48 pc of operators say they are already implementing Big Data

LONDON, UK: Informa Telecoms & Media's new research highlights the main challenges and opportunities for telecom operators regarding Big Data. The research was based on a survey conducted with approximately 120 operators in June 2013.

In an era where customer data is a key benefit, operators are in a good position to generate new opportunities with the data collected daily through their different customer touch-points, including their network: 58 per cent of the operators interviewed in the Informa survey agreed that the main long-term driver for Big Data will be generating new business models. However, the short-term drivers are believed to focus more on solving internal challenges, such as improving data warehousing, increasing loyalty and customer experience management.

"It makes sense for operators to use Big Data to understand the key challenges and improve the customer experience. By using big data to optimize processes and improve quality of services, operators will already be building a platform to explore new business opportunities", says Julio Puschel, the research co-author.

The research also shows that 72 per cent of current Big Data implementations are focused on specific business applications rather than on an end-to-end solution. "Business applications with a tangible and defined benefit will help secure budget for Big Data projects, but, even if the initiatives are focused on specific applications, operators still need to optimize their investment by building a platform that will also support future business models."

In terms of investment, the operators said that Big Data currently represents 10 per cent on average of their total IT budget. This share is expected to increase to approximately 23 per cent in five years, demonstrating how Big Data is becoming a strategic priority for the telecoms operators.

It is about building a platform: Big Data is not a "magic solution" that is going to solve all operators' problems, neither is it a service in itself. Big Data is a platform that will allow operators to use customer data in order to support internal initiatives (CEM, operational efficiency, etc.) as well as new business models (digital services, profile brokering, etc).