The ability to monitor, measure, and adjust campaigns is absolutely fundamental. It provides a better level of service and supports our goal of being a leader in mobile Internet. Spotfire, in conjunction with SOA and POCs around Fast Data, have definitely allowed us to improve upsell. We have real-time information and can drill down and exactly understand customer behaviors.
Simeon Iheukumere, Head of IT Service Build, XL Axiata
XL Axiata Calls on Fast Data to Disrupt Telco Markets
Improves customer experience, reduces churn, generates increased revenue
Challenge
In 2007, XL committed to becoming a leader in a challenging market, one with 98 percent prepaid subscriptions and a state-owned telco that held over 50 percent market share. “We had to be disruptive to compete,” says Simeon Iheukumere, head of IT service build, which manages XL software development. “We want to be a leader in mobile Internet with at least 50 percent of our revenues from data.”
One challenge was that functional IT systems were in discrete silos. “The lack of platform integration did not allow us to respond and support the business in the way we needed to,” says Simeon. “We required a platform that would provide reliability, scalability, and allow us to deliver functionality in an agile manner.”
XL’s marketing challenge is to predict the desires of its customers. Continues Simeon, “Our goal is to optimize sales and marketing, understand what customers want when they want it—to identify opportunities and provide value. It’s an integral part of being a leader in mobile Internet.”
Solution
XL chose TIBCO’s SOA-based integration platform, TIBCO Spotfire® analytics, and TIBCO BusinessEvents™ event processing engine. Says Simeon, “What was very impressive about TIBCO was its willingness to be hands on, build and showcase a technology in a proof of concept (POC). TIBCO amongst other vendors proved itself, and today, it’s a truly strategic partnership.”
Simeon says that an integrated platform that connected its diverse systems was mandatory. “For a demanding business, and XL is a demanding business, being disruptive in the market meant we should be able to make changes quickly and predictably, and integration is key to this.
“The trust we put in TIBCO is not just limited to the technology,” continues Simeon. “At XL we value people more, and TIBCO was able to leverage our people and build our capabilities. In turn that has allowed our team to leverage TIBCO technology. One of the results was a better customer experience.”
Benefits
Improved Customer Experience
“With the ability to predict or ‘fingerprint’ customer desires, we’re able to offer the right product at the right time and provide value-added services,” says Simeon. “We can now offer free benefits during outages and upsell according to customer needs. We’ve witnessed several positive outcomes from the implementation of TIBCO BusinessEvents, which drives our event-based marketing, including marked improvement in retaining customers and actually driving up average revenue per user.”
Reduced Churn
TIBCO technologies have helped to expose churn trends. “We can now distinguish rotational churn from competitive churn, and this has been integral. Rotational churn means the customer stays with XL but moves to another product, and therefore we can analyze and understand why, and get better at up selling. That has been a very, very positive impact,” he says.
New Visibility Into Revenue Generation
XL has redefined its operations. “Thanks in part to a successful marriage between Spotfire and the SOA platform, we track revenue-generating activities end-to-end across the network.
“The ability to monitor, measure, and adjust campaigns is absolutely fundamental,” says Simeon. “It provides a better level of service and supports our goal of being a leader in mobile Internet. Spotfire, in conjunction with SOA and POCs around Fast Data, have definitely allowed us to improve upsell. We have real-time information and can drill down and exactly understand customer behaviors.”
Previously with XL’s siloed systems, transactions could be lost. Now using Spotfire, transactions are traced. “And when they fail, we can actually reach out to the customer and give them bonuses and try again,” says Simeon. “So, tracking has made a fundamental change in the way work is being done today.”
Revenue Protection
XL takes advantage of real-time TIBCO infrastructure in a number of ways. “An event-enabled analytic platform is mandatory for detecting network abuse, primarily because it happens in real time. If you’re late in detecting it, it can result in dramatic loss of revenue and customer experience,” says Iheukumere.
“Key data about customers also needs to be available in real time,” he says. “We are living in a world where customers expect very fast response, and every moment you miss is an opportunity gone.”
Future
An XL ethos is social responsibility. “It’s a key value as shown by the significant work we’ve done with student communities within Indonesia, and more recently, the Internet.org initiative with Facebook and Ericsson. We share a vision of trying to bring mobile Internet to the next two billion people. It’s something we’re committed to, and being disruptive is just one of the ways we’re going to do it,” concludes Simeon.