In New Delhi: Amdocs, the leading customer experience systems provider, has released the findings of a global research report that showed that 73 percent of service providers plan to expand their prepaid offerings to include services that are traditionally offered only to postpaid customers. The research, conducted by leading analyst firm Ovum, also found that nearly half of the service providers polled said they needed to make moderate to large changes to their business and operational support systems (B/OSS) in order to answer the technical challenges involved in expanding prepaid services.
Greater availability of high-end devices such as smartphones, along with services like messaging, mobile broadband and applications, are increasing customer expectations from prepaid wireless services, said Sara Kaufman, analyst at Ovum. Prepaid wireless services are becoming even more prevalent around the world. Ovum forecasts prepaid will grow from 75 percent of total connections worldwide in 2010 to 77 percent by 2015. Service providers understand that the prepaid wireless strategies they adopt today will have a major impact on future profitability.
Research reveals a fundamental shift in service provider strategies for prepaid wireless:
Move to offer prepaid customers services and devices traditionally available only to postpaid customers: 73 percent of respondents would like to expand prepaid offerings or have already begun doing so. Main services added will include mobile data and content services, such as application downloads, mobile broadband and messaging. 47 percent of respondents already offer high-demand consumer devices, such as smartphones and other mobile broadband devices, to prepaid customers.
Move to offer hybrid payment models: 63 percent of respondents, primarily North American and European service providers, said they were already offering hybrid (a mixture of prepaid and postpaid) payment models to customers. Providing more service and payment choices and increasing customer loyalty are driving service providers move towards hybrid service offerings. Responding to customer desire to control their spend and improving provider ability to assure their revenues (by moving pay-as-you-go prepaid customers to monthly plans, for example) are additional strong motivators for adopting hybrid service models.
Existing B/OSS systems cannot support the shift in strategies:
Significant changes in B/OSS systems are required: 47 percent of service providers said their prepaid strategy would require moderate to large changes to their B/OSS systems to address technical challenges. Inability of their B/OSS systems to support fast time to market of new offerings was the technical challenge cited most frequently by respondents. Additional challenges cited include charging performance and integration of charging systems with CRM and legacy systems;
Service providers are already making changes to B/OSS systems: 67 percent of those polled are in the process of implementing changes to accommodate new prepaid service capabilities with an additional 33 percent planning to implement changes within the next twelve to twenty-four months. 38 percent of service providers interviewed have deployed a convergent charging system or are in negotiations for one. An additional 23 percent said they were planning to deploy a convergent charging system within the next five years.
To remain competitive, service providers must go to market quickly with new prepaid and hybrid services and need a charging environment that can provide this required agility and flexibility. Many are deploying convergent charging systems to establish these capabilities, said Rebecca Prudhomme, vice president of product and solutions marketing at Amdocs. Service providers that can offer customers a broader choice of services will drive customers to use more services, increasing customer stickiness and spend.
The research is based on qualitative interviews of senior executives from 19 service providers in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific, collectively serving hundreds of millions of subscribers. Interviews were conducted between August and November 2010.
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