REAL-TIME

DECISIONS IN

MAKING THE
TELECOMMUNICATIONS

RIGHT DECISION
Automate intelligent decision-making to
solve sales challenges, build smarter and
faster networks, improve customer service
and protect revenues

Read the eBook

Enjoy certainty. SAS® Intelligent Decisioning.

 PUTTING THE FUTURE ON THE LINE
Events have conspired to place telecommunications companies in a position where they will need to make a series
of important strategic decisions that will determine the future of the industry.
First, the transition from 4G to 5G and the wider rollout of
fibre broadband services will require huge investment in
network infrastructure, which means companies must spend
their capital wisely to assure a rapid return on investment.
Second, the 2020 COVID crisis has changed customers’
usage patterns, making it harder to predict where high-
speed networks will be most profitable, and more difficult to
manage network service quality.
Third, the medium-term economic forecast points to an
increase in the risk of bad debt. Rising unemployment is
likely to make it difficult for customers to pay their bills. At
the same time, fraud is once again on the increase.
Protecting revenues, detecting and preventing fraud and
supporting vulnerable customers will be key focus areas
during this difficult period.
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RIGHT DECISION 2 WHAT DO
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Finally, the uncertain future of the high street makes it
imperative for companies to accelerate their move towards
providing personalised customer services through online
sales channels, whether that’s via mobile apps or other
digital experiences.
This eBook will suggest that the industry’s future
sustainability depends on more than just short-term tactical
responses to these challenges. Rather, it requires a different
approach to both day-to-day and strategic decision-making,
based on accurate analysis of real-time data to assess credit
risk, improve customer experiences, and enable smarter,
more resilient network management.
To achieve this, telecommunications companies need to be
able to join up and scale up their analytics capabilities, using
a combination of customer information, network events and
WHAT DO
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NEED? 4 WHAT IS INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING?
external data sources to generate the best decisions for
each line of business in real time. Embedding artificial
intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) into business
processes is the key to making this happen.
By adopting a modular approach, telecommunications can
build these real-time decisioning capabilities gradually,
experiment without risk, and expand from small pilots to
enterprise-scale deployments quickly when an idea takes
off. The aim is to evolve with agility to the new challenges of
an ever-changing world.
READ
MORE What do customers want?
5 CASE STUDY:
TELENOR NORWAY 6 INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING & YOU
 WHAT DO
CUSTOMERS WANT?
Customers’ expectations for telecommunications services have never been higher. People expect to be able to
watch high definition video on the go on their mobile phones, and today’s households are often contending
for broadband bandwidth as different family members participate in video calls, watch TV shows on
demand, or enjoy online gaming.

From a technical perspective, this means customers are quick to see the latest-generation technology—whether
it’s 5G cell networks or fibre broadband connections—as a right, not a privilege. Moreover, they expect these
services to “just work”, 24/7. Areas of poor cell network coverage or faulty broadband are no longer tolerable,
particularly as larger numbers of people rely on internet connectivity to enable them to work from home.

Moreover, when customers interact with their telecommunications providers, they expect consistent
service regardless of the communication channel they choose. If they see an offer advertised online, they
expect to get the same offer when they visit a store or speak to a call centre agent.

Moreover, they expect the same level of personalised service and advice when they use their
provider’s website or mobile app that they would receive from a human being on the phone or
face-to-face.

The desire for empathy and intelligence from providers is valued even more highly when

24/7
WHETHER IT’S 5G CELL NETWORKS OR FIBRE
customers run into financial difficulties. A phone or internet connection can be a lifeline for
BROADBAND CONNECTIONS—AS A RIGHT, NOT A
vulnerable people, and the threat of disconnection can be a severe cause of stress for PRIVILEGE. MOREOVER, THEY EXPECT THESE SERVICES
those who are already suffering hardships in other areas. Providers who can proactively TO “JUST WORK”, 24/7
engage with their subscribers and reach out with flexible payment plans to help them
through difficult times are likely to win customer loyalty, as well as protecting their own
bottom lines.

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RIGHT DECISION 2 WHAT DO
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DECISIONING? 5 CASE STUDY:
TELENOR NORWAY 6 INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING & YOU
 WHAT DO
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
COMPANIES NEED?
To meet and exceed customer expectations and mitigate the risks of bad debt,
telecommunications companies need to be able to respond in real time to a wide range of
customer interactions and operational events—from tracking website visitors’ online behaviour,
generating personalised offers and recalculating credit scores to proactively planning
network capacity and predicting outages before they happen.

At the same time, to protect their bottom line, companies also need to find better ways
to identify and even prevent fraud. In particular, the recent proliferation of new forms
of identity fraud and non-payment fraud, means that providers need AI/ML based
solutions to detect fraudulent activity and put countermeasures in place as early
as possible.

By capturing, processing and analysing high-volume, high-velocity streams of

SAS opinion
real-time data, telecommunications companies can support highly nuanced,
intelligent decision-making—automating routine processes and providing Telecommunications companies can use technology to improve decision-making
insight to help human experts from all business areas make the right calls. at every stage in the customer journey—from analysing customer value, credit and
fraud risk to smarter marketing and network analytics.

Matthieu Joosten, Global Communications Industry Leader, SAS

READ
MORE Telco business model

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DECISIONING & YOU
 DECISIONING CHALLENGES IN
TELECOMMUNICATIONS

SALES CUSTOMER SERVICE REVENUE MANAGEMENT NETWORK MANAGEMENT

What do we know about this customer’s Can we predict what the customer is What is the risk of taking on this How can we detect faults on our network
recent interactions with us? calling about before they tell us? new customer? (including set-top boxes and routers),
— — — before customers are affected?
How does this customer’s credit score Can we predict the Net Promoter What is the customer value and what are —
affect how we should sell to them? Score (NPS) of this customer and take a the potential up-sell or cross-sell How are demand patterns shifting,
— relevant action to improve it? opportunities? and what services do our
Is this customer likely to commit fraud? — — customers need?
— Has their connection suffered any How has the customer’s credit risk —
What are the best offers we can make to outages recently? profile changed over time? Where should we invest to gain
this customer at this time? — — maximum return on our 5G or
— Is this an appropriate time to try up-selling How can we intervene early to prevent fibre rollouts?
How can we ensure a consistent or cross-selling to this customer? accounts falling into arrears?
purchasing journey in-store, at the — —
call centre and online? What can we do to help if they are What is the risk of customer churn?
struggling to pay their bill?

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RIGHT DECISION 2 WHAT DO
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TELENOR NORWAY 6 INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING & YOU
 WHAT IS INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING?
Intelligent decisioning is the strategy of embedding analytics into business processes to automate
decision-making where possible and provide insight for decision support in cases where human
intervention is required.

In a telecommunications context, intelligent decisioning enables real-time insight into both

customer-facing processes and network operations. Through the use of advanced analytics
combined with sophisticated forecasts, an intelligent decisioning approach enables end-to-end
optimisation of operations, network planning and maintenance. This can help to improve
customer service and network management, while reducing risk and protecting revenues.

By adopting an intelligent decisioning strategy, telecommunications companies can

automate AI-driven decision-making by combining data from millions of customer
interactions with event logs from across their networks. This enables a real-time view of
how the company is serving its customers and can help to anticipate customer needs
and boost loyalty and NPS, and reduce churn.
SAS opinion

Crucially, intelligent decisioning is designed to be accessible to sales, customer With intelligent decisioning, you can gain daily insight not only into customer
service and collections teams, senior executives and network engineers. It speaks creditworthiness, but also across a range of other key metrics and performance
the language of the business, not the jargon of IT experts and data scientists. indicators, such as customer lifetime value and propensity to churn.

While it uses AI/ML and other advanced analytics techniques under the hood, Matthieu Joosten, Global Communications Industry Leader, SAS
intelligent decisioning abstracts away the technical complexities, providing
an instant improvement on traditional decision support systems while
keeping everything under the control and ownership of business users.

WHAT DO
1 MAKING THE
RIGHT DECISION 2 WHAT DO
CUSTOMERS WANT? 3 TELECOMMUNICATIONS
NEED? 4 WHAT IS INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING? 5 CASE STUDY:
TELENOR NORWAY 6 INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING & YOU
 CASE STUDY:
TELENOR NORWAY
As Norway’s number-one supplier of telecommunications and data services,
Telenor puts its customers at the centre of everything it does. The company sees It is about meeting the customer with the right message, at the right time,
personalisation as a key tool in its ability to offer relevant services to clients and adapt in the preferred channel. To reach this level of personalization, everything
its products to their needs. we do and don’t do needs to be based on insight.

Since 2010, Telenor has been sending personalised SMS messages to its customers, and Liv Elise Saue Tøftum, Director of Analytics and Customer Lifecycle Management,
its approach to personalisation has grown ever more sophisticated over the years. Telenor Norway
Today, 40% of all sales interactions are personalised, and 95% of customer interactions
take place via digital channels.

Working with SAS, Telenor has built Automated Sales Tips (AST), an intelligent
Telenor has also established a platform for advanced analytics and predictive modelling
decisioning solution that has enabled the company to send over 50 million personalised
based on SAS Viya, which it is now using to systematise and automate its activities based on
next best offers to its customer in 12 months. This correlates with a period where
contextual triggers. This is helping the company deliver more efficient and seamless customer
Telenor has seen 40% to 50% growth in personalised upselling.
journeys, with next best offers implemented across all touchpoints and channels.

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RIGHT DECISION 2 WHAT DO
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TELENOR NORWAY 6 INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING & YOU
 WHAT CAN
INTELLIGENT DECISIONING
DO FOR YOU?
Intelligent decisioning can help telecommunications companies seize both tactical and strategic
advantages as they compete to win the loyalty of today’s demanding consumers.
These capabilities will empower organisations to:

Improve customer engagement and the customer experience by analysing customer data
at each touchpoint throughout the journey and providing personalised offers.

Improve commercial decision-making by monitoring credit risk, detecting and

preventing fraud, helping to support vulnerable customers and minimise bad debts.

Improve network management by tracking network events, helping to predict

and resolve faults before they impact customers.

As a result, intelligent decisioning can combine with other types of analytics such as READ
forecasting to help different roles within the organisation make smarter decisions MORE More on intelligent decisioning
in their day-to-day work.

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RIGHT DECISION 2 WHAT DO
CUSTOMERS WANT? 3 TELECOMMUNICATIONS
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DECISIONING? 5 CASE STUDY:
TELENOR NORWAY 6 INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING & YOU
 Sales teams can gain new insight into each customer’s order history,
credit score and browsing behaviour, helping them target the right
customers with the right offers at the right time, and provide a
consistent purchasing journey across all channels.

Customer service teams can quickly assess how best to support each customer,
and make more empathetic decisions—for example, if a customer is struggling to
pay their phone bill or in the market for an upgrade.

Revenue management teams gain the ability to predict the impact of economic
trends on customers’ ability to pay and propensity to churn, helping them
make smarter choices about how to manage credit risk and protect the
company’s margins.

Finally, network management teams gain real-time insight into network status,
allowing them to find and fix faults fast, and harness accurate demand forecasts to
inform network upgrade planning.

READ
MORE Decisioning challenges in Telco

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RIGHT DECISION 2 WHAT DO
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TELENOR NORWAY 6 INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING & YOU
 THE SAS ADVANTAGE
SAS has worked with clients across the
telecommunications spectrum to embed intelligent
decisioning into their workflows and streamline the most
unique and complex decision-making processes for
each business.
Our intelligent decisioning strategy has helped one
major European player to reduce its provisions for bad
debt by up to 10 percent, and shown a leader in the Asia-
Pacific region how it can improve earnings by £11 million
per annum by increasing the predictive power of its
credit-risk models.
Whatever the future holds for the
telecommunications sector in the
post-COVID era, intelligent decisioning
can put you in a strong position to
deal with challenges as they
arise—making your whole business
smarter and enabling you
to maximise the value of your
interactions with customers
across all channels.

We also helped one of Spain’s largest

telecommunications companies increase from 20 to
200,000 highly granular and highly accurate demand
forecasts per month, providing detailed insight to help it
plan a major rollout of new network technology and
improve its Return on Capital Exploited.

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1 MAKING THE
RIGHT DECISION 2 WHAT DO
CUSTOMERS WANT? 3 TELECOMMUNICATIONS
NEED? 4 WHAT IS INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING? 5 CASE STUDY:
TELENOR NORWAY 6 INTELLIGENT
DECISIONING & YOU
 REAL-TIME
DECISIONS FOR
TELECOMMUNICATIONS

For more information, please visit sas.com/uk/decisioning and talk to our Telco experts today.

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