SPIE 2012 BI for Operators-Can You Have It All

7/27/2019 SPIE 2012 BI for Operators-Can You Have It All

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May 11, 2012

Stratecast Analysis by

Jeff Cotrupe

Stratecast Perspectives & Insightfor Executives

Volume 12, Number 18

Business Intelligence for Operators:

Can You Have it All?


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SPIE #18, May 2012 Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan, 2012 Page 2

Business Intelligence for Operators: Can You Have it All?

Introduction1

The banking, financial services and insurance industries began moving toward business intelligence(BI), of which analytics is a subset, when they began to leverage analytics in the early 1970s. Thoseearly efforts were focused mainly on customer acquisition (sales & marketing); but in subsequentdecades, companies in those and other verticals have been adopting analytics and even broad-basedBI solutions to optimize their businesses.

Communications service providers (CSPs) have been wrestling with massive amounts of network,customer and usage information, too. Yet, for decades, the state of the art in CSP analytics wentabout as far as recognizing that Mothers Day was the heaviest voice traffic day of the year, so CSPsneeded to add network capacity and map out reroute plans to handle it. In 2007 Stratecast called onCSPs to awaken their analytics potential, citing a significant lack of analytics maturity in nearly half

the CSPs we surveyed at that time: usage of analytics mainly or only in the market department, andlack of an enterprise-level commitment to using analytics as a competitive enabler.2

CSPs have come a long way since 07; and, on balance, Stratecast believes BI adoption has beenslower in telecom for three reasons:

Tactical trumps strategic CSPs have been consumed with providing an ever-widening arrayof services to increasingly mobile (and fickle) customers, and have found it difficult to takemore strategic, analytics-driven approaches.

Dearth of telecom-specific BI most of the BImarket leaders are global IT powerhouses, andwhile their solutions are clearly working for large

enterprises, they are not telecom-specific and arenot specifically designed to integrate with aCSPs existing OSS/BSS fabric.

Telecom-focused analytics most of these solutions do not offer end-to-end BI and arefragmented along technology and customer type lines; for example, video service assuranceand QoE.

This Stratecast SPIE report will analyze how and where CSPs can benefit through the intelligentapplication of analytics; and whether BI for CSPs is a technological and bankable reality for CSPsand BI solution providers alike.

1 In preparing this report, Stratecast interviewed these representatives of Sandvine:

Lee Brooks, Manager, Product Marketing Jennifer Ross, Corporate Communications Manager

Please note that the insights and opinions expressed in this assessment are those of Stratecast and have been developedthrough the Stratecast research and analysis process. These expressed insights and opinions do not necessarily reflect theviews of the company executives interviewed.

2Starting Up A CSP Analytics Engine, SPIE 2007-27

Stratecast believes CSP BI adoption has

been slowed by three factors: internalCSP tactical, rather than strategic,

focus; a lack of telecom-specific BIsolutions; and fragmented, technology-

specific analytics offerings.


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Welcome to the (Data) Revolution

In the 1990s, a group of companiessome larger (AT&T Network Systems and Bellcore) and some

smaller (Applied Computing Devices, Objective Systems Integrators and TCSI)led atelecommunications industry data revolution. They were building software systems that liberatedCSP information from its usual resting placessuch as stacks of network traffic reportsanddeployed it in an exciting new form, the GUI: graphicaluser interfaces that put a user-friendly face on thecomplexities of the underlying systems.

Once telecom engineers and executives had a chance toaccess the data in a unified visual form, they begandeveloping innovative solutions to everyday problems.ACDs Correlator product, for example, was one of the firsttelecom management software systems to deploy algorithms that triangulated data from various

seemingly-unrelated network events to derive root causes of network problems. So, for example,Correlator would acquire and parse through hundreds of network events and present a single rootcause to the system user: Fiber cut in this specific network segment. ACD was also the first toidentify and present so-called performance faults to system users. A network fault, like theaforementioned fiber cut, meant a service outage; and, of course, a flood of angry customers callingCSP help desks. Correlator identified degrading performance conditions in devices in the networkthat historical trending data indicated would eventually lead to a network fault; and presented it tosystem users as a performance fault. The CSP could repair or replace the impacted devices and thushead off a future (and most likely widely-publicized) service disaster.

Since then, CSPs have been using data in some useful yet rudimentary ways, such as:

Mediating and analyzing service detail records (XDRs) for billing purposes Analyzing performance with regard to customer trouble response and resolution, such as

deriving figures on mean time to resolution (MTTR)

Analyzing network usage, costs and outages Performing vendor invoice analysis Conducting standard accounting functions Performing trend analysis to adjust future operations based on historical traffic trends (as in

the Mothers Day example)

Welcome Big Data? No Need: It Is Already Here

Fast-forward to today, and CSPs, like all other organizations, are facing a tidal wave of data in theirown systemsfrom the Web and in tide pools of data locked up in external databases. Big Data(millions to billions of records) is upon us; and it is difficult or impossible to manage it using existingdatabase management tools. Big Data is a big and complex problem, but CSPs can cut it down tosize and put it to work for them if they can do three basic things:

Access, manage and report on data from multiple data sources.These sources includenetworks, both their own and partner networks or segments; mobile networks, users and

Given the chance to access data in a

unified visual form, telecomengineers and executives began

developing innovative solutions toeveryday CSP problems.


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devices; their OSS/BSS infrastructure; and CSP enterprise-side functions incorporating keyperformance indicators (KPIs). Other sources include content providers, such as thosemarketing mobile apps and games to a CSPs subscribers (and rendering a cut of the revenueto the CSP); content delivery networks (CDNs) supporting media and entertainment

services, including over-the-top (OTT) video; the Web; and any other channel external tothe CSP.

Manage Big Data. The issue with Big Data is not just its sheer size, but the growingnumber of data types hurtling at CSPs today. The first broad category is Structured data,which includes things such as customer, demographic and usage records that are easilyaccessed in table and row database structures using SQL queries. The second, Unstructureddata, encompasses everything else: email, business documents, images, web page content,audio, video and more. Unstructured data is also growing much faster than its Structuredcounterpart. A BI solution must effectively accommodate bothand a great deal of both.

Provide effective structures and strategies for analytics, data warehousing (DWH)and extraction-transformation-loading (ETL). DWH occurs on data computingappliances that process data at high speeds. ETL is the combination of processes that resultsin data being acquired by a DWH.

CSPs Can Reap BI Benefits Across Their Operations

BI is a multibillion-dollar global market, with some industry figures placing it in the tens of billionsof dollars on an annual basis; and Stratecast plans to analyze and quantify both the total BI marketand the market for BI specifically for CSPs, in upcoming reports. 3 BI inspires billions of dollars inspending because implementing BI offers a wide rangeof business benefits, from empowering all authorizedusers to access the data they need, to understandingcompetitors. Those general benefits apply to CSPs aswell, but CSPs can also reap a wide range of otherbenefits that do not apply to enterprises. For thepurposes of this report, we are focusing our attention onBIs impacts on four function and process groupings:Network & Operations; Products, Marketing and MobileCommerce Management (MCM); Core Customer Data;and CEM. Other CSP areas where BI can have a major positive impact include Billing & RevenueAssurance, C-Suite and Carrier/Partner Relationships. Major benefits of BI to a CSPs Network &Operations processes are reflected in Figure 1.

Figure 1: BI Supports CSP Teams-Areas-Processes: Network & OperationsTeam-Area-Process Where/How BI Helps

Service Fulfillment o Infrastructure layer orchestration: data collection, validation,correlation and distribution

o Resource utilization patterns and forecastingo Installation process optimization

3 Planned titles: Business Intelligence 2012: Harnessing Big Data for Sizable Business Resultsand Business Intelligence for CSPs 2012.

BI inspires billions of dollars in

spending because implementing BI

offers many business benefits. In CSPenvironments, those benefits are mostkeenly felt in areas such as Network &

Operations, Products & Marketing,Core Customer Data, CEM, Billing and

Revenue Assurance.


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Team-Area-Process Where/How BI Helps

Service Assurance o Customer interaction managemento Predictive customer assuranceo QoS pattern identificationo Correlation of signaling data with OSS data

The NOC o EMS/NMS/OSS analyticso Network monitoring

Operations/MIS o Infrastructure and capacity planningo MIS administrationo Decision support systems

Source: Stratecast

The rise of digital analytics and marketing platforms speaks to the power of automating product andmarketing processes. By the nature of the markets in which they compete, CSPs take the expressionalways selling to the extreme; and analytics-driven automation enables them to keep up with thedrumbeat of the market.

Mobile commerce management (MCM) offers CSPs one of their most lucrative opportunities forleveraging analytics to drive new revenues.

BI impacts on Products & Marketing processes are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: BI Supports: Products, Marketing and Mobile Commerce Management


Product Development o BSS analytics (e.g., product catalog)o Product development and optimizationo Pricing plan design

CMO, Marketing o Prospecting, lead generation, competitor trackingo Database marketingo Customer base segmentation, offer customizationo Online behavioral analytics: Site & Socialo Messaging and content/campaigns-promotions

Mobile CommerceManagement (MCM)

o Marketing automation and campaign managemento Campaign response modelingo NEW synergies: digital/mobile + traditional advertising, mobile

barcodes/POS

o M-commerce: m-payments/-ticketing/-shoppingSource: Stratecast


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BI can enable CSPs to retain and reap maximum value from subscribers. In addition to helping themcover the bases when it comes to understanding their customers, BI can also help them followMCM best practices to reach their subscribers on the go: not just with advertising messages but withcore customer communications and save offers in response to negative service events. Social

Network Analysis (SNA) is growing in importance because it helps identify Influencers (and thosethey influence in a CSPs customer base. That can be crucial because when Influencers try newoffers, so does their circleand when they churn, they take others with them. BIs benefits on CoreCustomer Data processes are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: BI Supports: Core Customer Data


Customer Analysis andCommunications

o Customer lifetime value (CLV)/profitability analysiso Revenue forecastingo Churn reductiono Data miningo NEW: adapt MCM processes to all customer communications

Churn Prediction andManagement

o Interaction managemento Real-time, adaptive customer communications: all touch pointso Customers profile (behavior/attributes) combined with

responses to questions/offers

o Trigger function: customer change yields offer(s)Social Network Analysis(SNA)

o Identify Influencers and Influenced in CSP subscriber baseo Adjust communications/offers/churn policies accordingly

Source: Stratecast

Customer Experience Management (CEM) is an area of focus for CSPs that Stratecast defines infour distinct parts. One, Application Performance Monitoring (APM), enables CSPs to seeservices, mobile devices, apps and sites through the eyes of the subscriber. CSPs do not own orcontrol all elements of the application and service delivery ecosystembut if mobile users cannotaccess everything error-free and at top speed, they are going to blame their CSP. So, APM providesan outside-in, user-centric perspective to complement the equally essential service assurancesolutions already hard at work in the NOC. BIs impact on Stratecasts four defined areas of CEM isshown in Figure 4 below.


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Figure 4: BI Supports: Customer Experience Management


Application PerformanceMonitoring (APM)

o User view of service/app/device/site performanceo Quality of service (QoS)o Video service assurance/QoE

Customer ServiceAssurance (CSA)

o Usage data patterns, trends and preferenceso Probes and other in-network data collection devices

Quality of Experience(QoE)

o Customer experiences with company itselfo Purchases, bill payment, support/help desk, retail experience

and more

o Mapping analog customer QoE into digital (quantifiable)metrics

Customer ExperienceAnalytics (CEA)

o Operational, usage and revenue statisticso Multichannel measurement, including socialo Customer profiles to drive offers and other treatments

Source: Stratecast

BI for CSPs: A Capable Provider Covers Most of the Bases

In the Introduction we introduced three answers to the question, Why havent CSPs moved asquickly as some other industries into BI and analytics? While it is difficult to directly influence

CSPs moving beyond the tactical to take a more strategic, analytics-driven approach, we contendthat the right vendor solutionsCSP-focused, broad-based BIrather than analytics point solutionscan create the environmentfor positive change.

In our continuing research and analysis of the market, we haveidentified a company, Sandvine, with a range of solutions thatdeliver CSP-focused BI and that should eliminate any CSPexcuses re: BI is important, but BI providers dont understand

our business. Sandvine positions itself as providing Intelligent Broadband Networks throughnetwork policy control, and offers only one product with Analytics in its name; but CSPs whochoose its full solution suite go a long way toward implementing a full-bore CSP BI solution. The

components of the Sandvine suite include: Network Policy Control System comprising these platforms:

o Policy Traffic Switch (PTS), built on the Sandvine Policy Engine (SPE), whichinteracts directly with data traffic by enforcing (usage and service) policies on a per-flow and per-subscriber basis.

o Service Delivery Engine (SDE), built on the SPE on top of RedHat Enterprise Linuxand third-party hardware, operates in the control plane between the data andprovisioning layers, to integrate BI with OSS/BSS.

Sandvines CSP-focused BI

solutions should eliminate CSPexcuses re: BI is important, butBI providers dont understand

our business.


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o Subscriber Policy Broker (SPB), built on storage-reporting-policy (SRP) hardware,which provides granular long-term storage of network and subscriber usageinformation, and offers public APIs for ready integration with OSS/BSS and otherCSP systems.

CSP BI products:o Network Analytics supports CSP network processes and functions, as shown was in

Figure 1. Purpose-built by the company for converged-access CSPs, the producthelps CSPs improve business performance by using predictive analytics to optimizecapital expenditures (capex), operations processes and revenue. Network Analyticsincludes five separate dashboards:

Traffic Management Dashboard (integrated with Sandvines TrafficManagement product), which supports CSP network, customer data andCEM processes, as shown in Figures 1-4, by helping CSPs achieve fair-useand traffic optimization objectives supporting subscriber QoE. This benefitsthe CSP in terms of both open market competition and regulatorycompliance. The Traffic Management product does the real-timemanagement, and the Traffic Management Dashboard is closely integrated,so it shows the metrics that help operators view the effectiveness of theirtraffic optimization policies and plan capacity expansion, managementpolicies and other initiatives more effectively.

Usage Management Dashboard (integrated with Sandvines UsageManagement product), which supports a broad array of CSP processes andfunctions including product & marketing and core customer data (detailed inFigures 2 and 3), as well as billing and revenue assurance. UsageManagements supported billing functions include subscriber interactivitysuch as changing postpaid service plans on the fly to reduce bill shockfrom usage overages, as well as subscriber top-up (adding money to a prepaidor real-time-billed subscriber account to maintain service). The UsageManagement Dashboard displays the relevant metrics and forecasts.

Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard, which supports the APM segment ofCEM, as was shown in Figure 4. Each time a subscriber on the CSPsnetwork consumes a piece of real-time entertainment media (primarily audioor video), the product collects data about the content provider and thecontent delivery network (CDN) that delivered the traffic; the duration andsize of the video or audio file(s); metadata such as video and audio codecs, as

well as media containers used; and most importantly, the device used by thesubscriber, and the QoE they received. The product aggregates and reportson these analytics, segmented by content provider, CDN, geography andother class-level characteristics. One view of this dashboard, the EngineeringSummary, is shown in Figure 5 below.

Network Summary Dashboard, which integrates inputs from all products tomonitor overall network developments, track CSP business-side keyperformance indicators (KPIs) and initiate action, supporting Engineering,Marketing and other teams.


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IPv6 Transition Dashboard, which focuses specifically on monitoring theapplications and devices driving IPv6 adoption on the CSPs network

o Network Demographics is a reporting product, included with all Sandvine PTSdeployments, that allows CSPs to explore past network measurements by using alibrary of predefined reports and custom reporting capabilities.

Figure 5: Sandvines Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard: Engineering Summary

Source: Sandvine

Sandvine supports its products with consulting, customer advocacy and education services, some ofwhich include:

Business cases & ROI analysis Engineering and solution design & planning Installation, integration and commissioning


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Maintenance & supportSandvine has more than 200 CSP customers in more than 85 countries, serving hundreds of millionsof broadband and mobile data subscribers; named CSPs include Comcast, ClearSky, Cricket, NTT

Communications, SK Broadband, StarHub, Telefonica and VOX Telecom, as reflected in Figure 6.Figure 6: Selected Sandvine CSP Customers

Sources: Sandvine and companies


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StratecastThe Last Word

CSPs were slower to embrace business intelligence (BI) than some other industries, but Stratecastbelieves that was due less to resistance-for-resistances sake and more to factors both internal andexternal to the CSP. On the one hand, CSPs themselves have been caught up in the serious businessof providing an ever-wider array of services to their increasingly-mobile, churn-ready subscribers.This has caused them to not so much take their eye off the ball as to have few eyes left to watchthe ballunable to take a step back and realize that making a strategic move into BI holds the keyto solving those very same tactical, resource-intensive issues that consume their daily lives. On theother hand, the IT giants who control the wider, cross-industry BI marketplace offer solutions thatare both technologically and price-wise a great fit for multinational corporationsbut are nottelecom-specific; and, by and large, have been designed without regard to integration with a CSPs

existing OSS/BSS infrastructure. Telecom vendors have joined the fray in recent years with pointsolutions that address CSP analytics, not the broader need for CSP BI; and, while some provideexcellent functionality, they collectively represent yet one more standalone element that a CSP thenneeds to integrate into its infrastructure.

All that is changing, however; and Sandvine is an example of a provider devoted to serving theglobal CSP community, whose solutions can help its customers implement BI tailored to their needs.Sandvines solutions support areas we have identified as benefiting from BI, including network &operations, products & marketing, core customer data, CEM, billing and revenue assurance.

One of the most pressing issues for CSPs is how to manage over-the-top (OTT) video that isvoraciously consuming an ever-larger share of their network and systems resources. This has led to

the emergence of some excellent video service assurance and QoE point solutions in themarketplace. Sandvine offers a solution in this area, too: its Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard. InStratecasts definition of CEM, this product supports the APM segment, and it is as comprehensiveas any of the CSP video APM solutions we have seen. What we like even more about the Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard is that it is part of Sandvines CSP BI solution suite, whichmeans it can help CSPs implement a strategy to deal with video that fits smoothly into their largerstrategy of implementing CSP-specific BI.

The upshot is that for CSPs still hesitating about when and how to implement BI, Stratecastcannot recommend more strongly that the time is now, and Sandvine offers viable answersto the question of how.

Jeff Cotrupe

Global Program Director ACEM and OSSCS

Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan

[email protected]
http://[email protected]/http://[email protected]/


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SPIE #18, May 2012 Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan, 2012 Page 12CONTACT US

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SPIE 2012 BI for Operators-Can You Have It All