Creating teams to drive this focus within organizations requires introducing a digital business agility that may run counter to existing processes & familiarity, but which is critical to foster an environment of rapid digital feature and product development that not only drives new revenue growth but creates cost efficiencies within traditional capabilities as well. Shifting in-store visits and call center traffic to new digital self-service alternatives is far more cost-effective but only when the digital alternatives improve the customer experience.
Fundamental to creating and successfully monetizing digital services and products is the need to acquire a deep understanding of customer behavior & engagement in a way that is actionable to create experiences that customers will embrace and adopt. The core challenges are capturing relevant data in a meaningful way and then aggregating this data from all the different systems across the customer journey. The TM Forum (TMF) industry data definitions will facilitate normalizing disparate system data to enable insights from the entire customer journey. However, CSPs have a particularly unique opportunity to utilize data analytics to personalize offers and services based on observations like product affinity, subscribed services and churn propensity unlike other industries where customer attributes, preferences and trackable activities aren't as intimately “knowable” to the business.
For CSPs expecting to take advantage of digital enablement investment across OpCo's these challenges are compounded. Building new digital services or applications like digital commerce, selfcare or mobile apps for one OpCo won’t guarantee they can be utilized in other OpCo’s until there exists a common definition of data & communication and digital infrastructure across all OpCo’s.
