LIVE FROM WEDO TECHNOLOGIES WORLDWIDE USER GROUP 2018, CASCAIS, PORTUGAL: Operators can use the mass of data they hold to improve efficiency as well as tap new revenue streams, Miguel Suarez, deputy CEO of Spanish operator Masmovil (pictured), explained.

“Big data is basically about money, and that’s why big data and advanced analytics are in the top priorities for CEOs,” he said.

“There are two sides to data: the savings we can make from improving our internal processes, and those revenues we are going to make from new businesses. My perception is that most of the benefit is going to come from improving our internal processes, although we have to take a look at these new businesses.”

He continued: “We should try to understand what the satisfaction is for the customer, on the network side and on the service side, and when we find what are the pain points, we can prioritise our resources, money and teams, to those pain points.”

Fresh chances
Internal areas of benefit can include churn prevention, network optimisation, predictive cross- and up-selling, and RoI-based marketing. New opportunities include location-based marketing, digital advertising, and partnerships with over-the-top players to deliver enhanced customer insight.

Suarez said operators hold better information than financial institutions and internet companies in three key areas: identity; behaviour; and location.

“The combination of these things is much more powerful than each of them separately.”

“It is right to say as much information as Google does, probably even more, the question is how we can use this in a way which is valuable for the customer, and in parallel improves our operations,” he continued.

In order to make the best use of data, “we need top management involvement, learnings have to be extended on how to use data to other parts of the organisation,” he said. Suarez also advised that there are benefits in having specialised data and analytics teams: “This is very specific know-how”, he said.

Masmovil has, through a series of acquisitions, grown to be a strong converged challenger in the Spanish market. In 2015, it was an MVNO, with revenue of €160 million, 500,000 mobile and 25,000 fixed customers. By 2017, it had revenue of €1.3 billion, with 5 million mobile and 504,000 fixed broadband customers. According to GSMA Intelligence it now claims a 10 per cent market share of Spain’s mobile subscribers after the successful purchase of Yoigo.