The African telecommunications sector is dynamic and full of growth opportunities and potential new revenue streams for operators who can respond to market demands quickly.
However, their existing business support systems (BSS), which served them well when telecommunications was primarily voice and text based, is holding them back from keeping up with the digital transformation sweeping through the industry.
Rather than being an enabler, legacy systems are proving to be an anchor.
On the other hand, a modern digital BSS enables telcos of all sizes to move with more agility and to deploy new products and services quicker for increasingly discerning customers.
The problem with legacy BSS
The total cost of ownership of traditional monolithic systems is high, while maintenance complexity means operators need specialised skills which are scarce in many markets.
Beyond this, any telco will understand the inflexibility that vendor lock-in causes. In this environment, implementations or customisations can take inordinately long which is the exact opposite of being able to take advantage of opportunities quickly to attract, or retain, customers.
As we all know, the world is evolving, and so telcos need to be able to integrate with new technologies and digital services, but legacy platforms make this incredibly difficult, never mind often astronomical costs for even minor changes.
A door to the future
Shifting to a modern, digital BSS lifts the anchor holding telcos back. Modern systems come with microservices architecture, cloud-based deployment options, modular implementation capabilities – which is the antithesis of the big, inflexible monolithic legacy systems – and significantly reduced implementation costs.
All this adds up to telcos being able to adapt much quicker to market demand and evolving technology.
A cloud-native architecture enables pay-as-you-grow models. Unlike traditional platforms, smaller telcos don’t need to purchase exorbitantly expensive systems but can rather grow into them as they evolve.
This is an incredibly attractive capability for telcos operating on tight margins and battling for customers who often have more than one sim card from different operators.
Supporting this, a microservices approach allows the type of modular implementation and upgrades that are attractive to telcos wishing to drive their own competitiveness at a more palatable cost, and at a pace that suits them.
Telcos across the continent are constantly seeking to reduce costs, and one way they can do this is by shifting to a digital BSS subscription model which slashes CAPEX.
Another consideration for operators in Africa is time to value. Implementations of monolithic systems can take an inordinately long time, in many cases spanning up to two years, whereas modern digital BSS implementations can be completed within three to six months. It’s an entirely different paradigm.
Value-added services in telecommunications
One of the main reasons, besides cost and agility, that telcos are seeking more modern systems is because of the evolving telecommunications landscape. Value-added services are becoming absolutely essential to attract and retain customers.
Digital platforms with their API-first design enable ecosystem integration with fintechs, content providers and other partners.
Telcos are in a unique position where they already have a subscriber base which is purchasing products and services, and so the ability to leverage this to generate additional revenue streams is non-negotiable for telcos of the present and future.
We already understand that the ability to take new products to the market quicker is a competitive advantage. But it is more than that.
The built-in analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities of digital business support systems enables businesses to make data-driven decisions quickly. This ability to respond quickly to emerging trends is what sets apart a digitally savvy business from those still grappling with their digital transformation strategies.
It’s all about the data
There’s little point in talking about the potential of a modern BSS if the business’s data is not up to scratch because any migration of incomplete, or messy, data won’t result in the desired outcome. Data migration is, in many ways, the make-or-break factor in a successful transition to a modern BSS. Put another way, data integrity underpins the success of any technology.
Telcos seeking to take advantage of the power and agility of modern platforms must work with partners that prioritise data and have a methodical approach to ensuring its integrity.
This is because a failure in a data migration can be catastrophic and have implications across various parts of a telco’s business.
A good partner will lead a comprehensive data retrieval, go through rigorous data cleaning and precise field mapping, and then verify data transformation capabilities before carefully and methodically importing the data.
The future is bright
We are likely to see a continued acceleration of BSS modernisation across Africa, as telcos seek systems that will support IoT, 5G and other advanced services.
Much like we see in mobile money and fintechs, telcos in Africa have a real opportunity to catch up to, and even leapfrog, their counterparts in developed markets by skipping traditional, intermediate steps, precisely because of the agility and capabilities that API-led connectivity and cloud-based microservices enable.
It will pull up the anchors for good and allow telcos to sail into brave new waters.
