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“We talk about actionable intelligence,” says Champion. He says the goal isn’t only to have access to data and to analyze data, but “to put that data to work for you” with smarter campaigns and in a way that focuses on improving specific customer interactions. Further, Champions says, “one of the things that was key to [Microsoft] was the ability to bring our real time transaction management functionality integrated with some of their value-added services so they could more rapidly implement new services, like media and other apps for small business and enterprise inside CSPs.” In other words, as with most things, Microsoft has the bigger picture in mind both as an enabling technology supplier and a provider of tangible applications that can be delivered through communications networks but, as a result, need to be billed like communications services.
Finding Bigness in Smallness
Maybe the most counterintuitive aspect of this new relationship between two large enterprises is that it is meant to scale down as well as up. Champion says that Convergys saw a means, as a result of Microsoft’s technology, to deliver BSS applications to smaller CSPs in a way that’s right-sized for them. “When you look at [competitors’] deployments, you’re looking at cost in the implementation that may not allow you to get into certain customers, tiers, or regions. Being able to provide an alternative deployment option further down the tier 2, tier 3, and even to start-ups open new opportunities for us in the market.”
This approach says “global strategy.” This partnership isn’t just about selling new stuff
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“We talk about actionable intelligence,” says Champion... “put that data to work for you” |
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to large U.S. Tier 1 operators, though that’s certainly within its purview. It is about recognizing that the communications business is changing globally where new technologies are emerging that allow new business models to emerge and explode rapidly. Consider that we’ve recently seen Skype become an offering for Verizon Wireless because of its global reach and massive user audience. CenturyTel recently acquired Qwest, a former RBOC. Someone is bound to figure out how to monetize business models like those of Facebook and Twitter. Everyone knows massive middle classes are emerging in China and India, but the same can be said for less-populated countries like Vietnam.
From this perspective, the Microsoft-Convergys partnership is about way more than fighting with Amdocs for big billing deployments. It’s really about bringing the experience Convergys has in billing, selling and caring for services like cable and wireless; wrapping that in a deliverable box like Microsoft Office – or maybe Exchange; and putting it in the hands of as many different kinds of new-age service providers as possible and letting them run with it. What’s interesting about this partnership is not that it’s a marriage of two giants, though that does give it credibility. It’s the fact that those two giants are trying to change the way people and enterprises think about billing, CRM, and analytics by making them far more accessible and useful to more people and businesses.
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