The Golden Touch of Data Assets: Precision Operation
In 2011, China Unicom, Huawei’s honorable client, illustrated and carried out "WO+ Open System", the new strategy of China Unicom on mobile internet with 4 open platforms (Social-Life Open Platform, Omni-media Open Platform, Sharable-Broadcast Open Platform and Intelligent-Communication Open Platform).
To drive revenue growth by delivering various services to different users and by cooperating with more than 100 third parties, China Unicom closely discussed with Huawei on the ways of enhancing customer segmentation, product introduction and traffic management capabilities. In order to achieve business target, China Unicom adopted Huawei’s Value Growth Solution (VGS) to build Precision Operation Platform.
BUSINESS CHALLENGES TO PROMOTE AND DELIVER PERSONALIZED SERVICES
In 2005, China Unicom's non-voice revenue ratio was 17%. While in 2010, with the rapid increase of data traffic and reduction of voice traffic, China Unicom found that non-voice revenue climbed up to 31%. In other words, the non-voice revenue doubled in 5 years. From observation of China and global telecom markets, China Unicom came to conclusion that telecom market had shifted from voice era to data era.
To be competitive in data era, China Unicom defined the new operation strategies in 2011 including switching to strategy focus more on mobile internet, opening the system for cooperation to satisfy versatile demands of end users, and putting top 1 priority on customer experience which requires rapid business deployment, flexible business model, end-to-end QoE (quality of experience) assurance, and precision operation.
But when China Unicom planned to deliver more services with shorter time-to-market and cooperate with more 3rd-parties, China Unicom encountered many challenges.
- Data could not be converged to generate a 360 degree and centralized user profile.
- Data could not be classified to generate customer insight and refined customer segments.
- Data and capabilities could not be shared and utilized by service individual perspectives.
In order to carry out the new strategy on mobile internet, China Unicom expected to have a Precision Operation Platform to achieve following two main goals, shifting operation from product-centric to customer-centric.
From functionalities perspective, China Unicom’s Precision Operation Platform analyzes huge amount of data to gain user insight and perform user segmentation, which aids in developing targeted marketing activities based on user context, and aids in recommending services, products, packages and advertisements based on user preferences.
It also captures information in real time, and then triggers marketing campaigns that are based on specified triggering/filtering rules. This ensures marketing efforts are targeted by giving customers the best experience at the right time through the most appropriate channels.
Moreover, it monitors marketing campaign performance, e.g. success rate, response rate, subscribe rate, complaint rate, etc, so that it helps China Unicom to review and evaluate marketing strategies.
From network architecture’s perspective, Precision Operation Platform has Data Collection and Sharing Center which acts as data repository responsible for real-time data collection from various network nodes, and user profile data collection from VAS, BSS, OSS, OA, and DM systems.
It also has User Data Mining Center which acts as smart analysis layer responsible for user data analytics and profiling based on many customer attributes. Using paralleled, streamed and distributed computing technology, User Data Mining Center provides detailed analysis of network traffic, and makes informed decisions to enhance operational efficiency.
Last but not the least, the Precision Operation Platform has Marketing Management Center which acts as smart operation layer responsible for marketing strategy management, strategy execution (distributing to various channels, e.g. SMS, mobile client, website, WAP, etc.), strategy evaluation, and case accumulation.
THE GOLDEN TOUCH OF DATA ASSESTS
China Unicom launched Precision Operation Platform in Guangdong Province in Nov 2011. Precision Operation Platform helped China Unicom to carry out the new strategy on mobile internet, connecting to the following 4 open platforms of "WO+ Open System":
- Social-Life Open Platform
- Omni-media Open Platform
- Sharable-Broadcast Open Platform
- Intelligent-Communication Open Platform
Take mobile games promotion as an example, the number of advertising SMS sent decreased from 160,000 to 17,000 per campaign. This targeted outreach generated an increase in response rate from 0.6% to 11%. Daily downloads per mobile game increased from 105 to 460.
So far, Precision Operation Platform covers 80% of the websites with 273 categories. It identifies 121 categories of key words, and 644 types of mobiles. Moreover, it could scale to consider above 1000 meaningful user segmentations based on tags and profile characteristics, so as to carry out precise marketing, increase operation effectiveness and at the same time improve customer experience.
As a summary, Precision Operation Platform based on Huawei’s Value Growth Solution (VGS), adapted to TM Forum eTOM/SID standard and provided following three core capabilities for China Unicom to enhance their smart operation, realize customer-centric operation, and increase traffic income as the golden touch of data assets:
1. Centralizing BSS/OSS and network KPI information, Precision Operation Platform visualizes common data segmented by user, traffic, income, content, tariff, terminal, location, etc. to facilitate business strategy formulation.
2. Characterizing users in fine-grained, following internet trends closely, Precision Operation Platform targets appropriate customer segments increasing precise marketing capability.
3. Analyzing big data, processing natural language, Precision Operation Platform drives new service revenue and business models on the basis of real-time, open and cloud-based data service integrated architecture.
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