PDF of this tutorialIn competitive telecommunications environments, customers choose their service providers. Today, this is a reality for long-distance, Internet service provider (ISP), wireless, and some local markets in the United States. Internationally, competition exists in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. However, deregulation of the communications market is occurring in the U.S. local telephone market, and privatization/deregulation is occurring across Europe, Latin America, and Asia.
Under competitive conditions, the customer becomes the central focus of the carrier’s activities. Customer requirements not only determine service offerings but also shape the network and impact the organizational structure of the carrier to focus on particular types of customers.
Competition (and the threat of competition) has resulted in two distinct trends in the telecommunications industry:
- industry consolidation—In an effort to compete, carriers are looking for ways to enter new markets and offer new services. The most logical and expedient way to do this is through mergers and acquisitions.
- convergence—The integration of multiple lines of telecommunications services (i.e., video, voice, data, etc.) has become an economic reality, and carriers are beginning to offer multiple services, often in the form of packages or bundles of products.
Telecommunications companies worldwide are exploring business intelligence solutions to achieve competitive advantage. The key solutions for which telecommunications companies are looking involve marketing—such as customer retention, target marketing, and campaign management, customer-relationship management, and network business intelligence to streamline network assets.
