data
Exploitation

Figure 1: Data Management Life Cycle

Data Acquisition: Data acquisition is focused on the operational needs. There is a huge gap in the data
acquisition requirement. Analytics and intelligence to support the business is heavily dependent on the
data being captured within the system.
The Customer centric business focus has created a demand of the customer data within organizations.
Organizations are not geared to have effective analysis on customer demographics and preferences. They
need to bridge the gap between operational data and analytic data.
Data Quality: There is a constant struggle and steps are being taken in the IT section of this industry to
overcome this challenge. Data quality challenge is everywhere data collected from customer facing
applications to customer serving applications. This has resulted in customer dissatisfaction thus
impacting the image of the player in the market place. A simple example being subscribers
activation/inactivation with incorrect dates (variation in year) resulting in incorrect billing. This results in
loss of revenue to the organization and/or in the loss of customer confidence. Data quality to ensure
accurate, timely, meaningful and correct data poses a great challenge.
Data Integration: Data is present in various operational systems but they do not synchronize in an
understandable format. Operational systems are loosely tied up with each other with less synchronization
of data. Different representations of a business entity/element refl ected in the reports create chaos in
data assimilation. Today a lot of time and effort is spent on data assimilation activities within an
organization.
7

Data Exploitation: The data utility index utilization of data in the organizations is low. Each data
element has to be completely utilized by analyzing its relevance and importance. This ensures minimal
redundancy and presents uniformity of data elements. It brings in new data requirements triggering off
the cycle of data management.
An external factor which controls and contributes the data management loop is Change in Business
processes. This is not very frequent but inevitable. Increasing competition, mergers and acquisitions and
new offerings demand change in the business processes.
In an ideal world, it is impossible to achieve data completeness and correctness in an organization due to
its cyclic nature.
Data Management is not a problem but a continuous challenge which needs to be managed. Its a
continuous improvement process which leads to efficient data management

The Solution
Every problem has a solution and every challenge can be alleviated. To address data management issues
with the change in the business strategies and processes is a bigger challenge for an organization. An
intelligent support layer for the operational system can lend a support to business by providing quality
data and business analytics.
Market-External
Factor
Impacts

Contributes

Business Strategies

Necessities

Support
Service
n
n
n
n
n

Business Process

Data Quality Service

Metadata Service
Information Service
Analytic Service
Intelligence Service

n
n
n

Data Process

Existing Processes
New Processes
Change in Processes

n
n
n
n

Drives

Monitor Services
Mentor Services
Derive Intelligence
Algorithms

Support

Solution Framework for Telecom

Figure 2: Solution

Market is an external factor that impacts the business strategies from time to time. It is a game wherein
the organization and the competitors compete to maximize their market share.
8

Business strategies are aligned to meet customer expectations and challenge competitors in the market
place. These strategies impact the market place with its innovative, new and competitive offerings.
Business strategies define the business processes within an organization.
Business Processes are existing processes that support the organization in the market place. The existing
processes change with the expansion of business either through market expansion, enhancements in
service offerings or mergers and acquisitions. New processes often get defined to support new products
or services.
The solution for the changing business strategies and processes necessitates two supporting layers a
Service layer and a Data Process layer that are described below:
n

Service layer supports the business strategies with data, metadata, information and analytic services.
This layer is driven by the business processes. Changes and introduction of new business process
enhances it to adapt to the business needs.

Data Process layer:

o

Interacts with the operational systems for continuous monitoring and mentoring.

Derives intelligence with inbuilt business and data processing rules

Helps identify the obscure market behavior with predefined algorithms

Ensure feedback to the service layer for continuous improvement

The internal and external dynamics creates turbulence in the organizations data management process.
The solution has to be intelligent and flexible to support the business needs and the operational data
management challenges.
The solution should be a well defined methodology directed by vision supporting business with
right information and intelligence and provide feedback for efficient data management. A process
which collates, validates, integrates and defines rules for quality data.

Business Intelligence Solution

Business Intelligence (BI) solution is not a mere data warehousing solution that encapsulates data to
provide analytics, derived intelligence and easy access to information. It is a process that extracts, collates,
validates, reconciles and integrates the data to provide intelligence to the business as well as to the
operations. It is the intelligence of the process that can help in providing guidance to mitigate the
challenges within an organization.
BI solution advantage is two fold one to provide intelligence about the operational systems and
facilitate data management, and the other to support the business with its analytics and
reporting

Analysis & Intelligence Service

HR
OLAP

Marketing
Data
Quality

Customer
Care
OLAP

Sales

IS/IT

Consistent
MIS

OLAP

Logical
Framework

Prepared
Data

Compliance
Reporting

OLAP

SCM
Meta Data

Data Service
OLAP

Networking

Finance
Analytic Model

Figure 3: BI Solution

BI solution is a service oriented process. The two fold benefit has data service and analysis and
intelligence service in a chronological order. The logical framework, nucleus of the solution encapsulates
data requirements and a well defined process. Data requirements facilitate capture of all data elements
required by the business for its operations and analysis. Data process helps in churning out the
intelligence for the business and operations.
Data Service facilitates high quality prepared data for the reporting and MIS of the organization. This layer
is focused on attaining operational excellence within the organization. There is a continuous feedback
mechanism involved in the process to ensure appropriate correction at the operational systems.
BI solution builds a highly sophisticated ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) process encapsulating business
rules. Intelligence as data quality and integration rules can be churned out of the process. This
information if tapped properly provides rich source of data correction methods.
The process can churn out the differences between the systems (out of sync), non- conformance to
standards, integration issues. ETL process functions of cleansing, integrating and standardization leading
to high quality data, the rules can be re-used to apply back to the operational systems.
Data Acquisition requirements can also be driven by the BI solution. This necessitates the solution to be
designed and aligned with the vision. BI-DW can act as a single source for data acquisition
recommendations. Details are discussed in the section Business Intelligence Approach
Analysis and Intelligence Service: The analysis and intelligence layer supports the business with its needs
of reporting and analysis. Intelligence is usually referred to derivations of business metrics. OLAP analysis
and reporting is a known function of BI solution. A step ahead of it, which BI solution intends to achieve,
is High End Analytics.
High End Analytics: Data mining or identification of hidden trends is required to completely understand
the business and its events/facts. This technique is very rarely adopted and seen as the next step after
Data Warehousing (DW). BI solution acts as foundation to support and facilitate high end analytics.
Algorithms can be devised to derive intelligence and provide online support to:

10

Call centers about the customers for better customer facilitation

Executives about the current trends and forecasted data

Decision options and the impact of each option

Identification of fraud and corrective measures based on historical trends

Create awareness to the business about the upcoming events based on historical trends.

Data Service - Process Flow

Business decisions need historical data, trends and intelligent analytics. Operational systems need
mentoring for data management. Two facets of the requirements necessitates in setting a process within
the organization. Figure 4 below depicts the BI process fl ow and its components which helps in
providing efficient data service.
Data Quality

Data Flow
Data Management Feedback

Data
Quality Feedback

Data Reconciliation

Data
Standardization
Feedback
Data
Integration

Data Capture

Reports

Information &
Intelligence

Data
Correction
Recommendation

Data Acquisition Requirements

Figure 4: BI Process Flow

The challenges like data quality and data integration have to be rectifi ed at the source level. Get to the
root and fix it.
BI process comprising of data capture, data quality check and integration can provide continuous
feedback to the source systems.
n

Data quality check performed in ETL provides data quality reports that indicate where the source
systems are deviating from the set standards. This helps in making immediate corrective actions at the
source.

Data Integration process defines the standards across the organization. The feedback at this stage
should be tapped to achieve standardization of data elements across the business.
11

Data quality and integration reports on reconciliation provide data correction methodologies.
Reconciliation process collates all the reports and validates against the business rules to provide data
correction recommendations.

BI program, built on proper methodology, feeds back the data acquisition requirements to the source
systems. Additional attributes and metrics required to be captured are passed back to the source
systems to ensure data completeness in the organization.

Business Intelligence Solution Addressing Challenges

The challenge for the business is to keep pace with the market and address the internal data
management issues. A quick validation of the BI solution components against the critical industry
challenges today is depicted in Table 2 below.
Industry Challenges & Issues

Solution Component

Solution Details

Data Volume due to Increasing

Customer base

Logical Framework

Scalable framework and efficient data growth

estimations

Data Completeness and

exploitation

Logical Framework

Encapsulation of business critical data elements

Increase in business complexities

Logical Framework

Provides a well defined process and models to cater to

the change in business processes

Understand all business elements

in systems

Logical Framework

Metadata Services

Information mismatch between

operational systems

Data Service

Periodic report from reconciliation process for timely

corrective actions

Error in data processing at source

Data Service

Reconciliation report to minimize and avoid

processing errors

Timely bill generation and dispatch Data Service

Provides a report after each bill cycle to indicate errors.

Analytics for business functions

Analytics &
Intelligence Service

OLAP and Analytic models

Customer know-how and

Intelligence

Analytics &
Intelligence Service

Data completeness and algorithms for data mining

Informed Business strategies

Analytics &
Intelligence Service

OLAP layer providing timely information access

Table 2: Industry challenges and BI solution

12

Business Intelligence - Approach

A BI solution is a process constituting of methodologies, infrastructure, tools and technology.
n

Methodology A framework which is aligned to organization vision. A complete roadmap to the

journey of intelligent support

Infrastructure Define and procure infrastructure to support the solution

Tools and Technology Tools and accelerators that can be plugged in, to catalyze the process

n
n
n
n
n

Methodology
Key Performance Indicators
Defining of Metrics
Data Management Challenges
Roadmap for Implementation
Steps and Guidelines for
Implementation

APPROACH
n
n
n

Infrastructure
hardware
Software
Network Availability &
Connectivity

n
n
n
n
n

Tools & Technology

Data Process
intelligent & Robust ETL
Data Volume
Data Storage
Data access & Retrieval
Secured Data Access

Figure 5: BI- Solution Approach

Methodology
Methodology A framework definition. BI solution needs to be driven by the executives and analysts of
the organization. This ensures that the solution has an enterprise wide approach backed up with vision of
the organization.
A methodology should define the following in a chronological order:
n

Key performance indicators for the organization. The key performance indicators define the roadmap
for the organization. This ensures completeness of the analytic and reporting requirements.

Definition of the metrics All the key performance indicators defined at the lowest level. This
determines data elements that the organization would need to align to their vision.

Operational challenges Define the operational challenges faced by the organization, data
management and data dissemination challenges.

Roadmap for implementation Would a step by step implementation help the organization or can it
go for a full fl edged DW in a single step? This is based on each organization and can be decided at an
13

interaction level with the executives of the organization. It is suggested to have a Build step by step
approach backed with a complete EDW vision.
n

Guidelines for implementation Set up a clear guideline. Step 1 to Step n of the complete life cycle.
Support it with templates and use cases.

At this stage the solution should not be influenced by data availability, data quality and integrity issues.
This would lead to convergence of the solution. Methodology definition should be based on business
requirements, data management challenges and vision of the business. Correct and complete
identification of the key performance indicators facilitates effective data acquisition requirements.
Remember Do not let the data drive you, drive the data according to business
Tools and Technology
Tools facilitate in accelerating the process. Organizations need to have well defined models and tools
which enable them to drive towards business excellence.
n

Operational Data store: A data store that houses operational data. It is the layer that ensures capture
of base business elements, data quality and data integration. This tool would help in citing the data
quality issues and application of business rules to integrate the data.

Analytics: A data store which captures all the required metrics identified as key performance
indicators for the business. This tool helps in providing end to end view of the customer and the
business at an aggregated level. Provides OLAP capabilities for power users and dashboards for the
executives.

Data mining and high end analytics: Derived intelligence from the behavior of business elements
over a period of time. This tool helps in understanding and forecasting the trends of the business and
customer over a period of time.

Canned reports: Static piece of information for information consumers. This tool facilitates in
providing health check measures and details of the daily transactions. Could consist of transactional,
historical data or certain derived metrics of the business

The BI technology stack chosen for the program has to be meticulously evaluated. The tools and
technology should support complete end to end data processing to (to name a few):
n

Ensure timely availability of data

Manage huge data volumes efficiently

Support efficient load and retrieval process

Check and integrate proficient and efficient data quality

Intelligent processes Supporting rich metadata and alerting capability

Ease data access

Secured access to information

BI is no more an expensive and time consuming technique. There are many vendors who have this as a

14

tool (tBIDS from TCS, Telecom solution by Teradata and IBM). Along with the BI tools stack, solution
accelerators are also termed as tools in the current market.
Infrastructure
The solution needs to be backed up with infrastructure. It is imperative that the investment is based on
evaluation of tools and technology in the market. Requirement of infrastructure is the final step before
going into the design and development phase. Delay in infrastructure availability impacts the ROI (Return
On Investment) of the solution. Thus, it has to be judiciously planned and executed.
The infrastructure components required for the BI solution are:
n

Hardware: The nature of data storage, data processing and volume of the data defines the requirement
of the hardware.

Software: Data processing, data security and retrieval drive the software requirement

Network availability and connectivity: The network availability and connectivity have to be ensured.

The data volumes and processing time determines the bandwidth requirement. There is a great risk of
failure of the solution if the infrastructure support is not appropriate. Upgrade of infrastructure is feasible
but as it relates to capital investment, there is always a delay in procurement. This results in degradation
of user community dependability and data integrity issues around the organization. It is suggested to
have infrastructure planned with projections and procured in a timely manner without inhibiting the
advantages of the solution.

Proposition
The urge to excel in the market place has been driving organizations. Data management and exploitation
have not been on the priority list. This has resulted in dissatisfaction of customers and has also led to
organizations slowly tending to reduce their market share.
BI solution has been interpreted as an expensive and time consuming effort. The inherent advantages of
the intelligent processes are rarely analyzed and weighed. Especially in the telecom industry, data
management challenges have engulfed the environment. It needs a process to be in place to suggest
continuous improvement. BI solution has always been viewed as an analytic/ reporting solution and
hence is given less or least priority. A BI solution can eliminate many intermediate and quick solutions
being designed and developed in the industry. The processes formulated in the BI solution could be
reused to ensure proper utilization of time and investment. A guided approach to the solution could
facilitate achieving business and operational excellence for the organization.

TCS-BI Proposition for Telecom

TCS has a wealth of BI solutions in place, which are being explored by many industry verticals across the
globe. The solutions are focused in providing valued services to its customers by addressing their
challenges. These solutions undergo modifications/ changes based on the market changes.
BI solutions are based on Business Intelligence Decision Support (BIDSTM), a complete framework
15

definition and the process flow for a BI implementation. The methodology offering encapsulates not only
the framework and the guidelines but also the templates which guide the implementation process step
by step.
For the telecom vertical, tBIDS- Telecom BIDS - a packaged solution encapsulating a logical model
backed up with analytical templates for reporting and analysis has been developed. A continuously
maturing model helps in plugging in the package and reducing a substantial effort of requirements and
design. The package details out all the critical attributes data elements required by the industry vertical
supported with rich metadata.
A service model, Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC), provides end to end service solution to
its customer. The competency center facilitates the customer in providing services like methodology
definition, infrastructure requirements, solution research, vendor liaison, technology centre of excellence,
competency and knowledge management. The center acts as a single point of contact in the
organization for business, IT and vendors (service and infrastructure) facilitating in guided approach to
the business intelligence program.

16

About TCS Telecom Industry Solution Unit

TCS Telecom Business Unit is the second largest vertical contributing higher percentage to
the overall TCS revenues. With a dedicated pool of professionals and an accumulated
experience and ongoing associations with world-class Telecom service providers and
equipment manufacturers, TCS has acquired unparalleled understanding of the Telecom
domain.
TCS helps wireline, wireless, broadband, and cable service providers redefine their markets
with innovative solutions that help them become more agile, reduce fixed operations costs,
and introduce next generation services. TCS sets customers apart from their competitors with
instant access to industry solutions, best-in-breed technology, assets, and frameworks.

Contact
For feedback on this article and more information, please contact us at:
global.telecom@tcs.com

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