Automation keeps Slovak Telekom ahead
In the competitive telecoms sector, you’ve got to offer fast, personalised customer service at low cost. And you’ve got to get new services on the market quickly to maintain your market position.
Slovak Telekom achieved this through a major systems integration project led by LogicaCMG. By
centralising and automating hundreds of business processes across its regions, the company was able to keep ahead of domestic and international competitors – even as the Slovakian telecoms market transformed.
The challenge
In 2002, Slovak Telekom was the fixed-line leader in Slovakia, with one and a half million business and residential customers. It was also building up business in data networks and broadband.
But the telecoms market in Slovakia, as elsewhere in central Europe, was changing fast. Everyone was dealing with heightened competition and cost pressures, while the changing face of technology meant operators had to be able to adapt in a hurry to compete.
Slovak Telekom had a good idea of what it needed to do. By centralising and automating the various processes it used for service provisioning, assurance and network planning around Slovakia, it would be able to execute business much more efficiently. Day to day it would be able to activate new telephone lines and data circuits and troubleshoot existing ones both more quickly and more cheaply, with automated systems to ensure problems like noise on the line and low data throughput were kept to an absolute minimum. Longer term, Slovak Telekom would be able to stay on its toes and roll out new strategies on a single nationwide platform to address IP service market demand like Triple Play - digital television, high speed Internet and voice over Internet.
The task was complicated, however. Many of the systems were self-built and not suitable for
integration, so they had to be redesigned. Getting the details right and executing the plans was a
massive challenge and Slovak Telekom did not have the internal resources to go it alone.
In a competitive tender, the contractor selected for the work was LogicaCMG – a past master at
implementing large-scale operational support systems for telecoms operators around the world.
Slovak Telekom already had a confident working relationship with us, and our local presence and
understanding of the networks and business culture meant we would be able to work effectively with them from day one.
The solution
The LogicaCMG team worked with Slovak Telekom and its partners to put in place two new software applications – the Siebel customer relationship management system, and the Cramer network inventory tool.
Over the four years of the project, we standardised and integrated onto these systems 22 million
different ports of the services and hundreds of thousands of network entities from more than 26
distributed, heterogeneous data sources. Modelling tools for workflow made sure the new setup was completely under control and flexible enough to be fine-tuned as time went on.
As well as the technical and organisational challenge, diplomatic skills were essential. Because
process changes require staff buy-in to be truly successful, this was an essential part of our
responsibility.
Additionally, our strong relationships with other contractors helped us work together more efficiently and ensured that everyone on the project was working as a single team with shared goals.
The outcome
Now the project is complete, Slovak Telekom is in great shape to build on its leadership position in the Slovakian market. It benefits from much reduced operating costs, with fewer personnel providing a higher and more consistent quality of service. And because assorted bespoke applications have been replaced by industry-standard ones, maintenance is cheaper and simpler.
The company also has far greater insight into its own systems. It can identify obsolete technology and inefficient processes, justify network planning decisions and generally manage the whole
organisation’s activities. For example, provisioning time for voice and data services over 150 business scenarios has been reduced by more than 30 per cent, with duplicate work eliminated and services shared between processes for increased efficiency. Staff need to spend less time on design and installation, less field visits to customers are required and escalation rates have been reduced.
Customers have benefited, too. New IP services are brought to market quickly in response or in
anticipation of demand, like combined digital TV, high-speed internet and voice-over IP. And everyday interactions and services are now handled much more quickly and efficiently, with activities that could previously take ten days now done in five.
The future
As the market has moved from fixed-line towards IP-oriented services, Slovak Telekom’s new
centralised operations have allowed it to adapt quickly and stay at the cutting edge, rolling out new
features like self-care before anyone else.
And the partnership continues today. Currently, LogicaCMG is helping Slovak Telekom with integration projects on a smaller scale – while at the same time the large scale benefits of the project continue to be felt.
“What we were after from LogicaCMG was the best operational support know-how on the market – and that’s what we got. We also valued their willingness to step in and take ownership of the project. We couldn’t have asked for more in a partner.”Ralf Mittag, Director, Slovak Telekom