By Stuart Globe, Global Client Executive at Celonis
Editor’s note: This post relates to some points in a 6GWorld article in October, Operations Increasingly Special For Telecoms Evolution.
Telcos have struggled to maintain their economic value over the last decade. The share of profit for telecoms companies plunged from 74% to 40% between 2014-2019, largely driven by the growth of the top internet companies. Over the coming year, telcos will have to compete with these giants if they want to expand their margins.
Technology plays a crucial role in this and telcos are already working on their digital transformation. By deploying AI, big data analytics, and the Internet of Things, many are leveraging real-time end-to-end visibility over field operations to reduce the expense of in-field services and truck roll inefficiencies. Technology is also being used to tightly manage the critical phase of provisioning and activation to turn every order into an activated customer. However, shaping up for the fight with the behemoths requires more. This is why telcos need to invite process mining into the ring.
Think of process mining like an X-ray that reveals all the inefficiencies and breakdowns across systems, processes, and people. Classic process mining is based on extracting event data from business information systems (ERP, CRM, SCM and the like), storing those data in event logs and using the logs to model how work flows through a single process. These event logs provide insight into bottlenecks that cause needless delays and employees wasting their time and skills.
Once process mining has pointed out the inefficiencies – like duplicate supplier payments, unbilled orders, slow customer issue resolution – teams can swiftly take action to fix them. Or using technology such as execution management, they can set up automated responses to take care of them instantly.
Why process mining promises gold for telcos
By integrating real-time data, process intelligence and targeted actions, process mining and execution management enables organisations to deliver ROI and value in days and weeks, rather than months. By identifying and fixing their inefficiencies, telcos can minimise downtime and restore service quickly. Every minute counts when network shortages happen, and process mining gives telcos the power to accelerate.
Telcos can also deploy process mining and execution management to see customer activations that have slowed, stalled or stopped completely – and then get them back on track. Many of telco’s potential clients may never reach customer status due to challenges with activation. Using process mining, these challenges can be easily resolved.
After two years of experiencing Covid-induced digital-first services, consumers demand reliable assistance and rapid resolutions. Process mining and execution management allow businesses to continuously evaluate in real-time how their teams operate. That means swift action can be taken to improve the self-service journey, optimise contact centers for responsiveness, increase permanent resolution rates and boost upsell performance. All of this lowers customer churn.
Just like the telecoms industry, process mining is evolving too. It effectively turns the process X-ray into a process MRI. Imagine the potential of using that information to decisively resolve customer complaints, while effectively scheduling, estimating, and billing customer orders and installs.
Looking to the future
The marketplace is only getting more competitive so telcos have to up their technology game to avoid losing any further market share, while delivering on shareholder returns and customer expectations.
As we move closer toward 6G networks, the number and complexity of processes is going to expand even further. Ahead of these changes, businesses need to embrace technologies that will allow them to achieve effective digital transformation.
Process mining has a huge role to play: providing business leaders with the visibility they need to make decisions for today and tomorrow. The industry is changing and those telcos that answer the process mining call will come out on top.
Long time reader, first time contributor. Love technology and the great outdoors. Looking forward to discussing everything beyond 5G and the future of wireless technology!
