By: Matthew Halligan

Telcos have a goldmine in their backyard—dig deep enough, and they’ll find a treasure trove of customer information waiting to be unearthed, analyzed, and monetized. This customer information is particularly valuable because it comes in the form of real-time behavioral data that can identify high-value customers, predict subscriber churn, and pave the way for proactive retention tactics.

These use cases are already well defined, if underutilized. But there’s more. The opportunity to identify customer interests and create personalized service packages to drive new revenue streams is where the real executive focus should be. In order to achieve this, however, telcos need to move beyond the passive gathering of historical data, and into the world of proactive, real-time data analytics.

A fully integrated, cloud-native business support system (BSS) can provide levels of customer insight and detail that legacy siloed systems simply can’t compete with. Data cleansing, analytics integration, real-time streaming, and active compliance with regulatory requirements don’t have to be mutually exclusive or stitched together in a “patchwork” of cumbersome third-party integrations. They can be achieved holistically with cloud-native systems that are easy to manage, maintain, and update.

Unearthing the value in BSS data

Ownership of customer insights, such as location, online activity, behavior, and billing and payments history, has long been seen as the holy grail for telco operators. As subscribers broaden their digital footprints, the need to move from descriptive analytics to predictive analytics is rapidly accelerating, especially as tech companies—including the hyperscalers—move into the telecom market space. Yet few telcos are well positioned enough to take advantage of this opportunity, leaving them sitting on a wealth of untapped potential.

One report found that customers experiencing more than ten dropped calls in a month were eight times more likely to churn. Another analysis of customers’ renewal patterns found they were far more likely to renew their contract when they were close to their fair usage cap. Being able to monitor these parameters and account for these variables will allow telcos to create better marketing and retention strategies. To date, many telcos aim to achieve this through endless customization and years-long integrations, bolting new features onto siloed, legacy BSS suites. It’s hardly fast or agile—two very important components of success in the current digital landscape.

Software customization is old-school

A custom-built telco software solution may once have been an attractive prospect, but those days are long gone. Those still using these legacy BSS solutions tend to be severely limited by the need to endlessly customize their core system, paying vendors and systems integrators to add new features and capabilities to keep pace with the competition and seize new opportunities. This endless customization might seem like a good thing, but in reality, the wheel of progress is turning far slower than it needs to.

A cloud-native BSS solution, on the other hand, can bring all the benefits of these customizations at top speed, without the anxiety of managing the application’s lifecycle. This means no patches, upgrades, or downtime—just a fully-integrated, cloud-native BSS that can pivot and turn with any telcos’ needs. In addition, contemporary BSS platforms that are built on an open architecture can export data in real time into a company’s choice of data lake or data warehouse, allowing this high-value data to add value beyond the BSS use cases. In the case of a Google Cloud native BSS, as an example, data streaming live into Google Big Query is a smooth and accelerating step toward predictive analytics and proactive actions. What’s more, such systems are usually offered on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis, making them much more cost effective than maintaining a legacy system with customizations.

Making the case for a cloud-optimized BSS

A cloud-optimized BSS is a software solution that enables telco providers to manage their customer interactions, billing, revenue management, and other business processes in the cloud rather than through traditional custom-built systems. This is becoming a necessity for businesses that want to stay competitive and is already a differentiator for those that have embraced the need for personalization and speed. Some of the core benefits include:

Improved agility

With a cloud-optimized BSS, telco providers can easily adapt to changing market conditions and customer demands. They can dynamically scale their operations to meet demand, launch new products and services faster, and respond more quickly to