I’m continuing to examine this survey from Accenture on Telecom Billing Operations. It struck me today that the authors overlooked an important finding.
49 percent – or nearly half the panel – said that they require significant improvements (as opposed to some improvements) in their real-time charging and billing capabilities. 79 percent put real-time charging among the aspects of their billing infrastructure most in need of improvement.
No other functional area was cited as requiring significant improvement nearly as often; in fact, the next most cited category was convergent (triple-play, quad-play) billing, at just 36 percent.
Why is this important? If a CSP’s billing infrastructure can’t handle real-time charging and billing, it can’t compete in the OTT game.
CSPs are being whipped in the OTT marketplace by more agile competitors that offer on-demand service and payment. It’s simple: when you push a button on your device, you want an immediate response. If you’re buying something, you expect the payment transaction to be flawless and immediate. Netflix and Apple, and some others like them, deliver that kind of experience.
Apparently, about 80 percent of CSP business and IT execs would like to do the same, but don’t think their billing infrastructure can handle it yet.
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