COVER STORY
March 2020 | Comms Business Magazine | 23
The new subscription economy – really it’s
a hybrid
As consumers, we’re increasingly signing up
for services by subscription. At work we’re
coming to expect similar models to apply
to applications, software, and even core
business processes. Welcome to the era of
Everything as a Service.
It is no surprise then that the telecoms
market is also moving away from billing
based on minutes used, data consumed,
and messages sent, towards a model
based primarily on subscription packages.
Embracing the subscription economy is a
must but to abandon the consumption model
is a fatal mistake. To extract maximum value
from the new digital landscape, service
providers must harness the hybrid economy
and enable customers to choose where, how,
and how much they consume.
Billing systems must transition too
The right billing strategy will pay dividends
and is a key di erentiator. To capitalise on
the opportunities created by the hybrid
economy, billing systems must support a
sophisticated combination of consumption
and subscription models. Modern, cloudnative
monetisation solutions designed from
the ground up for the new digital ecosystem
will empower service providers to prosper.
Subscription platforms such as Zuora and
Chargify are great at handling subscriptions,
and traditional billing solutions are adequate
if you believe that the future will always be
lines and calls. However, for service providers
that are looking to embrace the rapidly
changing landscape and build products and
services that cleverly combine usage and
subscription to deliver a more a compelling
proposition, a modern billing solution
provides the backbone for a successful
monetisation strategy.
Success in the hybrid economy has
challenges, but there is a simple formula.
Mine your data, automate contract
management, create the right proposition
and ensure it is proitable.
Mining your data
Billing systems hold an immense and
untapped source of information that can
deliver valuable business intelligence, predict
opportunities and create a rich engagement
model between service providers and their
customers through advanced analytics, rich
data visualisation and a real-time view of
customer behaviour.
Unlocking the value of billing information
and predictive analytics enables agile service
providers to create and proactively o er
innovative propositions targeted at the right
customer at a price point and time when they
are most likely to respond positively based on
their behaviour, demographic or geography.
Contracts and subscriptions are valuable
assets – manage them
Without insight into contract terms,
automation of contact renewals, and the
ability to automatically calculate early
termination charges based on ixed cost, %
value, remaining term and spend, service
providers will always be playing catch up.
Contracts are also a valuable inancial asset
which service providers ind di icult to
provide valuation for. The ability to report on
the inherent value of contracts and to model
outcomes based on a range of scenarios is
critical for attracting investors, funding and
market valuations.
Build lexible, compelling propositions
Successful businesses will be those that can
di erentiate themselves in a commoditised
market by being lexible, creative and agile.
Imaginative and compelling packages,
bundles and promotions are critical for
service providers as they embrace the
hybrid economy where services are
consumed by the hour, week or month.
Packaging has become the core focus for
service providers where the bundling and
unbundling of products and services is key
in deining market winning products; billing
systems must deliver the conigurability and
scalability service providers need for lexible
consumption of hardware, software, and
services to more e ectively deliver value.
Manage margins, maximise proit
As service providers o er more complex
o erings based on aggregate products and
services from a multitude of suppliers, it is
crucial to ensure that each element remains
proitable. To do this service providers
need visibility of usage, uptake, churn,
geographic/demographic considerations
for every component of their proposition.
Traditional revenue assurance is no longer
su icient; billing systems must o er
sophisticated inancial reconciliation
and analysis of supplier, proposition and
consumption proitability.
The hybrid economy is here, and service
providers must identify the best strategy to
defend and optimise their revenue within
an intensely competitive landscape. A key
factor of any strategy must be a modern
and lexible billing platform powered by
intelligent analytics.
Elevate is Strategic Imperatives’ ground-breaking cloud-native billing
solution that transforms monetisation into a modern, real-time, blazingly
fast, and extremely lexible SaaS platform. With its focus on lexible
propositions, revenue assurance, intelligent analytics and subscription
management it is a world class billing solution designed from the ground
up to meet the demands of a constantly changing landscape.
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Transforming Monetisation
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