Telecom Billing Market Landscape

Telecoms Billing Market
Landscape: Challenges and
Priorities
Publication Date: 11 Jan 2016 | Product code: IT0012-000152
Chantel Cary

Telecoms Billing Market Landscape: Challenges and Priorities
Summary
Catalyst
To be competitive in the digital age, telcos must strategically upgrade their billing and revenue
management systems. This report reviews the market developments that are driving telcos' need to
invest in revenue management systems. Additionally, we assess telcos' revenue management
challenges, investment priorities, and solution selection criteria. This report is essential reading for IT
executives that want to understand telcos' drivers for selecting a revenue management solution and
vendor.
Ovum view
The telecoms industry is moving forward with digital services and new operating models. Although
telcos are ready to explore new services and improve the customer experience, their revenue
management systems are not fit for purpose. Telcos have been bogged down by legacy revenue
management systems that are rigid and incapable of supporting the emerging needs in the industry. In
3Q15, we conducted a survey with senior managers from 28 CSPs (communications service
providers) on the future of their billing (and charging) systems; more than 44% of telcos said they
planned to transform or completely replace their revenue management systems over the next 18
months. During this timeframe they will strive to consolidate systems, restructure tariffs, and integrate
billing systems with other parts of the business.
Vendors in the telecoms space must have a clear understanding of the impact of market conditions on
telcos' revenue management priorities. They must understand telcos' current challenges, as well as
what their top needs are in a revenue management system and IT vendor. This report discusses the
top-level findings from Ovum's surveys and discussions with telco IT executives.
Key messages
 M&A activity has created overlap and redundancy in telco billing systems. Our recent ICT
Enterprise Insights survey showed that just over 21% of telcos stated that they had anywhere
from 50–249 revenue management systems supporting their organization. More than 12% of
telcos stated they have more than 1,000 revenue management systems.
 Telcos will need billing systems that can support the growing complexity of services, meet
customers' high expectations for service, and support the delivery of next-generation
technologies such as IoT and digital services.
 Restructuring roaming tariffs, consolidating revenue management systems, and adding
convergence into billing systems are the top revenue management investment priorities for
telcos.
 Having a configurable tariff system, integrated CRM, real-time capabilities, and the ability for
service and subscriber convergence capabilities are telcos' top needs in a billing solution.
 The telecoms vendor space is consolidating as a result of the changes in telcos' needs and
buying priorities.
 Vendors that offer a BSS product suite are winning more revenue management contracts with
telcos, compared to "best of breed" product vendors.
© Ovum. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. Page 2

Recommendations
Recommendations for telcos
 Create a roadmap. Telcos must develop a roadmap or plan of action before starting any
revenue management projects, and outline the outcomes they hope to achieve in the
immediate and long-term future. Aligning these objectives across the business and
developing a roadmap will ensure that all objectives are addressed. The roadmap should be
used to help convey objectives and necessities to the vendor before embarking on the
project. This will also reduce the time and cost of the projects, as there will be a clear outline
of steps and expectations.
 Set a priority list. Telcos need to develop a priority list before embarking on the vendor
selection process. Once the roadmap has been created, telcos will have a clearer vision of
what needs to be accomplished and under what timeframe. Telcos must use this information
to create a detailed priority list of features needed in their revenue management solutions, as
well as capabilities and criteria that they need their potential vendor to meet. This will make
the vendor selection process easier by eliminating vendors that cannot address these
priorities. It will also ensure that the telcos' most important needs are met.
 Consolidate billing systems first. Before acquiring new systems or making upgrades,
telcos need to first consolidate their billing systems. Many of the challenges telcos are facing
– rigid legacy systems, slow go-to-market times, lack of transparency, etc. – are linked to the
large number of revenue management systems supporting the business. Slightly less than
18% of telcos stated that they have 10 or fewer revenue management systems supporting
their operations. Telcos must consolidate and cleanse all customer data before embarking on
billing transformation projects or acquiring any new revenue management systems. This will
provide telcos with better visibility into the business and will allow them to better judge the
success of new systems. This will also provide them with more agility and they will be better
suited to address issues such as time to market.
Recommendations for vendors
 Enhance your best-of-suite BSS offering. Telcos are no longer using the "best of breed"
approach of purchasing different systems from the top vendors. Instead, they are looking for a
one-stop-shop option. Vendors must have a strong BSS portfolio in order to win new business
with telcos. Telcos stated that integration capabilities, especially into the CRM, are a top
priority when selecting a billing solution. Vendors that offer a complete BSS or BSS/OSS suite
will, as a result, be better positioned to gain telco business.
 Offer managed services or cloud hosting. Telcos are moving away from on-premise
hosting of BSS in order to become more efficient and gain more business agility. Over the
next 18 months, more than 50% of telcos plan to place at least one component of their
revenue management systems into the cloud. Approximately 20% plan to use a managed
service provider for the delivery of their revenue management systems. Vendors need to offer
cloud hosting or managed services. BSS cloud revenue is expected to reach nearly $10bn by
2020; vendors that can host their billing solutions in the cloud will have first dibs at securing
this revenue.

 Be flexible with pricing. Vendors must understand the unique conditions in which telcos
operate. Telcos have limited IT budgets and a seemingly unlimited number of IT projects to
complete. IT spend is bound both by profit margins and how fast telcos can obtain a return on
their investments. As a result, vendors need to price their solutions competitively and offer
creative pricing models. This will bring more business and will create a relationship that will
encourage the telco to continue longer, larger projects as ROIs are established.
Telecoms market developments
The "three Cs" are forcing telcos to take drastic action
Consolidation
As the industry has evolved from fixed-line telephony services to include wireless, broadband,
television, and now digital services, mergers and acquisitions have been a way for telcos to expand
their portfolios and remain competitive. Paradoxically, this activity, which has allowed telcos to stay
afloat and remain competitive in the market, has also become detrimental to their success and ability
to grow further. As telcos have made acquisitions and merged with other service providers,
business-critical systems, including revenue management systems, have been neglected, with very
little, if any, resources allocated to consolidating systems and cleaning data post-merger. This has left
telcos' revenue management systems siloed, rigid, and difficult to manipulate. They have, as a result,
hindered telcos' ability to transform the business and to keep pace with a market that can change in
the blink of an eye.
Customers
Customer expectations are also changing and becoming more complex. Customers are consuming
more data than ever and are using bandwidth more dynamically – making VoLTE calls, streaming
music and videos, uploading content, and more. In addition to having high expectations for service
and experience, customers also have high expectations when it comes to pricing. The downturn in the
global economy has made customers more price sensitive than in previous generations, and less
likely to demonstrate brand loyalty.
Competition
Competition in the market is also increasing and we are seeing a rise in the number of new,
nontraditional telephone service providers entering into the market. Telcos are now competing with TV
and Internet service providers, as well as OTT players, and aim to launch new services such as IoT,
mobile payments, and direct carrier billing. They are ill prepared, however, to support the new
demands to provide digital services and lack the revenue management systems needed to monetize
these new services.
Telcos have received a wake-up call and understand that they must make big changes to remain
competitive under these new conditions. However, their hands are tied by the legacy infrastructure
that they have accumulated over the decades.

Telco billing challenges
Existing systems cannot support the growing complexity of
services
The telecoms industry has become more complex. Customer expectations and competition from new
players are putting pressure on telcos to diversify their services and how they are delivered to
customers. Telcos must deliver a combination of physical and digital services, at a cost-efficient price,
in both traditional and new formats (such as an OTT application). The ability to support this growing
complexity of services and delivery formats, however, is a top priority and challenge for telcos.
While researching this report, we asked a dozen telcos what was the biggest challenge they were
facing with their existing billing systems; an overwhelming majority identified the "inability to support
the growing complexity of services" as their top challenge.
Most telcos already offer some form of multi-play services, and they also report that their existing
billing systems are incapable of supporting multi-play – around one-third stated that they cannot
charge for multiple services on the same bill. As services become more complex and extend beyond
triple- or quad-play services and include streaming or app subscriptions, telcos will struggle to charge
for all of these services. Many telcos have already committed to developing digital services in an effort
to compete with the growing number of digital service providers in the market. Telcos have also
formed an increasing number of third-party relationships, which has further complicated services.
Telcos need a billing system that will not only ensure that there is no revenue leakage for customers
subscribed to multiple physical and/or digital services, but that will also address the billing experience
for customers. The billing experience must be consistent, regardless of the type and number of
services a customer is subscribed to. Billing questions and complaints are the top reasons that
customers engage with the contact center, and consequently a leading driver of customer
dissatisfaction. Telcos will need to invest in billing systems that can simplify the billing process and
that issue clear and concise bills to the customer.
New systems must invoice different subscriber types on the
same bill
In the early years, prepaid services would be shut off as customers approached their monthly limits,
and while postpaid subscribers enjoyed the benefit of being able to constantly use services without
worrying about them being shut off, there was always the danger of bill shock arising from additional
charges for high usage or usage of services from outside the bundle.
The introduction of digital services has added another layer of complexity. Digital services and games,
along with in-app purchases, are shaping the next wave of subscriber needs that telcos must satisfy.
Customers want to be able to purchase digital services and apps, or make in-app purchases on
demand, regardless of their subscription type; telcos must enable postpaid subscribers to view and
control their spend, and give prepaid subscribers the option to make on-demand purchases, through
top-up options. These capabilities, however, will require telcos to make significant changes to their
billing systems.
At the same time, customers prefer to have a variety of subscription types on a single account. Family
plans (i.e. a mix of postpaid lines for the parents and prepaid lines for the children) are available, but

less common outside of tier-1 operators. The expectation is that information will be consistent across
both types of account, and have additional features, including parental controls for spending caps,
and blocks on certain types of content. However, these capabilities require telcos to invest in
convergent billing systems that are capable of charging and billing multiple subscriber types on the
same bill.
Telcos must be able to quickly launch new services
The ability of telcos to compete in the digital age will rest on their capacity to quickly launch and
charge for new services and make changes to the business. New OTT players are entering into the
market and are quickly making changes to their business via app updates. Telcos must be able to
react to the market just as quickly, if not faster, than OTT players. Services and innovative products
can easily be replicated once they are launched, so telcos must be able to continue to develop new
services and roll them out to customers quickly. However, many telcos still feel that their billing
systems hinder their ability to quickly launch services, and complex billing systems that have been
layered on top of one another make it a challenge for telcos to make changes. In a survey of more
than 500 telco CIOs, 21% of telcos stated that they had anywhere from 50–249 revenue management
systems supporting the business (see Figure 1). Additionally, more than 12% stated that they have
more than 1,000 revenue management systems in place and less than 18% of telcos stated that they
have 10 or fewer revenue management systems supporting their operations.
Figure 1: Number of revenue management systems
Source: Ovum ICT Enterprise Insights, 2015–16
Considering the number of revenue management systems that telcos are running concurrently, it is no
surprise that it takes months (if not longer) for telcos to make the necessary adjustments to these
systems to support new services. Telcos can no longer wait months or years to launch new services,
however, and they must be able reduce their go-to-market time for new services significantly, to a
matter of days, if not hours.

Systems are siloed
Telcos have made significant investments into building out their networks. They are now faced with
the challenge of monetizing these investments and are limited by legacy revenue management
systems.
Billing systems hold a great deal of information that is useful to the telco in a number of ways. First,
billing systems hold important information about which services customers are consuming, when and
where they are consuming them, how much they are being charged for these services, etc. This
information provides no benefit to the organization if it remains separated from other parts of the
business. By integrating billing with other important systems such as CRM, policy control, and
marketing, telcos can create a better picture of the customer and improve operations.
Integrating billing systems with the CRM, for example, will better equip support agents to resolve
customers' billing queries faster and will empower them with the information needed to make relevant
upsells. Furthermore, billing information can be used to build a customer account profile, in which
each customer is given a customer lifetime value (CLV). Having this data on hand will allow telcos to
ensure that those customers that have a longer history or who have spent more over the lifetime of
the subscription receive the proper service and escalation if needed.
On the other hand, integrating billing systems with policy control can help telcos generate new
revenue streams while finding ways to optimize the network. Policy control can be used to create a
number of rules to dictate pricing based on network conditions. Using policy rules, telcos can create
new packages for customers, such as monthly subscriptions to a bundle of services. This will allow
telcos to create new strategic partnerships with OTT players and create new revenue streams by
offering new bundles such as a monthly social media package, in which for a monthly subscription
price, the customer has access to all social media apps without the usage counting toward their
monthly data allowance.
Telcos can also use billing systems that are integrated with policy control to offer special pricing for
customers based on certain conditions. For example, a telco may decide to give a discount to
customers who consume 250MB of data on a telco-owned app. To take the example a step further,
similar capabilities can be used to create dynamic discounts or billing based on network conditions. To
deter customers from using the network during peak traffic hours, for example, a telco can create a
dynamic pricing offer that will give customers a discount to use the network to place calls or use data
during off-peak hours.
Telco billing priorities
Revenue management investment plans
According to Ovum's 2016 ICT Enterprise Insights survey, telcos will invest 15% of their IT spend over
the next 18 months in revenue management. Telcos will invest in a number of revenue management
projects that will support the personalization of the customer experience. Figure 2 shows that these
projects will include restructuring tariff systems, consolidating systems, and incorporating
convergence into revenue management systems.

Figure 2: Revenue management investment priorities
The restructuring of roaming tariffs is the biggest priority for telcos over the next year. Regulators,
customers, and competition are pressuring telcos to restructure pricing:
 In the UK, Ofcom is requiring telcos to curb bill shock by capping roaming charges for
customers. Additionally, the European Commission announced its plans for a "connected
continent," an effort that will abolish roaming charges in the European Union by 2017.
 In North America, telcos are partnering with one another to offer free roaming services
throughout the US, Mexico, and Canada. Telcos will invest in billing systems that will provide
more flexibility in pricing and that are more conducive to third-party collaborations, whether to
provide a better roaming experience or to provide OTT services with the competition.
Consolidation projects are also a top priority for telcos. More than 60% of telcos stated that they had
50+ revenue management systems supporting the organization. Operating with such a large number
of billing systems slows down telcos' ability to launch new services and creates revenue leakage. This
is a factor that has contributed to the telcos' inability to make quick changes to the business.
Consolidating billing systems and cleaning customer data will allow telcos to easily introduce
automation into the billing process, which provides operational efficiency. This will become
increasingly important as telcos transition into digital operators.
Telcos are also undertaking projects in order to add convergence and real-time capabilities into their
revenue management systems. The existing billing systems are mostly siloed and incapable of
charging for multiple service and subscriber types in real time. These systems not only are expensive
to run but also inhibit innovation, as these systems require a significant amount of time to get new
products and services to market. New technologies and capabilities on the horizon – such as mobile
payments and IoT – require telco billing systems to be agile and capable of quick go-to-market times.
Top telco requirements from a billing solution
Over the next year, telcos will be making significant upgrades to their revenue management systems,
as Figure 3 illustrates. More than 31% of telcos will be undergoing major transformation projects,

while emerging regions such as Latin America, Middle East and North Africa, and Australia/Pacific
regions are most likely to install new systems. In more mature regions, such as North America and
Western Europe, telcos will mostly be undertaking some transformation projects and making minor
modifications to their existing revenue management systems.
Figure 3: Revenue management system upgrade plans by region
Source: Ovum ICT Enterprise Insights Survey, 2015–16
As telcos launch transformation projects of their revenue management systems and seek out new
billing solutions, they have developed a priority list of features needed in the ideal solution, some of
which can be found in Figure 4. These features include:
 Configurable tariff systems: Because telcos are planning to restructure roaming tariffs and
want to get more creative with pricing for new (complex) services, telcos need to be able to
change tariffs and pricing based on dynamic conditions; they cannot be locked into vendor-set
pricing options for service. The market requires telcos to be much more agile in operations,
and likewise they need to be able to personalize the customer experience. Configurable tariff
systems will allow telcos to be more creative with pricing when launching new services, to
offer different pricing to optimize the network and to deter traffic during peak hours while
encouraging it during off-peak hours.
 Integrated CRM: Telcos need to start with integrating billing into CRM. This will give them a
more detailed view of the customer which can be used to improve the customer experience.
Integrating the CRM with revenue management systems will allow for better insight into what
is driving the customer to call in to the contact center. Furthermore, this will allow agents to
make right-sizing and upselling choices during the call based on customer information and
billing history. On the backend of operations, telcos can also draw on customer data to create
more personalized pricing tariffs, offer discounts, etc. for the customer.

Figure 4: Telco billing needs
Source: Ovum
 Convergent billing: Telcos need systems that can bill for multiple services and subscriber
types on the same bill. Customer demands and telco services are becoming more complex,
but billing systems have not yet caught up to the improvements that telcos are making to their
business. Telcos must improve the billing experience for customers; it is the one way by which
the telco is consistently engaging with its customers, and it must be a pleasant experience.
 Real-time charging: Subscribers want the same experience regardless of subscription type.
Customers want services on demand and want real-time updates of their usage in order to
control their spending. Telcos will need to be able to charge in real time to meet these
demands. Real-time charging is also needed in order for telcos to be able to react quickly to
market conditions and generate revenue. Telcos want to be able to monetize the network and
this will require real-time charging. Also, in order to ensure that there is no revenue leakage
when providing services such as mobile payment and direct carrier billing, telcos need to be
able to charge and settle payments in real time before delivering services.
 Scalability: Telcos need a revenue management solution that is highly scalable, as the
number of connected devices is increasing and will continue to increase. Telcos need to be
assured that their billing systems will be able to support influxes and outflows in
subscribership and connected devices. Furthermore, as telcos continue to develop digital
services, open up new revenue streams, and expand into new industries, they will rely heavily
on the revenue management systems to support and sustain these efforts. Growth, however,
can be easily hindered by billing systems that have minimal scalability, or that cannot scale up
quickly to adjust to rapid surges in demand.

Assessing the telecoms vendor landscape
Telco vendor selection criteria
Vendors operating in the telecoms space are finding that the struggles of the telco are having a
trickle-down effect and are impacting the vendor landscape. Large-scale issues impacting telcos such
as declining profits, the need to change operating models, and the need to become digital service
providers, are forcing vendors to align their product roadmaps and market strategies to the needs of
telcos.
Based on our research, Figure 5 provides a high-level checklist that identifies telcos' vendor selection
checklist. Telco IT spend is limited by slimming profit margins, so IT projects that are selected and
upgrades to systems will be made strategically and with an eye on reducing opex. As vendor
contracts expire, telcos will renegotiate renewals based on their current business needs, or they will
look for new suppliers. For those telcos planning to switch vendors, solutions that are competitively
priced and that have flexible pricing models will be the most appealing.
Figure 5: Telco vendor selection checklist
Source: Ovum
Telcos have long taken the "best of breed" approach in the IT procurement process. This strategy,
however, resulted in telcos having an unmanageable number of contracts. Best-of-breed products
also come with premium prices. As telcos strive to reduce the number of vendor contracts and reduce
capex and opex, "best of breed" approaches are falling by the wayside. Instead, telcos are seeking
out vendors that can offer "best of suite." This will inevitably hit some of the smaller vendors that
specialize in parts of the stack.
For telcos undertaking revenue management projects, having end-to-end BSS capabilities ranks high
on the vendor checklist. Telcos will undertake revenue management projects in phases. As such,
telcos prefer to work with vendors that will allow them to add in other components of the revenue
management stack as the projects progress. Integrating revenue management systems with other

systems throughout the business also is a high priority for telcos. Vendors, including Amdocs,
Ericsson, Huawei, and Oracle, who offer other components of the BSS stack (such as CRM) and even
components of the OSS stack, will be best poised to win business with telcos.
Cloud-ready revenue management systems will be a
requirement in telcos' future tenders
Another vendor capability that telcos have put on their checklist is outsourcing and managed services.
Telcos are in dire need of more cost-effective, efficient, and agile operating models. They are keen to
outsource segments of their revenue management systems, and are open to using new delivery
models such as SaaS.
Figure 6: Primary platform preference for revenue management systems
According to Ovum's latest survey of telco CIOs, as seen in Figure 6, over the next 18 months 55% of
telcos will use either a private or hybrid cloud to deliver revenue management systems. Similarly, they
will continue to use managed service providers to deliver and outsource these systems. Thus vendors
that can provide cloud hosting or managed services capabilities in addition to the aforementioned
criteria will be favored.
The telecoms vendor market is consolidating
Conditions in the market that are impacting telcos have had a trickle-down effect for vendors. This has
caused the telecoms vendor landscape to consolidate in response to these conditions.
Some of the overarching challenges that vendors are dealing with include telcos' reaction to declining
profits. Telcos must be savvier about how they spend their IT budgets. Telcos need to reduce capex
and opex and the number of vendor contracts. They are moving from "best of breed" to "best of suite"
offerings, and as a result, small vendors are being forced out of the market. In early 2015, for

example, Orga Systems was forced to file for insolvency and was later acquired by Redknee. The
market is also consolidating as vendors try to enhance their portfolios. Mergers such as the Tech
Mahindra and Comviva merger in 2012, Redknee's acquisition of NSN's BSS assets in 2013, and
Amdocs' acquisition of Comverse's BSS assets in 2015, were all strategic moves made to improve the
respective vendors' BSS portfolios. In each of these cases the vendors were also able to expand their
global footprint to give themselves a strong position in the market.
Consolidation in the market has created vendor-giants. Vendors are merging and making acquisitions
to strengthen their portfolios and move closer to offering several best-of-breed products in their
product suites to entice telco business. Vendors are not only enhancing their existing products and
services, but are also extending their global footprint and expanding into other industries, using
mergers and acquisitions to offer a wider range of products and services and to gain a better foothold
on the market. As vendors in the market continue to grow and expand organically or through mergers
and acquisitions, smaller vendors will continue to be pushed out of the market.
Recent vendor contract wins
The revenue management market is segmented into three main categories of billing vendors, as
Figure 7 shows:
 billing-only software vendors
 suite providers (either BSS only or BSS/OSS suite), and
 managed services providers.
Figure 7: Vendor landscape in the revenue management market
Source: Ovum
Recent contract wins from vendors in the telecoms space show a shift away from large deals with
billing-only software providers and are now moving toward bundled deals. According to Ovum's
OSS/BSS Contracts Analytics, in 2014, approximately 42% of all revenue management contracts

signed by telcos were bundled deals, compared to only 27% of those contracts signed in 2012. Telcos
are signing contracts for multiple products or are looking for a combination of products and services to
help with transformation projects. Some of the most recent industry wins are highlighted below:
Billing-only software providers
The number of new contract wins for billing-only vendors has dwindled significantly. This trend can be
attributed to telcos' desire to bundle multiple elements of the revenue management system into their
contracts. Recent contract wins in this space typically include smaller-scale projects for very specific
initiatives. For example, in December 2015, billing vendor Tecnotree announced its partnership with
Middle Eastern telco Omantel. As part of the project, Tecnotree is supplying Omantel with its
Tecnotree Agility convergent billing and Tecnotree Agility wholesale billing solutions.
Likewise, in January 2015, Matrixx Software and Australian telco Telstra announced that they would
be deploying the vendor's Convergent Charging solution to deliver real-time mobile data usage alerts.
The partnership will allow Telstra to leverage Matrixx's convergent, real-time platform to provide their
postpaid mobile customers with real-time data usage alerts to avoid bill shock. Small, "best of breed"
contracts such as this are increasingly scarce, especially among larger telcos.
BSS suite providers
Vendors that offer a suite of BSS or BSS and OSS products are seeing a large number of contract
wins. In September 2015, Telefónica Germany completed the rollout of Telarix's billing and settlement
systems into its fixed and mobile networks. The integration created a company-wide billing, reporting,
and traffic management platform, providing the telco with more consistency and efficiency throughout
the business. Telefonica selected these two systems from Telarix because it felt that these
components would allow it to adjust to and better handle more complex services and regulatory
requirements.
FTS and Mexican MVNO QBoCel also signed a deal in September 2015. FTS confirmed a deal that
would bring its billing and policy control solution to QBoCel's MVNO customers. Leveraging FTS's
Leap Billing solution, QBoCel will receive convergent charging, billing, invoicing, policy control, and
customer and partner management support for its prepaid and postpaid subscribers. QBoCel will
leverage FTS's solution to enhance its offerings by introducing new services such as
application-based plans for video, Facebook, and VoIP packages, and more. The MVNO will leverage
the solution to enhance the customer experience and meet user demands for personalized pricing
tiers and flexible data plans and to offer zero-rated and sponsored data plans.
Managed services providers
Many telcos have committed to undertaking large-scale BSS transformation projects and are requiring
a mixture of products and managed services capabilities to complete these efforts. For example,
NetCracker and Telefonica announced in early 2015 that they would be partnering to transform
Telefonica's BSS platforms for wireless and fixed services in seven of Telefonica's Latin American
properties. The large-scale transformation project will include replacing existing billing systems and
implementing new product catalog, ordering, and omnichannel CRM platforms, as well as professional
services provided by NetCracker. As part of the transformation, NetCracker will cover service
fulfillment and multiple BSS domains including customer care, self-service, ordering, product
management, point-of-sale, billing, mediation, collections, and partner management. It will also
standardize operations across each of the seven Latin American properties. At the time of the
announcement, Telefonica stated, "…[the] need to support convergent services, improve customer

experience and accelerate time-to-market led to [the] selection of NetCracker's pre-integrated BSS
platform and professional services."
Other managed service providers, such as Ericsson, are winning similar contracts with large-tier
telcos. In 2014, Ericsson won a contract with T-Mobile to improve its business and IT billing
processes. T-Mobile and its subsidiary MetroPCS were included in the deal and Ericsson is providing
both brands with "long-term managed services agreement for Service Agility based on Ericsson's
pre-integrated OSS/BSS software suite." To deliver these services Ericsson is leveraging its Service
Agility application, which includes charging, billing, order management, product catalog, and CRM;
Ericsson will also integrate and manage operations of the application.
Appendix
Methodology
The information included in this report is based on both primary research gathered through
discussions with top telco IT executives and two surveys, including Ovum's 2016 ICT Enterprise
Insights survey. Secondary research from publicly announced contracts and forecasts were also used
to support the findings of this research.
Figure 8 shows Ovum's definition of revenue management systems as used in this report.
Figure 8: Revenue management components
Source: Ovum
In this report, Ovum identified the challenges telcos are facing with their existing billing systems. We
have also outlined telcos' top priorities and criteria for selecting a billing system and vendor. Using

these findings as a baseline, Ovum will take a closer look at the billing market and will evaluate the
top charging and billing solution vendors in an upcoming report: "Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting a
Real-Time, Convergent Charging and Billing Solution, 2016–17."
Further reading
Top Telco IT Projects, IT0012-000134 (September 2015)
2016 Trends to Watch: Telecoms Operations and IT, IT0012-000146 (November 2015)
Author
Chantel Cary, Analyst, Telecoms Operations and IT
chantel.cary@ovum.com
Ovum Consulting
We hope that this analysis will help you make informed and imaginative business decisions. If you
have further requirements, Ovum’s consulting team may be able to help you. For more information
about Ovum’s consulting capabilities, please contact us directly at consulting@ovum.com.
Copyright notice and disclaimer
The contents of this product are protected by international copyright laws, database rights and other
intellectual property rights. The owner of these rights is Informa Telecoms and Media Limited, our
affiliates or other third party licensors. All product and company names and logos contained within or
appearing on this product are the trademarks, service marks or trading names of their respective
owners, including Informa Telecoms and Media Limited. This product may not be copied, reproduced,
distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Informa
Telecoms and Media Limited.
Whilst reasonable efforts have been made to ensure that the information and content of this product
was correct as at the date of first publication, neither Informa Telecoms and Media Limited nor any
person engaged or employed by Informa Telecoms and Media Limited accepts any liability for any
errors, omissions or other inaccuracies. Readers should independently verify any facts and figures as
no liability can be accepted in this regard – readers assume full responsibility and risk accordingly for
their use of such information and content.
Any views and/or opinions expressed in this product by individual authors or contributors are their
personal views and/or opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of Informa
Telecoms and Media Limited.

CONTACT US
www.ovum.com
analystsupport@ovum.com
INTERNATIONAL OFFICES
Beijing
Dubai
Hong Kong
Hyderabad
Johannesburg
London
Melbourne
New York
San Francisco
Sao Paulo
Tokyo

Telecom Billing Market Landscape

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to Telecom Billing Market Landscape

Telecom Billing Market Landscape