Facts and More: the B4E Newsletter

Still, we have challenging times, with organisations facing continued cost pressure along with continuous change, including the shift to an agile e-telco-business, and the unremitting demands to increase productivity. The requirement for convergence (any service – any network – pre- and post-paid – fix and mobile – wholesale, retail, interconnect, and service/content) to support all an organisation's billing needs has never been more evident - so the Gurus of the industry say.

Forget the hapless attempts by so many marketing staff of the telecommunication industry to persuade you of any specific, single technology such as Voice Over IP (VOIP), IMS, or Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). Permanent success is not about the deployment of technology in isolation, but means offering integrated services based on truly convergent applications. In particular your business support systems are to exploit cost savings and, equally as important, enable for highest flexibility, i.e. new revenue generating opportunities.

Availability of information is fundamental for the agile enterprise. Real-time knowledge to the right person speedily at any time (and location) is becoming a business imperative. Services delivered in a fraction of a second, e.g. a customer can use his mobile immediately after having completed the online activation process or changed his setting, is key not only for a no-frills Telco. Convergence will facilitate this and the transformation of business processes, enabling for strong improvements to the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Charging/Rating/Billing workflows, which in turn will enhance customer satisfaction and reduce cost.

Another key benefit, which must not be overlooked, is how Convergence can be a catalyst for better collaboration, providing the tools and services to allow an organisation's stakeholders to interact easily and seamlessly. The result of which is a significant improvement in productivity and new flexible ways of working.

It is becoming increasingly important for IT management to begin to lay the foundations for making possible the availability of usage data for common communication services, either by software upgrades, software renovation, software replacement, or through Managed Services - achieving best efficiency ratio by a truly convergent business support system landscape.

B4E has been invited to lead a half-day workshop at the MarcusEvans VoIP Business Strategies Forum taking place in Berlin/Germany from November 09 to 11, 2005. The workshop's subject is: Pricing, Billing and Bundling Wireless and Wireline Broadband Voice and VAS. In a highly interactive fashion topics such as Pricing Strategies and their Challenges, True Convergence, Differentiating the Service Offering, and more will be discussed.

Companies such as Deutsche Telekom, Turk Telekom, easyCALL, The Cloud, T-Online, TNO, B4E, and more will provide presentations of very high interest during the Forum.

The aim of this director-level, international conference then, is to explore the business case for voice over broadband in residential and in enterprise markets by means of case studies from the entire fixed and mobile service provider communities. The focus will be on revenue models, marketing strategies, value-added services, and quality of service issues. The speakers will discuss also fixed mobile convergence, and, crucially, of course, billing and pricing issues.

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