FLOW ID SERVICE PLAYS A PIVOTAL ROLE IN CABLE & WIRELESS S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Transcription

1 CASE STUDY FLOW ID SERVICE PLAYS A PIVOTAL ROLE IN CABLE & WIRELESS S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION GORKEM YIGIT and DON ALUSHA analysysmason.com

2 Executive summary Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) is part of Liberty Global s Latin American and Caribbean (LiLAC) group and one of the largest communications and entertainment service providers in the Caribbean region, operating in 18 markets. CWC bolstered its quad-play proposition following its acquisition of Columbus Communications in March 2015 and it positions itself as a digital service innovator with a portfolio of digital services including multiscreen/ott video, music, cloud storage and education. Post-acquisition, CWC operations became highly complex with the new set of customers and the BSS/OSS inherited via the acquisition on top of existing, siloed systems across all its regions. This led to a fragmented view of customers, making it difficult for the CSP to identify and onboard its customers across services. In addition, CWC s launch of new digital services increased the need to integrate its OTT partners into its proposition and provide more personalised services enabled by multiple user profiles and single sign-on. To overcome this challenge, CWC created its Flow ID service using UXP Systems User Lifecycle Management (ULM) solution as an overlay on 12 different BSS/OSS to quickly create unified digital identities, which avoided the need for a time-consuming B/OSS transformation. Flow ID enabled CWC to create new revenue opportunities and provide a frictionless user experience across all its digital offerings, including those from its partners. Figure 1: Summary of Flow ID benefits Create new revenue and upsell opportunities verified user s for targeted promotions, growing between 10%-30% quarterly Encourages service usage and drives consumers to higher-value bundles and premium services Reduced time to market for new services from 2-3 months to 1 month Rapid expansion of the breadth of digital services portfolio to 25+ services (i.e. self-service app (payments and top-ups), Kids and Sports digital services, community Wi-Fi) Improved customer experience and loyalty Higher retention thanks to enhanced user experience with identity-driven service personalisation Source: Cable & Wireless and Analysys Mason 2

3 Fixed-mobile convergent offerings and new digital services are focus of competition in the Caribbean region The Caribbean telecoms market is going through a transformative phase, creating new growth opportunities fuelled by increasing availability of high-speed networks, digital services demand and macroeconomic improvement. The market is populated by numerous local CSPs but it is dominated by two large players competing at the regional level, namely CWC, which is a pan-caribbean operator and part of Liberty Global, and Digicel Group, which operates in 31 markets across the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia-Pacific regions. In recent years, the region has been subjected to multiple large mergers and acquisitions, mainly by CWC and Digicel Group, which drove market consolidation. However, increasing market liberalisation is encouraging entry of new players in this growth market and new regulations such as number portability is increasing competition in the region. To drive higher value and improve customer retention, CSPs in the region are investing in providing multi-play, convergent service bundles with an increasing focus on TV and video services. Increasing popularity of alternative service providers such as OTT communications (e.g. WhatsApp) and entertainment services (e.g. Netflix) in the region is also driving CSPs to invest in new digital services and form partnerships with these players to protect revenue and maintain their relevance. Figure 2: Overview of key drivers in the Caribbean telecommunications market Growth in mobile penetration with LTE/3G network roll-outs Telecoms major growth sector with modest economic recovery after 2008 downturn Competition through convergence and Many duopoly markets service bundles following a series of M&As but competition Caribbean is increasing with telecoms market regulations and entry of new players Video and high speed networks driving demand for fixed broadband CSPs focus on digital services, content and OTT partnerships are growing Source: Analysys Mason 3

4 CWC is investing in its Flow brand and services to participate in the digital value chain and achieve digital relevancy CWC is a provider of fixed and mobile broadband, voice and video services as well as data centre hosting, managed network services and IT solutions. It became part of Liberty Global s LiLAC group following its acquisition in May Figure 3: Summary of CWC s key information State of the Business 1 Prior to its acquisition by Liberty Global, CWC acquired its rival Columbus Communications in March 2015 which enabled the CSP to bolster its quad-play proposition by integrating Columbus broadband, pay TV and fixed telephony assets and significantly strengthen its market position against its main competitor Digicel Group. Following the acquisition and merger of operations, CWC launched the Flow brand, which replaced its previous LIME brand, in July 2015 for consumer services across the Caribbean region. CWC is investing heavily to enhance its digital offerings, expand its network and make its fixed and mobile broadband services available to a wider customer base. It positions itself as a digital service innovator in the Caribbean region and offers a large variety of digital services under the Flow brand including multiscreen video service Flow to go and OTT content services through partnerships with FOX, ESPN, HBO, English Premier League and Cricket Gateway; cloud applications such as Flow cloud and Flow study; public Wi-Fi access and self-care applications. Its Flow ID platform is the backbone of CWC s digital strategy, enabling users to link all digital services into a single platform. $ Total revenue 2 2.3B Countries (consumer market) 18 Total subscribers 5.1M Mobile 3.5M Fixed line and Internet 1.2M TV 0.4M 1 Cable & Wireless Q financial report : 2 Revenue is presented as annualized results for the six months ended June 30,

5 The increasing complexity of CWC s B/OSS was a barrier against the growth of convergent bundles and digital services customer base There is a growing competitive pressure in the Caribbean market to offer triple and quad-play bundles and new digital services to increase customer loyalty and ARPU. It is crucial for CWC to have an in-depth customer understanding for any service and in any region to drive the take-up of its convergent bundles and digital services; accelerate customer on-boarding processes and achieve a unified customer lifecycle management; and provide a more personalised experience that can at least match those provided by its competitors and OTT players. CWC s legacy systems and their siloed architecture was posing the greatest challenge against achieving this goal. The CSP had multiple, service-specific B/OSS in each country that were usually serving the same customers but operating in isolation. Each service (i.e. mobile post-paid, fixed broadband) had a different registration process, requiring creation of separate user identities and slowing down onboarding processes. As a result, customer data was locked in disparate BSS siloes and CWC had no means to unify customers identity across both CSP s own and 3rd party/ott partner services. The acquisition of Columbus Communications exacerbated the problem with the addition of new TV and cable services and customers, and support systems. As such, CWC needed a quick and cost-effective solution to incorporate a common digital identity across multiple services to support its quad-play strategy and leapfrog competition. Figure 4: CWC s architectural complexity arising from legacy BSS siloes and addition of new customers, services and support systems via Columbus acquisition Single customer multiple, fragmented identities across all services CWC s existing BSS/OSS siloes Wireless B/OSS Cable B/OSS Cable BSS Mobile New services and systems inherited from Columbus Cable B/OSS TV/ cable 3 rd party services Columbus customers Country 1 Country 2 Country 15 Cable B/OSS Wireless B/OSS TV and cable services Cable B/OSS Cable B/OSS Country 1 Country 2 Country 7 Source: Cable & Wireless Communications and Analysys Mason 5

6 CWC created Flow ID to decouple digital identity from legacy BSSs and establish a personalised relationship with each service user CWC was looking for a solution that can be deployed quickly and provides full integration with its multiple BSSs to federate user identities; enable service delegation and customer self-managed entitlements; and enable exposure to its 3rd party partners. Figure 5: Flow ID management screen To achieve these goals, CWC chose UXP Systems User Lifecycle Management (ULM) platform following a competitive vendor selection process. Using the ULM platform, CWC built Flow ID, which is an identity management service that is available to both CWC customers and non-customers worldwide, including those subscribing to competitors services. Flow ID enables CWC customers link their multiple service accounts easily to Flow ID by using either their phone number or account number. It provided the following key capabilities to CWC: federation of disparate usernames and credentials into one single digital ID across CWC s convergent services, self-care, cloud apps, and 3rd party ecosystem services (supporting SAML/OAuth 2.0/OpenID Connect/GSMA Mobile Connect) service personalisation and monetisation by capturing the full view of its customers (i.e. personal info, service subscriptions) and simplification of self-care billing, payment/top-up and multiaccount management. enabling users to create multiple profiles within a household and the delegation of access to services to other members Source: UXP Systems 6

7 UXP Systems ULM enabled CWC to unify digital identities timely without the need for a costly and disruptive BSS transformation project CWC completed the vendor selection and commercial deployment of the Flow ID service in April 2016, within 8 months after the procurement process started. Time to market was a key requirement for CWC: there was a risk of falling behind its main competition in terms of providing digital ID-based features and services. Also, the CSP had a strict deadline to introduce the service before the start of 2016 Rio Olympics games, for which CWC was the exclusive digital rights holder, to ensure that all users will be registered and onboarded for the Olympics streaming app. UXP System s User Lifecycle Management (ULM) platform was a good fit for this as it provides an overlay solution above existing, disparate B/OSSs, mitigating the need for an expensive, lengthy and potentially disruptive BSS transformation. CWC initially made the Flow ID service available to its multiscreen TV customers in selected 5 markets where customer information was manually transferred by CWC to the new Flow ID platform during the initial implementation. The service was incrementally expanded thereafter across all the markets in which the CWC operates, except Seychelles, as of 3Q For the expansion beyond the initial 5 markets, CWC followed an active migration approach to carry over customer information to Flow ID; every time a customer logs in using the legacy channels h/she was prompted to create a new username and password on the Flow ID. This allowed CWC to identify its active service users and make the migration process to the new platform more efficiently. Figure 6: Flow ID key implementation phases, and project timeline Key selection criteria Vendor selection process: 1.5 months Key implementation phases Deployment starts: October 2015, lasts 6 months Service launch and next steps Commercial launch: April 2016 Time-to-market, stay ahead of competition and meet the deadline for completion before the 2016 Olympics An overlay approach with full integration to legacy BSSs Integrate with OTT and third-party partners Ability to influence on the roadmap Implementation of core identity modules and integration to external partners/services Development of an API-based integration layer which sits between CWC s B/OSS and UML Design of UX elements for consumer-facing systems for a better user experience Final integration and service testing Solution initially available in 5 markets where CWC multiscreen TV service was available Expanded to 17 markets using active migration Invest in marketing to increase take-up Plans to integrate more back-end data sources to enrich customer identities Continue to improve onboarding processes Source: Cable & Wireless and Analysys Mason 7

8 Building an abstraction layer over complex BSS architecture helped CWC to create, manage and expose digital identities for personalised services CWC s deployment of the Flow ID service was executed in two main parallel workstreams, which took 3 months to complete : 1. Development of the core identity management module with UXP System s ULM platform, which creates and federates customer profiles by stitching data pulled from underlying back-end systems together with out-of-box onboarding, access and personalisation processes. This phase also includes the engineering the process of integrating digital IDs to CWC s third-party content partners and apps such as ESPN and Fox. 2. Design and build an integration layer (enterprise services bus) which sits above legacy B/OSS and was developed internally by CWC. It hides the complexity of the underlying BSS and enables communication between ULM modules and CWC s B/OSS using APIs. In parallel, CWC designed customer-facing interfaces of the service. The next three months of the deployment was for the integration of the two streams and subsequent testing the service readiness and adapting and enhancing user experience on the service. As the next step, CWC is planning to integrate other back-end systems such as OSS to create a greater pool of customer data and continuously improve onboarding processes. CWC is also investing in marketing and incentives to drive the take up of Flow ID service. Figure 7: CWC s API-led integration layer, and UXP Systems ULM solution Core services WEB TV MOBILE TABLETS USER EXPERIENCE PLATFORMS & TECHNOLOGIES Service adapters DIGITAL LAYER: USER LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT Service Gateway UXDR Data Logging Enterprise Services Bus Local, service-specific BSS siloes = CWC s integration layer = UXP System s ULM solution USER LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT PROCESS LAYER Identity & Access Management Utilities & Administration AnyService SDK DATA & ENTITLEMENTS LAYER Service adapters Digital services = CWC s existing systems Source: Cable & Wireless Communications and Analysys Mason 8

9 Flow ID helped CWC to generate new revenue opportunities and accelerate the expansion of its digital services portfolio CWC s implementation of Flow ID not only improves its users digital experience and simplifies CWC s operations and customer lifecycle management, but it is also a key enabler of new revenue generation for the CSP: Flow ID enables CWC to create new upsell opportunities with better targeted promotions based on unified digital identities of users, enriched with verified, valuable customer data (contact s, billing account, service/purchase information, demographics etc.) pulled from different BSS. For example, it can launch a targeted offer of its FlowSports premium TV channel to its mobile-only customers within 24 hours, which was not even possible to do before Flow ID. The CSP can also push targeted offers to non-customers by using the data gathered from their use of freemium/trial services CWC expanded the number of digital services offered to 25 within a short time frame (now typically takes a month to introduce a new service instead of 2-3 months) by leveraging existing users data to support access to the CSP s own and OTT partner services. The CSP also observes higher customer stickiness among Flow ID users as they subscribe to more digital services and consume more data thanks to enhanced user experience and ease of upgrading service packages with faster onboarding. Figure 8: Benefits of Flow ID deployment Create new revenue and upsell opportunities verified user s for targeted promotions, growing between 10%-30% quarterly Encourages service usage and drives consumers to higher-value bundles and premium services Reduced time to market for new services from 2-3 months to 1 month Rapid expansion of the breadth of digital services portfolio to 25+ services (i.e. self-service app (payments and top-ups), Kids and Sports digital services, community Wi-Fi) Improved customer experience and loyalty Higher retention thanks to enhanced user experience with identity-driven service personalisation Source: Cable & Wireless and Analysys Mason 9

10 Further reading Type Title Author(s) Link Strategy report Identity management in the digital economy: market drivers and opportunities for mobile CSPs Gorkem Yigit ent/reports/id-management-strategy-aug2015- RMA04-RMA17/ Comment Mobile Connect has laid the foundation for CSP identity services, but it needs a larger ecosystem to prosper Gorkem Yigit ent/comments/mobile-connect-idm-may2017- RMA04/ Comment Identity management for mobile CSPs: a key to unlocking revenue in the digital economy Gorkem Yigit Us/News/Insight/Identity-management- Sep2015/ Video Service delivery platforms enable personalised and new digital services Gorkem Yigit ent/videos/service-delivery-platforms-enablenew-digital-services-amvideo/ Strategy report NFV/SDN-enabled video services: virtualisation is key to CSPs future business development and growth Gorkem Yigit ent/reports/nfv-sdn-video-feb2017-rma04- RMA16 Forecast report Service delivery platforms: worldwide forecast Gorkem Yigit ent/reports/service-delivery-forecast RMA04/ 10

11 About the authors Gorkem Yigit (Senior Analyst) is the lead analyst for the Service Delivery Platforms programme and a contributor to the Software-Controlled Networking and Network Orchestration programmes, focusing on producing market share, forecast and research collateral. He started his career in the telecoms industry with a graduate role at a leading telecoms operator, before joining Analysys Mason in late He has published research on NFV/SDN services business cases, identity management in the digital economy, and has been a key part of major consulting projects including Telco Cloud Index and IPTV/OTT procurement. He holds a cum laude MSc degree in Economics and Management of Innovation and Technology from Bocconi University (Milan, Italy). Don Alusha (Research Analyst) is part of the BSS practice in Analysys Mason's Telecoms Software Research team, contributing to the Revenue Management, Customer Care, Service Fulfilment and Analytics research programmes. His areas of interest include computer and network security, the digitalisation of communications service providers (CSPs ) systems, and the evolution of software architecture in cloud computing deployments. He holds an MSc with Distinction in Computing, IT Law and Management from King s College London, and a first-class honours BSc degree in Business Computing Systems from City, University of London. 11

12 Analysys Mason s consulting and research are uniquely positioned Analysys Mason s consulting services and research portfolio CONSULTING We deliver tangible benefits to clients across the telecoms industry: - communications and digital service providers, vendors, financial and strategic investors, private equity and infrastructure funds, governments, regulators, broadcasters, and service and content providers. Our sector specialists understand the distinct local challenges facing clients, in addition to the wider effects of global forces. We are future-focused and help clients understand the challenges and opportunities that new technology brings. RESEARCH Our dedicated team of analysts track and forecast the different services accessed by consumers and enterprises. We offer detailed insight into the software, infrastructure and technology delivering those services. Clients benefit from regular and timely intelligence, and direct access to analysts. 12

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