Telefonica is stepping into the big data world with the deployment of service operation centres in every country in which it operates.
The big data analytics project aims to analyse customer experiences in real-time, in addition to improving network quality.
Each centre will be capable of monitoring the customer quality of experience and the quality of service, with the point of this is to proactively work on repairs and take action to improve the service.
At Mobile World Congress, Telefonica’s global CTO Enrique Blanco named Huawei as the vendor supporting this week’s demo at Mobile World Congress, but also said that other vendors such as Nokia and Ericsson were being evaluated.
This move comes as part of Telefonica’s "Onlife Telco" plan, which would position the company as one that promotes connections in life for people to choose a world of infinite possibilities.
The plan will consist of six key elements: connectivity, integrated offerings, differential experience, big data, end-to-end digitalisation and capital allocation/simplification.
The big data element of the plan is beginning to come together with the deployment of the service operation centres. It will be hoping to use the data that it has in order to understand trends and to act upon them, with benefits to the customer being the central outcome.
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According to the company it has had big data analytics solutions for a while, but the company didn’t implement them because it wanted to make sure that the tools were matured and proven.
Telcos have come in for criticism in the past for a lack of agility when it comes to tackling OTTs, web players and an inability to make the most of their data.
Sebastien Deletaille, CEO, Real Impact Analytics, told CBR in an interview last year that: "Telcos overall are probably one of the players that historically have the best industry to generate data, but have been completely unable to compete on that, to actually transform their business model to leverage the asset they have."
Deletaille went on to say that because the people in charge of telecoms grew up in voice, they are not on top of data.
Telefonica has been making strides to change how it operates in order to modernise the business. Brendon O’Rourke, CIO, Telefonica UK, spoke to CBR about how the company has been using Salesforce since 2012 for its digital business.
"It was disruptive. Like many other businesses we had pockets of Salesforce use in the sales teams. When we sat down in 2012 and looked at it, it was a disruptive project. And it was run from the tech department within the business," said O’Rourke. The full interview can be read here.
The opportunity that telcos have with their data has not gone unnoticed by large technology vendors such as SAP.
At Mobile World Congress this week the company revealed a Big Data Margin Assurance solution that is aimed at helping communication service providers make detailed information on margins and profits available to business users.
Other telcos such as BT have moved to use data analytics to reduce the number of unwanted nuisance calls received by its landline customers.
Telefonica’s big data centres will first open in Argentina and Chile this year, followed by Spain and Germany. It will roll them out to all countries where it has operations by the end of 2017.
