Telecommunications equipment manufacturer, Ericsson has reached a milestone of providing managed services to mobile networks that serve one billion subscribers across the globe. The company has achieved this milestone by investing more than $1 billion in tools, methods and processes for service delivery. A significant portion of the figure has been ploughed into the establishment of Global Service Centres in Romania, Mexico, India and China to aid the delivery of managed services remotely for a large number of networks across the globe. In an increasingly Networked Society, a growing number of devices are expected to use broadband connections to deliver a wide array of rich communication and multimedia services, anytime, anywhere.
According to the company, even more advanced network solutions are required to meet the demand for superior performance. The natural solution for operators, Ericsson says is to sign managed services contracts with partners that assume responsibility for activities such as operating and managing their networks. With well over 15 years of experience in managing multi-vendor, multi-technology networks, Ericsson industrialised the concept of delivering managed services for multiple operators through outstanding Global Service Centres and a strong field service organisation.
Ericsson is a dominant player in Africa for Managed Services, a position that was strengthened earlier this year when it was announced that Atlantique Telecom, part of Etisalat Group, awarded Ericsson a 5-year multi-country managed services contract to span the continent. This partnership spreads across Western and Central Africa and supports Etisalat’s focus on leading a new generation of operations in Africa while supporting the company’s value added services and offerings. Network operations have traditionally been central to the business of providing communications services.
During the past decade, however, this has changed. In an age that has seen the introduction of 3G, LTE (Long Term Evolution) and other great innovations, many operators have chosen to appoint a vendor to manage either the new technology or the legacy technology. To stand out from the competition, operators need to focus on finding new ways of driving business innovation and improving quality of experience for their customers. In order to achieve these goals, Ericsson is pioneering the development of the Experience Centric Managed Services model, which offers operators benefits such as continuous service improvement, reduced time to market, access to technical competence, and a shared focus on user experience.
The end result is satisfied users, lower subscriber churn rates, higher average revenue per user and a more cost-efficient operation. Magnus Mandersson, executive vice president and head of Business Unit Global Services, says: “We’re very proud to have passed the 1 billion subscriber milestone, as this confirms our leadership in managed services. We achieved this goal by earning the trust of our customers with our high-performance operations and processes and our skilled people, which are at the heart of Ericsson’s services business. This milestone is just one of many on the journey we have undertaken. The next step is to make the transition from traditional managed services to Experience Centric Managed Services.”
