A Trio of Good Reads on Telecommunications BI and Analytics 

The days are getting shorter, football season has started, and kids are back in school.  Another summer has come and gone, and it is time to put away the novels and get back into serious work mode. Fortunately, there are good new reads for the BI and analytics crowd in telecommunications.

First on your list should be a new study: Predictive Analytics Powers Communications Service Provider Marketing Strategies, published by Stratecast, a division of Frost & Sullivan.   This is the most comprehensive study of telecom analytics that has been published in many years, yet concisely presented in just 55 pages. The report’s authors are two well-known industry analysts, Dr. Lorien Pratt and Susan McNeice. Both are telecom industry experts who have strong analytical backgrounds and also can write a very readable report.

If you are engaged the annual planning process, this report contains great supporting material to help you make the case that investments in analytics can improve marketing performance. This report summarizes data from executive interviews at 18 communications service providers. Vendor profiles for SAS and our major competitors are also included. A subscription to Stratecast is required, so to learn how you can obtain the report, visit the Stratecast web site or contact your Frost & Sullivan representative.

Next on your list should be a white paper: Unified Mobile Data Platform: An Analytics Based Approach by Chetan Sharma Consulting, an advisory firm focused on mobile communications. This 32-page paper offers a succinct view of the mobile data market and why analytics for mobile data presents both challenges and opportunities.

The author makes a case that a unified data platform can help service providers accomplish several important business objectives, including:

• Discovering hidden patterns.
• Getting forecasts right.
• Identifying key influencers.
• Lowering acquisition costs and raising lifetime value.
• Bundling and long tail discovery.
• Accurate targeting.

Download a free copy of the report.

The last publication on your new reading list is Business Intelligence for Telecommunication by Deepak Pareek (ISBN 0-8493-8792-2). Have you ever wished for a book to give someone who understands telecom but not BI or someone who understands BI but not telecom? This is that book.

The first six chapters give an overview of BI in general. Chapters 7 through 11 cover the changing landscape of telecommunications and how BI will play a major role in the industry’s transformation and convergence. This book has definitely earned a permanent spot on my office bookshelf.

We may not all be ready to put away our summer fun reading, but these papers and book will make that transition a little easier. Hope you enjoy them. Send me a comment to let me know what you think and let me know about any good papers or articles you find.