Building the foundation for mobile network data monetisation in the 5G era

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this pieceCorine Suscens, VP of Global Marketing at Creativity Software, explores the challenge of getting quality actionable data.

Mobile Network Operators need the capability to exploit their network data effectively and efficiently in order to support their digital transformation goals, make insightful business decisions and capitalise on the 5G opportunity. This will help drive innovation, create new revenue streams, optimise the customer experience, build loyalty, reduce costs and much more.

However, getting quality actionable data as and when required can be challenging, extremely costly and very time consuming. The raw network data is usually inadequate for business intelligence purposes and very complex – distributed within the network, in various formats, from multiple system vendors, constantly changing, vast and ever growing with the advent of 5G and IoT.

Business units need the data to be consolidated, transformed, enriched and adequately formatted for various analytics platforms – without compromising the integrity of the data and without undue delays or disruptions. This enables the insights required to be obtained when and as required to support the decision-making process.

The quality of the data is of utmost importance, as erroneous decisions made from bad data can be extremely costly. According to IBM, the US economy loses $3.1 trillion annually due to poor data quality. Considering the particular complexity, volume and velocity of mobile network data, this issue is exacerbated for MNOs looking to capitalise on mobile network data.

Inflexible Legacy Solutions

Some of the solutions mobile operators have implemented to enable data intelligence are often inflexible, requiring for example an extensive reconfiguration of the operator’s environment to make changes or add a new analytics solution; this can be very costly, excessively time consuming and risky.

Operators have also complained about not being able to get the quality of data they need. All of this hinders innovation and results in mobile network operators missing out on opportunities to monetise mobile network data and optimise the business.

The Three Pillars of Effective Data Enablement

1 – Transforming Raw Network Data into Quality Actionable Data

MNOs need a powerful data ingestion, governance and management capability that enables complex raw network data from distributed sources and in various formats to be easily collated and manipulated in order to provide actionable data as and when needed. The solution should be able to:

2 – Delivering Fast Time to Actionable Data, Cost-Effectively

More than ever, MNOs need to be more agile, able to respond to changing situations promptly, seize market opportunities and innovate rapidly in order to thrive in a very competitive market. Relying on huge and complex systems to use and analyse network data hinders innovation and time to market.

What is required are data enablement solutions that are extremely flexible and easy to integrate, giving MNOs the freedom to make changes and introduce new analytics/OSS solutions rapidly and effectively, without creating chaos and unreasonable costs:

Such agility will help MNOs to accelerate insights-driven business decisions, innovate and create new revenue streams with minimum disruption, risk and cost.

3 – Providing Accurate Mobile Location Intelligence

Location is one of the most valuable types of network data that is highly coveted by all. It is used by operators internally for geo marketing and commercial purposes, but it is also extremely desirable for external businesses and governmental agencies. Smart cities, for instance, rely on location information to analyse population movement patterns for planning purposes, in order to optimise infrastructures and minimise the impact on the environment. Advertisers want location insights to launch their ad campaigns in the right place at the right time to maximise impact. Governments also need location information to enable emergency services and law enforcement.

5G brings the potential for higher accuracy location faster, which can power many innovative use cases. Nevertheless, obtaining accurate and fast mobile location consistently remains a challenge on all networks and MNOs need the right technologies and expertise to help:

With the right solution, MNOs will be able to leverage network location data to differentiate and further take advantage of 5G, which can support higher levels of accuracy.

By meeting the requirements for effective, agile data enablement, mobile network operators will be able to turn raw, complex and distributed data into usable, profitable assets – fast.  This will lay the foundation for mobile network data monetisation in the 5G era. Some operators have already risen to the challenge and are forging ahead.

With 18 years in Technology/Telecom marketing, Corine Suscens has been developing leading edge thought leadership content for the industry. During her career, Corine has helped leading companies to explain their technical offerings in order to maximise industry understanding. She has written several whitepapers tackling key business challenges that operators have been facing. Corine currently leads the marketing department at Creativity Software, supporting the company’s growth and developing thought leadership marketing globally. Corine holds a Masters in Management from Grenoble Ecole de Management.