Qualex Consulting Services

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HOW TO IMPLEMENT A SAS TELECOMMUNICATIONS INTELLIGENCE (TIS) SOLUTION

CONTENTS

1. Summary
2. Introduction
3. The TIS Solution
4. A Typical Environment
5. Consulting and IT Resources Requirements
6. Operator Resources Requirements
7. Project Methodology
8. Conclusions
9. Benefits

SUMMARY

Telecommunications operators are faced with serious global competition in their mobile telephony market. Understanding, managing, growing and retaining its customers are some of the key components critical for their success in the coming years. A Telecomm operator may be interested in developing an IT solution framework to address customer retention, sales and payment risk issues. The operator should understand that process improvements are necessary to create the appropriate environment to deploy this type of application in such way that it helps the Operator reach its growth expectations and achieve its marketing and revenue goals in its competitive environment. Within this framework, this paper describes critical assumptions, the project management methodology, resources needed to implement this solution and unique knowledge acquired during a TIS implementation project.

INTRODUCTION

A TIS project may have several objectives:

• Address operator competitive needs;
• Maximize the utilization of the SAS/TIS standard functionality & maintain independence; 
• Execute on the global vision and roadmap for the IT evolution at the operator;
• Use available qualified resources from operator parent company.  

Issues

Customer Retention: Like every telecommunications operator, the operator is faced with a monthly churn rate for postpaid, hybrid and pre-paid customers. This translates into a revenue loss for the company. The operator may decide to focus its attention on better customer management through retention practices. Churn is one of the largest issues every telephone company faces and the ability to understand and forecast likely churn candidates is critical for revenue management.

Cross/Up Sell: An effective method to manage a growing customer base is the ability to understand the increasing and new needs of customers through past interactions with them. The operator may decide to view its ability to cross-sell and up-sell products depending on the customer need as one of its key business drivers. This is a natural progression from the ability to forecast potential Churn candidates. The operator may be studying usage patterns and payment profiles, among other factors to be in a position to sell additional products to its customers.

Payment Risk: The availability of new services and the easy access to competition may have put a strain on the operator to ensure a healthy customer base by attracting the ‘good’ customers. The operator may recognize this potential issue and identify, as another key issue, the need to understand the credit worthiness of customers. The ability to understand the credit worthiness of an existing customer as well as a potential new prospect is critical to the management of revenue for the operator.

SAS TIS SOLUTION

SAS provides software modules to address these business issues:

SAS® Customer Retention for Telecommunications

• Telecommunications-specific data architecture (Churn Model Datamart) called Customer Retention Analytical Base Table – ABT.
• Ready-to-deploy Analytical model (Based on ABT)
• Reports on who is leaving the company and to predict who is likely to churn in the near future (Churn Lists).
• Insights into the major factors influencing the decision to leave.
• Pre-built analytical data and process.
• Pre-built ETL process from SAS TIS Infrastructure to Churn ABT.
• Churn Retention Ready-to-deploy OLAP Cube.

SAS® Cross-Sell and Up-Sell for Telecommunications

• Telecommunications-specific data architecture (Cross/Up Sell Model Datamart) called Cross/Up Sell Analytical Base Table – ABT.
• Ready-to-deploy Analytical model (Based on ABT)
• A market basket analysis predictive model.
• Customer loyalty program analysis and reporting.
• Channel effectiveness analysis and reporting.
• Billed call behavior analysis and reporting.
• Unbilled call behavior analysis and reporting.
• Pre-built ETL process from SAS TIS Infrastructure to Cross/Up Sell ABT.
• Cross/Up Sell Ready-to-deploy OLAP Cube.

SAS® Payment Risk for Telecommunications

• SAS Payment Risk for Telecommunications includes:
• Telecommunications-specific data architecture (Payment Risk Model Datamart) called Payment Risk Analytical Base Table – ABT.
• Ready-to-deploy Analytical model (Based on ABT)
• Credit scoring predictive models.
• Billed call behavior analysis and reporting.
• Unbilled call behavior analysis and reporting.
• Pre-built ETL process from SAS TIS Infrastructure to Payment Risk ABT.
• Payment Risk Ready-to-deploy OLAP Cube.

The expectation should be that implementing these SAS TIS solutions would provide a more systematic customer focused marketing approach, improved revenue streams, sustained customer growth and information architecture for expanded growth. The expected growth derived from the use of these solutions should not only drive improved revenue but also assist in retaining a large share of the existing customer base at the operator. Therefore, to meet its growth expectations and achieve its marketing and revenue goals, the operator may decide to develop a robust Business Intelligence process to provide improvement in three key areas: Customer retention, Cross/up sell and Payments risk.

A TYPICAL ENVIRONMENT

Hardware

In relation to the development and implementation of these solutions, the typical technical environment consists of a Data Warehouse environment. This data warehouse may run over several machines. The physical data warehouse is probably already built. The data warehouse is utilized as the central repository of data within the operator. The data warehouse is also the source for most upstream business intelligence solutions.

Data Sources

The data needed for the implementation of these solutions are:

· Customer, Contract, Account, Services, Plan data;

· Call detail records (CDR’s) for pre-paid and post-paid customers;

· Disconnection, Credit, Payment information (current and historical).

Most of the data for this type of a project are accessed from the existing Data Warehouse. In many instances, more than 80% of the data exists for the development and implementation of these solutions. Any missing data are reported to Operator’s IT and Operator’s IT in turn evaluates the best way to add this data to the data warehouse.

During a typical implementation, several roles and the corresponding responsibilities are staffed by the consultants, IT and Operator staff.  As the project team is formed, some roles are grouped or ungrouped depending on resource availability, delivery timeline, etc.  In addition to regular staffing, a steering committee is created to support the team and provide guidance and further direction.

There are several requirements specific to this project.  An IT requirement may be to utilize the existing data warehouse as the source for the development and implementation of BI solutions.  The project may include a mixed composition of resources to maximize value and minimize cost.  Table 1 shows how to allocate mixed resources in a TIS implementation project

Table 1.  SAS TIS Activity Allocation

Activity	Qualex	IT
Project management	X
General and detailed specifications	X
Model implementation in DWH		X
ETL implementation		X
SAS Implementation	X
Global integration	X
Acceptance (testing)		X
Architecture		X
Documentation, Training	X

CONSULTING AND IT RESOURCES REQUIREMENTS

Project Manager.  The PM understands the project requirements and ensures they are thoroughly and unambiguously documented in all of the following ways: 

• Prepares a project plan with achievable cost, schedule, and performance goals with input and support from technical, business, or domain counterparts.
• Identifies and manages project risks throughout the project life cycle.
• Works with consultant, IT management and Operator Project Manager to ensure the project team is well organized, adequately staffed, and working well together.
• Exercises proper project and change control procedures to manage project cost, schedule, requirements, and design baselines so they are traceable.
• Reports meaningful metrics for cost, schedule, quality and risk.
• Conducted regular reviews of status, requirements, and design. 
• Ensures the adequacy of technical documentation and quality management activities.
• Maintains meaningful communications among internal and external project stakeholders.
• Manages the project to attain the project goals and achieve stakeholder satisfaction.
• Tracks project time accurately.
• Tracks project related expenses accurately and report in a timely fashion.
• Strives for on-time, on-budget, and high-quality implementations.

Solution Architect / ETL Developer / Technical Lead

The Solution Architect / ETL Developer / Technical Lead is responsible for the following duties:

• Responsible for designing, developing, testing and Documenting Data Acquisition ETL.
• Responsible to design, construct, test, Document Data Management Processes, Installations.
• Responsible to provide guidance/prepare/validate Solution, Data  Architecture.
• Develops system design requirements from business requirements.
• Analyzes requirements and perform architectural and detailed design of the system.
• Provides work status and notice of quality management activities to the project manager.
• Works with project manager to define and refine project tasks/estimates for during the project. 
• Provides technical guidance for project team members.
• Gathers status info from team members and communicate it to the project manager. 
• Informs project manager of problems that affect schedule, quality, and cost. 
• Keeps up to date on technology. 
• To the extent possible, replicates the customer environment and helps set up the development and test environments. 
• Plans, reviews, and publicizes standards to be followed within the project team. 
• Ensures that quality management activities are scheduled and performed at the appropriate stages. 
• Defines, assigns and supervises the work of development staff if any (not necessarily the staff itself). 
• Serves as task integrator, ensures that components developed by individuals integrate seamlessly through planning, uses standards, naming conventions, and having a central location for documentation for access by all project team members. 
• Sets up development and test environments and establishes software configuration management practices for software modules.
• Ensures that changes in any module are evaluated to ensure compatibility across all modules. 
• Provides documentation regarding technical issues such as design specifications and system administration. 
• Sets the agenda for and facilitates technical meetings.

SAS/TIS Implementation Specialist.  This SAS TIS specialist provides expertise in SAS/TIS Solutions. This individual is adept at the specific solution and is aware of the intricacies of the TIS architecture. This individual provides the entire team with the TIS specific knowledge, i.e. the data fields that need to be populated, what fields are required for the analytic models, what fields are required for reporting, among others things. This person plays an integral role in providing TIS specific knowledge to the entire project team.

Product Specialist (includes Analytical Experts, Web Experts,  Generalist SAS Programmer. The product specialists include Analytic consultants who are specialized in the development and implementation of analytic models using relevant SAS technology. These specialists also include scorecard developers based on the needs that are uncovered during requirements. They also include web delivery experts and general SAS programmers.  These professionals:

• Code software units according to standards and conventions. 
• Develop and execute unit, acceptance, system and integration test plans.
• Conduct code and GUI walk-throughs and other quality reviews. 
• Prepare user and system documentation, track time accurately via timesheets.  T
• rack project related expenses accurately and report them in a timely fashion. 
• Strive for on time, on budget, high quality implementation. 
• Provide level of effort for tasks and adhere to estimates. 
• Provide project manager with timely status reporting as well as immediate notification of any discoveries that will affect the project’s cost or schedule or increase the project’s risk factors

Technical Writer / Documentation Specialist:  These professionals supplement the project with necessary technical writing skill, proof read, review and correct documentation written by developers, technical lead, or the project manager.  They take ownership of document creation, formatting as well as implement document writing and control standards.  They ensure all technical documents meet documentation standards and are appropriately trademarked, all the while acting in close association with the technical lead and the project manager.

Domain Business Consultant: This person acts as the liaison between the technical team and Operator. This person aids the Solution Architect in ensuring the business objectives have been incorporated into the solution implementation process. This is the person who has business knowledge of the mobile telecom industry and is able to provide guidance to the team. This person is involved in requirements gathering and analysis.

Trainer: This individual prepares the necessary training material and trains the Operator’s Business Team in the usage of the application.

Testers:  These individuals are non-technical testers of the system and aid in the system and functional testing of the application.

OPERATOR RESOURCES REQUIREMENTS

Project Sponsor: The sponsor is the individual who finances or gains finances for the SAS TIS project.  He/she is the single point of contact for funding issues and strategic focus.

Project Manager:  the PM maintains direct accountability for all tasks related to defining, designing, building, testing and deploying of the system.  They are responsible for directing all project-related resources and vendor resources.  They ensure effective execution of the project plan.

Business Personnel, Business Process Owners/ Data Stewards.  They are the “content experts” on specific solution needs. They maintain an ongoing (daily) dialogue with the IT Business Analyst. They contribute to the drafting of requirements, review of technical specifications and development of test plans as well as being responsible for addressing the business needs, defining the business rules and identifying the data sources that need to be incorporated into the information architecture.

IT Personnel for related systems.  The “data expert” on the topic/function being addressed contributes to drafting of requirements, reviews of technical specifications and development of test plans.

System Administrator(s).  She/he maintains and manages the system.  He/she works in conjunction with the consulting team and tech lead to understand the development process and technology.

Corporate Trainer.  The trainer manages training sessions on all applications.

Process Expert.  Process experts analyze business processes and provide direction on how to incorporate new advantages into existing environments.  Process experts share best practices with other units.

PROJECT METHODOLOGY

Initial Assessment

An initial assessment is conducted to generate a clearer picture of the operator environment.  A special focus is given to data.   The consultant obtains sample data from Operator.  Consultants and IT assess the data for completeness and cleanliness.  Specifically, the Consultant review the data to determine if it is appropriately clean for analysis and reporting and for overall data integrity.  At the completion of this activity, the Data Assessment Document (DAD) is created to detail the results of the data review and provide recommendations for improvement.  The project plan is refined using the information gathered at the preliminary assessment.

Project Kickoff

Consultant and IT facilitate a Project Kickoff meeting.  During this meeting with the Operator, the joint team makes introductions and outlines roles & responsibilities.  They also take the opportunity to review any information that is gathered during the assessment process, including any assessment documents or proposals. As this is the first official meeting for the project, the team discusses HQ and Qualex’s Project Management Methodology and its key components, such as the accepted approach for Change Management and Risk Mitigation.  Consultant and IT draft a Communications Plan, for their own part of the implementation that should be followed throughout the project.

A review of the Project Roadmap and preliminary project plans provides the opportunity for the participants to understand the implementation approach, approximate timeframes for the key activities, as well as identify resources that are expected for a successful implementation.

Finally, Consultant and/or IT provides direction for Operator to prepare for the detailed Requirements sessions that follow in the next phase.  Consultant and/or IT completes the internal preparations for the project and creates the Project Definition Document (PDD) that will capture the information that is gathered during the Kickoff.

A Steering Committee to include senior management from Consultant, Operator and Operator IT is created with the following functions:

• Key decision taking
• General status present
• Risks and Mitigation plan presented and validated
• Business strategic decision presented and validated: schedule, migration scope, priorities, business evaluation, technical evaluation
• Final system acceptance and validation
• Three documents are produced:
• Assessment Analysis
• Hardware Recommendations
• Implementation Proposal

Requirements Gathering – Business and Application Requirements

During the requirements phase, workshops are held on-site so that participants can work together to identify and validate the detailed business and technical requirements for the system.

Data Requirements

Requirements for the data warehouse and data sources are gathered. Consultants review the data for the preparation of the base data model.  ETL business rules used to populate the data model are also discussed at this point with the IT Team.  Data filters are discussed and defined, as well as the required elements, defaults, and layouts.

Analytic Options

Operator stakeholders regroup to define the final requirements for analytics.  Consultants review the outcomes intended from the analytic models and identify the class, dependant and independent variables necessary to create the final analytic models. As modeling is a repetitive process, there is need to access data at this stage by the analytic consultant so as to gauge the variable strength and get an idea of any additional variables to use in the models.

Reporting Options

Operator stakeholders review reports in the TIS modules as well as the reporting needs from the data mart and/or from the analytic models. Report layouts are documented by consultants.  Tables and variables that are necessary for the reports are documented as well. A gap analysis is performed to ensure that data is available to create the necessary reports using Futrix.

Requirements Review and System Design

At the start of this phase, the Operator reviews the SRS and DAD to establish the final project scope.  They identify the scope exceptions and seeks consensus on requirements that are not be supported by this phase of the project due to priority, timing, or data availability.  This allows the Consultants to focus their design efforts only on those items which are in scope and that have documented requirements. Following are the other key areas that the Consultants focus on during the Design phase.

Data Warehouse and Data Marts

Consultants begin work to map data sources to the system data tables and create a data model. They then design ETL business rules needed to populate the TIS model.

Analysis Options

The analytic models and reports are also reviewed based on the required outcome of these models and what business problems they intend to solve. The reports are re-designed from the data available in the data sources and the analytic models are adjusted. Work Products that are used during this phase of the project include:

• Project timeline (milestone list)
• System Design Document (SDD)
• Hardware installation report
• Update project plan

ETL Phase - Extract, Transformation, and Load of data

This activity includes extracting the source data from the source systems and transforming the data per the requirements specifications. The data refresh process is built, as well as the backup/recovery and archive processes.  A job scheduling is created to support any batch processes and reports. Work Products used during this phase of the project include:

• Data model/dictionary
• Updated business rules (amended in the SDD)
• Updated Project Plan

SAS/TIS Application Deployment

In this phase, the construction allows for the development of individual data mart. The initial data mart is specific to the customer retention issue. The data mart analytic models and reports are developed during this phase. The application and user interfaces, along with the necessary security components, are also installed in this phase. As development continues for all areas of this phase, unit and integration testing occurs. Work Products used during this phase of the project include:

• Developed data mart, analytic model(s), report(s), User Interface with security
• System Test Plans
• Completion of unit and Integration testing
• Updated Project Plan
• VPN Access

Final SAS/TIS  Test and Deployment Phase

Installation of the SAS/TIS Solution onto the designated hardware platform happens during the Delivery and Implementation Phase. The Operator obtains and installs the server.  The server is staged two weeks prior to the start of this phase. Consultants perform testing across the Solution, including data testing, system testing, performance testing and tuning in compliance with requirements.  The Operator is involved with User Acceptance testing as defined by the Test Plans they have created. IT and Consultants also work to complete the system-related documentation to be delivered to the Operator. This includes a User Guide and System Administration document. Work Products used during this phase of the project include:

• User, System Admin document
• Installation Guide
• Updated Project Plan

Knowledge Transfer / Training Phase

Consultant assists the Operator in the coordination of knowledge transfer sessions. These transfer sessions are detailed in the project timeline. The Operator decides who will be required at these sessions. Knowledge Transfer is done with the End Users and Advanced End Users together and then in separate sessions with the system administration personnel. Work Products used during this phase of the project include:

• Knowledge Transfer Sessions
• End Users
• Administrators

What Training is Required?

There are many training options available for users or administrators of the system.  These options are discussed during the requirements workshops and the Operator should be prepared to identify the resources that would require training.  The Consultants develop training plans and integrate them into the Project Plan.  Training also occurs in the form of informal knowledge transfer during the project, formal classroom training or on-site and through documentation.  User groups are separated into the following groups:

End Users – these users use the web interface to perform reporting and analysis by creating different views of the data. Some more basic users may choose to only access published reports.  The End Users typically make up the largest user group.

Advanced Analysis Users – this group of users include individuals that have a thorough understanding of the data in an unstructured format and who also have experience or interest in statistical analysis and reporting.  This is usually a much smaller group of users.  These users access Advanced Analysis Tools through a client application installed on their desktop.

System Administrators and IT Support – These individuals have responsibility for maintaining the final System.   The operator may have additional requirements to comply with governance guidelines from the entire group. 

CONCLUSIONS

Clear definition of roles and responsibilities are critical to keep a SAS TIS implementation project on time and within budget. The team should try to maximize the utilization of the functionality and the technological mechanisms offered by SAS.  The team should modify the basic solution only in exceptional cases. In this way the team improves significantly the system performance, simplifies the future evolution of the system due to version changes of the base product, facilitates the incorporation of new functionalities included in future product versions and prepares the transition to subsequent phases where  the team would be adding new functional modules and elements of technical integration.

The team should keep in mind the global vision of the operator as well as the final targets.  For this purpose, the team should think of a solution for this type of project, maximizing the utilization of the different developments that may be undertaken in the future. 

The combination of local resources from Operator and external resources provide a great pool of technical talent. The combined team provides an ample group of consultants with great experience in Telecommunication operators. 

In summary -- the presence of integrators will provide noticeable benefits by:

· Avoiding complete dependency upon a single vendor;

· Keeping operator’s data warehouse as central and strategic in customer knowledge and data storage;

· Reducing consultancy expenses in the future;

· Reducing cost of implementation by modifying Architecture & renegotiating consultancy cost;

· Using tools recommended at HQ Group level.

PROJECT BENEFITS

Retention Module

• Operator can predict churn propensity into the subscriber base;
• Operator can Identify churn’s key indicators;
• Operator’s subscribers can be effectively targeted with proactive retention campaigns, prior to churn.

Up&Cross Sell Module

• Customers with high probability of buying specific products can be identified and their information updated at the front-office level, giving the possibility to convert each customer contact in a sale opportunity;
• Increase of ARPU by offering “best fit” product to customer, using Cross-sell (New product offering for target people) or Up-sell (upgrade offers for the customer);
• Generates information on ideal Bundles for each customer Profile;
• Can be used to generate the “next best product” for each customer.

Payment Risk Module

Operator can:

• Calculate current and potential revenue at risk;
• Identify key indicator for profiles with payment defaults and bad debts;
• Make Suspension analysis;
• Optimize Collection process;
• Use Credit Scoring and Behavior Scoring of our customer base to define profiles with risk;
• “Open” access for post-paid customer with controlled risk;
• Increase revenue proposing an increase of service packages to customers with the right profile;
• Perform up & cross sell with controlled risk.

About Qualex Consulting Services, Inc.

Qualex has been helping SAS Customer integrate solutions for more than 15 years.  Qualex has established itself as one of the most sought after SAS consulting organizations and was recognized by SAS^® as the leading SAS reseller in 2006 and a premier SAS consulting organization.  Qualex has been a member of the SAS Alliance as a Gold Member for 10 years.

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Al Cordoba, Vice President
Qualex Consulting Services, Inc.
Office Phone: +1-305-767-2090

Mobile: 786-371-4884
Fax: 305-576-4866
Website: www.qlx.com
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15 Years of Experience integrating SAS Software

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