Ericsson in talks with Indian telcos to help digitise operations

NEW DELHI:Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson is talking to India’s telecom companies that are looking to digitise their operations, a top executive said.
“We have seen more of the digital telco transformation cases taking place in the US and Western Europe. More recently, we see a growing discussion emerging in India and the region on digital telecom transformation,” Ericsson’s head of region for India, Paolo Colella, told ET.

Digitisation will help telecom operators provide users with seamless customer services through digital interfaces such as applications and the Web. This will reduce the need for physical stores and, therefore, lower the costs for the companies.

Telcos in India are already providing some self-help applications to customers, but there are a number of services and products for which the users have to go to the company’s physical stores or get in touch with customer service executives. In addition, consumers still pay bills separately for various services by a telco. The existing experience is not seamless right from the activation of a service to bill payments.

“More and more Indian operators are realising the need to transform to digital service providers, which will enable them to change the way they interact with customers,” Colella said, without revealing the name of the telcos his company is talking with. Digital operators provide their customers benefits such as having a single bill for services like mobile, fixed line and DTH.

Besides, they are able to offer targeted product and services to customers based on data points captured through various digital interactions. Colella said that digital telco is a new operational model for creating services enabling omni-channel sale success, improving operational agility and cost efficiencies for carriers. “Most Indian operators are already looking at our advanced analytics solutions to better understand the customer. Increased capabilities to analyse data in realtime is one of first steps to increase customer loyalty,” Colella said.

In India, telcos have started providing high-speed 4G services, which enable use of a number of data-rich applications. Analysts say with the uptake of mobile broadband and smartphone usage, consumers now want access to digital services along with voice and data communication, and they expect that telcos can provide them whenever, wherever and however they wish.