Success Story

Bharti Tele-Ventures Mobile Division

(Airtel) Leverages Comverse Kenan®
Expertise to Streamline Billing Operations

The Need
A single enterprise-wide,
yet decentralized billing
system
The Challenge
To integrate a cohesive
approach that accords
with state-mandated
decentralization regulations
The Solution
Comverse Kenan Billing
and Order Management
Systems
Why Selected
Many reasons, primarily
establishing billing
operations and transferring
management to the
operator
The Result
A striking success.
Comverse Professional
Services enhanced Airtel
operations, improving
operational efficiencies and
quality of customer service
About Airtel
Bharti Tele-Ventures Mobile Division
(Airtel) is one of India’s leading private
sector providers of telecommunications
services with more than 20 million
customers. The only operator to provide
mobile services in all 23 business
regions, or circles, in India, the company
also provides telephone services
and Internet access over DSL in 15
circles, complementing its national and
international long distance telephone
services with mobile and broadband
services.
The Need: Enterprise-
Wide, Decentralized
Billing Services
The leading provider of mobile
services across India, Airtel is an Indian
wireless “super brand” within a fiercely
competitive mobile telecommunications
market.
The company needed a single
enterprise-wide billing system to support
the acceleration of its postpaid mobile
business. Airtel sought to optimize every
point within its infrastructure to enhance
operational efficiencies and maximize
its investment. By infusing industry
best practices into its organization and
leveraging its billing operations to its
fullest potential, Airtel would continue to
stay ahead of its competition.
Challenge: Cohesive and
Coordinated Approach to
Decentralization
Implementation of billing and order
management systems and high-quality
customer service was a relatively
straightforward element of the solution.
While the Comverse Kenan systems
were in place to run Airtel’s entire
business using a two-instances billing
and order management platform for
postpaid and wireline business, de-
centralization made the operations —
and optimization — of these systems
more challenging.
Under India regulation, each circle was
essentially a separate business entity
with distinct business owners, thus
opening the door for competing, and/or
redundant processes. To support this de-
centralized organization, Airtel needed
to deploy a cohesive and coordinated
approach to operating its systems.
Another challenge was to ensure the
operator’s longer-term self-sufficiency by
building a model that would not rely on
third parties for support.
The Solution: Comverse
Kenan Billing and Order
Management Expertise
Airtel deployed Comverse Kenan billing
and order management systems to
ensure the high-quality customer service
and products the operator is known for.
Comverse billing experts worked side-by-
side with Airtel on-site to meet project
objectives. Leveraging Comverse’s
expertise in billing operations freed Airtel
to focus on what it does best: delivering
unparalleled mobile services to the
Indian market.
The Comverse professional services
team worked with Airtel staff to
design and develop a world-class
billing operations organization across
India for comprehensive day-to-
day support of its Kenan BP billing
engine and Kenan order management
systems. The team played a key role in
coordinating numerous other strategic
initiatives, such as developing standard
operating procedures, enhancing
business processes to optimize
efficiency, providing best practice
recommendations on revenue assurance
and creating and implementing an
overall architectural framework for
its billing and order management
“Comverse Kenan billing and order management solutions
support future long-term growth and fuel increased
operational efficiencies. By leveraging their extensive
experience, we have been able to focus on providing the best
possible service and products to our customers.”
Jai Menon, Director IT & T Bharti Tele-Ventures (Airtel)
infrastructure that will scale to support
Airtel’s rapid growth over the coming
years.
Why Selected: Benefits
of the Operate, Align and
Transfer Model
One of the key advantages of the project
was the Operate, Align and Transfer
arrangement, whereby Comverse
managed billing operations on a
short-term basis and then transferred
operations to Airtel.
Airtel’s operations team learned on
the job through daily exposure to
Comverse’s best practices, tuning
processes, and other procedures. What
ensued was a complete analysis of the
organization (design and capabilities),
the processes, any under-utilized
components of the solution, and
any revenue leaks — resulting in the
implementation of critical business
projects to optimize Airtel’s investment
and build a solid, centralized operational
foundation for Airtel’s future.
The Operate, Align and Transfer model
leverages Comverse’s extensive
product portfolio and world-class
expertise in managing and operating
billing and customer care systems to
deliver a comprehensive solution to
telecommunications operators.
Additionally, outsourced operations
offerings are tailored to meet the unique
business needs of each operator by
delivering a wide range of outsourced
services and solutions. With Comverse
as a partner, operators can manage any
part or all of their billing and customer
care infrastructure through on-site or
service bureau models. Operators can
choose if and when they wish to take
over the day-to-day operation of these
systems.
Results: The Numbers
Speak for Themselves
The Comverse Kenan services made
numerous enhancements to Airtel
operations, including improved
operational efficiencies and quality of
customer service:
• Rating Timeliness Increased
by 90%: This enables Airtel to
access current details on what
the customer has spent, giving
the operator better capabilities to
manage fraud and bad debt.
• Zero Billing Delay Environment:
Provides a more predictable and
reliable revenue stream across all
circles.
• Quick Order Times: 60%
reduction, from 12 minutes to less
than 5 minutes to provision an
order by streamlining online data
management and reducing the
level of communications required
between ordering systems and the
network.
 • Operational Intelligence: • Implemented Industry Best
Automated tools improved business Practices: Via on-the-job training
reporting intelligence — reducing and an effective knowledge
the number of daily reports from transfer program, Airtel now has
1,300 hard copy reports to just 83, in place a sophisticated internal
accessible by Web across Airtel’s billing operations team trained to
organization. optimize system performance and
fully tap system capabilities. In
• Sharpening the Competitive Edge:
addition to operational efficiency
The sales and marketing teams
and cost-savings, this also speeds
developed strategies to significantly
time-to-market for innovative market
improve Airtel’s competitive
offerings.
About Comverse advantage at little to no additional
Comverse is the world’s leading cost by using tools such as rate The solution at Bharti Airtel is another
provider of software and systems plans, discounts, payments, and Comverse Kenan success story.
enabling value-added services
revenue treatment. The professional services team met
for voice, messaging, mobile
Internet and mobile advertising; goals and challenges by flexibly
• A Step Ahead: By centralizing
converged billing and active addressing unique operator needs. The
customer management; and IP
the way in which its billing and IT
implemented services facilitate revenue
communications. Comverse’s operations were managed, Airtel
extensive customer base spans growth and build loyalty by providing
ensured that it would be ahead of
more than 130 countries and covers users with choice, convenience and
its competitors when the Indian
over 500 communication service control.
providers serving more than two government enabled operators
billion subscribers. The company’s to obtain a universal license that
innovative product portfolio enables allowed for a more centralized
communication service providers to
unleash the value of the network business structure.
for their customers by making their
networks smarter.
• Improved Cash Flow and
Resource Utilization: The
professional services team reduced
© Copyright 2007 Comverse, Inc. the number of bill cycles by 80%
All rights reserved. Product names
may be subject to change. and engineered on-time billing
delivery pan-India.
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States and may be registered in
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Inc. or its subsidiaries, or their
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presented here are summary in
nature, subject to change and
intended for general information only.
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