Data & analytics (D&A) promises players in the telecommunications segment far-reaching competitive advantages
For telecommunications providers and other players in telecommunications, the era of artificial intelligence (AI) has long since dawned.
Whether optimizing customer service, analyzing mobile user data, or visualizing use cases like self-organized networks, AI initiatives have become integral to every telecom provider’s strategy. Generating business value through data-driven methods and transforming entire business areas is happening now, and revenue growth, customer value, innovation, and risk management are key value propositions.
Telecommunications providers face a paradox: while mobile devices, network data, and customer interactions generate more and more data to understand customers better, the market and the general business environment are becoming increasingly complex and volatile.
The competitive advantage is where technology, people, and business expertise meet. To unleash the potential of big data, D&A solutions must be deeply woven into processes and ways of working. With years of project and industry experience, our project teams use a combination of business know-how and technical expertise to guide your company on its journey to becoming a data-driven company.
Our long-term cooperation with our clients in the communications, media and entertainment sectors shows that data & analytics projects often struggle with three typical issues.
There are two typical process models for data-driven initiatives. Often, data and analytics projects are managed by the IT department, which usually lacks the necessary business know-how. As a result, these projects often focus too much on technical aspects and neglect the added value. However, if pure business departments steer AI projects, there is often an underestimation of the technical complexity with devastating consequences for project planning. Therefore, an interdisciplinary project team and the involvement of “translators” are essential for project success.
According to a Gartner study, only 15% of data and analytics strategies use concrete success metrics, resulting in projects often failing to deliver the hoped-for benefits. KPIs are usually unclear due to the difficulty of measuring tangible and isolated benefits. However, linking to ROI or similar KPIs should be a central prerequisite for a project launch and buy-in by executives. Relevant KPIs should be defined at the start of the project.
Another fallacy is the attempt to transfer classic waterfall planning to the area of data and analytics. Data-driven projects, especially in AI, carry a high degree of uncertainty due to their inherently more experimental nature, which is often in direct contrast to management’s desire for planning security and defined long-term milestones. In such a volatile project environment, agile methods that include regular feedback loops with the relevant stakeholders and can quickly take countermeasures due to changing framework conditions have proven their worth. At the same time, they also enable a close link with the needs of the end-users.
Our long-term project experience shows that the benefits must be clearly defined at the beginning of data-driven projects. We have developed a value-based process model based on our experience centered on approaching data-driven projects from the perspective of business benefits. A detailed data analysis should only occur after defining concrete questions or possibilities for decision support.
Based on strategic objectives, we first identify promising use cases in collaboration with you and evaluate feasibility and business value. Finally, we define a target picture with the relevant stakeholders, for example, in the form of a user front end. The implementation would include phases of data analysis, model development, and evaluation of the generated added value.
Whether it’s an AI strategy workshop to identify use cases, developing a proof of concept for a cross-departmental dashboard, or end-to-end implementation, our experts support you throughout your AI journey and help you bridge the gap between AI strategies and day-to-day operations. We bundle our D&A offerings as part of five service offerings – but we’re also happy to advise you on individual requests at any time. Please feel free to contact us!
Advanced analytics and machine learning
Visual analytics and business intelligence
Data management and architecture
D&A strategy
Data governance