Reduction of expenses

As telecoms operators invest considerable financial resources into the network infrastructure, many of them have to use borrowed funds for implementation of flexible, reliable and well established billing. Effective use of borrowed finances is possible in case of "seamless" integration of a billing solution into the existing operator’s infrastructure, which leads to reduction of capital (CAPEX) and operating (OPEX) expenses.

Low cost of ownership (TCO) of B&CC Billmaster

B&CC Billmaster has a module structure, with the open source code, documented data base structure and extended API, which allows to realize "seamless" integration with third-party software solutions. In the process of B&CC Billmaster development there are pursued objectives of broadening of system integration possibilities with third-party software, as well as with network equipment. Such a flexible and open approach makes possible integration with different systems, used by a telecoms operator, and allows to reach business goals as scheduled.

Factors, which ensure reduction of expenses:

• B&CC Billmaster has a module structure;
• possibility of B&CC Billmaster integration with existing systems;
• open source code, documented data base structure and extended API ensure low integration cost;
• short period of project realization – up to two months;
• introduction of new tariff plans is 50% cheaper, than in competitor billing systems.

Five ideas for reduction of the total cost of ownership (ТСО)

The current crisis situation, when credits are barely available, when telecoms operators feel slowing down of development and cannot forecast how long this will last, as the history tells, that the one who in such a situation finds resources and invests into innovations, will survive the crisis and become more strong and competitive.

Try to invest into increase of your market share, realization of new marketing programs, retention and development of your subscribers base, increase of customers loyalty.

Idea 1. Reduction of the number of improvement requests.

There are often arise situations when marketing or commercial services of a telecoms operator spend up to 70% of their time for coordination of tariff policies with the billing operation menagement and reaching a compromise in its implementation, which is connected with limitation of billing solution functions. And only 30% of their time is spent for development of strategic marketing initiatives, and effective competition on the market. Such situation is intolerable.

Some billing systems have a "cute" interface, but they often have significant limitations as to realization of the tariff policy you want to implement. With such billing solutions, when you still need to realize a tariff policy you accepted, but the current functional possibilities of the billing significantly limit it, you have to carry out long-lasting modifications of the program code and refer to developer for this purpose. All this requires additional time and financial investments, volumes of which are difficult to predict.

Telecoms operators need a solution, which could ensure real flexibility, and at the same time it will be simple to learn and operate. First of all, it should not require from telecoms operator specialists any knowledge on the level of programmer-developer for creation and changing of tariffs for provided services. Delivering from the necessity of very "deep" setting up and referring to developers for modification will lead to drastic reduction of launching time of new services and saving of costs for billing solution maintenance, which in turn decreases TCO.

Idea 2. Saving on hardware

Requirements to hardware for billing solutions, which provide tariffication on-line, are measured by developers of such solutions in millions of dollars. These solutions are often designed to be operated on one "huge" server, and taking into account resiliency and high availability (99,999%) of services, there is usually required doubling of hardware. In this case expensive equipment stands idle most of the time, because it is used only as "hot backup" server.

Cost of hardware for such billing solutions can be decreased tens of times by way of using billing solutions, which can be horizontally scaled on "smaller" and affordable servers. For functioning of a billing solution there can be used such a number of servers, which is required for operation with the expected load level.

When the load for ensuring of the required quality of services grows, the number of servers for billing functioning can be increased. Innovative billing solutions are realized with the architecture, which allows to significantly save on hardware.

Idea 3. Consolidation of systems

Usage of several solutions simultaneously: system for credit (postpaid) billing scheme, system for advance (prepaid) billing scheme, system for work with partners, etc., significantly lower the flexibility and the possibility of giving an adequate answer to proposals of competitors, as it does not allow to quickly launch new services, marketing initiatives, tariff plans. Moreover, this is inefficient and unprofitable, as it increases the total cost of ownership (ТСО), and in addition it is required to keep a stuff of specialists, which have a respective expertise in relation to each system.

TCO and operation expenses can be significantly reduced by changing over to a unified solution, which provides the required functionality. A unified billing solution, which includes subscribers, as well as partner contracts, has additional advantages: it leads to increase of profit management efficiency by complete understanding of profit origination and money receipt; possibility to use combined tariff plans for the purpose of increasing subscribers loyalty and ARPU, and quick building of mutually beneficial relations with partners.

Idea 4. Reduction of operation expenses

Long-lasting modification of the program code, tiresome coordination of possibilities of tariff policy implementation between commercial services, billing solution operation subdivisions and numerous system experts, require large expenses for personnel and decrease its efficiency. Realization of the first three items can lead to significant increase of personnel efficiency, and the possibility to use it in other projects, aimed at growth of telecoms operator’s competitive advantages.

Idea 5. Efficient integration

As soon as a telecoms operator makes the decision to implement a new billing solution in order to achieve the above described results, there arises a question: "How do we start these changes?"

For successful operators the best approach is gradual changing of the infrastructure, flexibility increase and realization of new possibilities, using service oriented infrastructure (SOA) in order to simplify integration.

Step-by-step goal-oriented changes is the best approach, because full-scale migration to a new billing solution causes significant risks, and for large telecoms operators failure to realize such projects can "finish" the CIO career. In order to guarantee success of the new billing solution implementation project, it is best to use an approach, which allows to add functions and flexibility where it is required. In most cases, many systems, used by a telecoms operator, do not necessarily require changing over to new solutions.

For example, if there is a business task, which consists in speeding-up of new attractive tariff plans introduction, realization of the prepaid billing scheme or the possibility to control subscriber’s account status in real time, then solution of this task can lie in extending and/or addition of the existing billing system functionality. Existing functionality, which provides credit (postpaid) scheme of service provision, drawing of bills for provided services, payment interfaces is so good, that there is no need to replace it. Using such approach it is possible to significantly minimize project risks and time for return on investment (ROI).