A new business model has emerged where the simple one-to-one operator-to-customer relationship is now a many-to-many relationship. Rohit Srivastava, Marketing and Strategy - Communication and Media, Wipro Technologies Ltd.

On your financial results and major market segments

Our telecom service provider business has grown significantly and we have seen major attraction from India/Asia Pac/ME and some European markets this year. We are expecting a CAGR of 6-7 percent in all these areas. Our major market segments are BSS - CRM, billing, inter-operator administration, revenue assurance, and fraud management; OSS - Service activation, provisioning, and fault management; enterprise management - ERP, portal, content management and point solutions.

On OSS/BSS installation base

Globally, the OSS/BSS market has been growing. The OSS/BSS 2007 external spend is estimated at USD 26 billion. The market has experienced a CAGR of 6-7 percent for the last 5 years with OSS alone estimated at 10-12 percent. The Indian OSS/BSS market, which is approximately Rs 5,500 crore (USD 1.3 billion), is growing much faster than the global CAGR.

On key growth factors

Due to industry consolidation, telcos are looking for different revenue models. Therefore, a new business model has emerged where the simple one-to-one operator-to-customer relationship is now a many-to-many relationship. Also as mobile penetration is low in India, we will see many new players in the market in the coming years with M&As happening in the later stage across all the segments. OSS/BSS market in India will grow at a much faster rate than the global CAGR of 6-7 percent and will be approximately Rs. 7,500 crore - 8,200 crore (USD 1.8 - 2 billion) by 2010.

On new and emerging technologies

• EBPP (Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment) & Self Care - The major business driver for this will be the need to reduce operational cost and the market shift toward electronic lifestyle. This will enable operators to reduce cost of operations in generating paper bill and delivery of paper bill, in routing more customers away from the call center into web-based customer self care, also improving the revenue collection.

• Creation of centralized network operating center (NOC) to manage the telecom environment as well as the data environment from the same center.

• Platform to provide similar features for both prepaid and postpaid customers.

On challenges and opportunities

Today, the 3Cs, which are changing the industry are; competition, customer demand, cost reduction

In India ARPUs are low; however, opportunities are seen in several areas which include CRM, billing, revenue assurance, fraud management in BSS space, fault management solutions in OSS space and enterprise management as well. There is a need for creating a billing engine that is able to rate and bill for any service offered in the telecommunication industry as also for a scalable rating engine which can cater to highly disproportionate subscriber base (prepaid to postpaid ratio being approx. 80:20).

On key driving factors

Today, carriers want to deal with companies that can deliver a range of services and integrate their legacy infrastructure with minimum complexities. The market is currently dominated by big players, so companies with multiple assets that will suit an NGN environment are going to win more business than ever before. The quest to create meaningful customer experience is driving the market, and OSS/BSS technology is at the heart of that initiative so that it can help in a seamless integration with legacy systems.

On the impact of OSS/BSS on QoS

Some operators are looking at an integrated services management (ISM) type of environment while others are looking at performance management and configuration management type of solutions. An integrated OSS/BSS solution can impact quality of service (QoS), service fulfillment, faults, and customer relations. Additionally, a factor that is essential for service fulfillment and QoS and delivering a positive customer experience is accurate network data. Service providers need accurate and up-to-date network resource data to quickly roll out new services.

On your plans for India

India is of strategic importance to Wipro and our capability for handling transformation deals like Aircel are making us a serious contender in the telecom outsourcing space along with other established global majors. Our focus will be on total outsourcing deals, COTS - based solutions in India, and managed services globally. Our focus going forward will be to build transformational solutions leveraging all the service lines and competencies across networks IT and BPO.

On your offerings for telecom service providers

Being a cost sensitive Geo, where the telecom operators are losing close to 12-15 percent of their revenues due to fraud, interconnect and process, Wipro, with its wide spectrum of offerings and expertise in OSS/BSS is ably suited to help telcos turn around their business in terms of cutting operational costs, improving process efficiency and implementing cost effective systems.