{"id":15831,"date":"2022-10-03T14:47:56","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T18:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/?post_type=hck-submission&p=15831"},"modified":"2022-10-03T14:47:56","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T18:47:56","slug":"is-big-data-the-future-for-vodafone","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/is-big-data-the-future-for-vodafone\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Big Data the future for Vodafone?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

What is the future of the telecom sector? We have been seeing telecommunication providers switching their perspective on seeing network infrastructure as a source of competitive advantage and moving towards closing Network Sharing Agreements<\/a> with their traditional competitors, in a race to create cost benefits and ensure coverage for providing their traditional telco services. While big telecom companies struggle to define their long-term strategies and fight a future as a \u201cdump pipe\u201d provider, Big Data arises as a solution for maintaining relevance, increasing customer experience, and tapping into new sources of revenue. This is a trend Vodafone Group Plc<\/a>, one of the world leading telecommunications company, has also been tapping into.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can Big Data help? Gaining and utilizing insights into customers profile and usage behavior helps telecom organizations by both increasing customer experience and by decreasing internal costs. When it comes to operational efficiencies, one of the first important moves Vodafone has done was partnering with Celonis<\/a> in 2017 and implementing their software solution \u2013 \u201cthe full body MRI scan\u201d as called by Exposito, Celonis CEO\u00a0\u00a0\u2013\u00a0\u00a0to gain data transparency\u00a0\u00a0from start to end into their supply chain and accounts payable and thus creating a map of their internal processes. Not only does this offer a diagnosis into existing inefficiencies, but by adding AI and ML tools on top, it also offers recommendations into process improvement and process automation (potentially reducing the human capital cost and further improving the quality of available data in the future).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, through predictive analysis of data behavior, Vodafone is not only able to better handle its working capital, by identifying customers who are most likely to have problems paying bills, thus enabling the company to take precautionary actions, but will also support it to increase flows of recurrent revenues and better management of a stable customer base, by identifying customers who are about to port-out, and who would thus exacerbate churn. Again, the company has the opportunity in this case to take precautionary actions, thorough early renewal proposals or product placements fit with the respective customer behavior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use of Big Data helps Vodafone work on the other side of the value creation, by improving the customer experience. Vodafone achieves this through different means:<\/p>\n\n\n\n