Tag: network assurance

The value of analytics, automation and AI for telcos Part 1: The telco A3 application map

Getting to grips with A3

Almost every telco is at some stage of trying to apply analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation (A3) across its organisation and extended value network to improve business results, efficiency and organisational agility.

However, most telcos have taken a fairly scatter-gun approach to deploying these three interrelating technologies, with limited alignment or collaboration across different parts of the business. To become more sophisticated in their adoption of A3, telcos need to develop a C-level plan to manage deployments, empower business units supporting A3 to efficiently deploy resources, and create cross-functional implementations of these technologies.

The first report in this two-part report series supports telcos in this aim through a high-level mapping of the application areas which can be developed by a telco. It illustrates the opportunities and forms the foundation of our ongoing research in A3.

In the second part of the series, we estimate the potential financial value of each of the A3 application areas for telcos. The follow up is now available here: A3 for telcos: Mapping the financial value 

This research builds on STL’s previous reports covering telcos’ early efforts in implementing analytics, AI and automation within specific parts of their operations, as well as benchmarking their progress globally:

Introducing the telco A3 application map

The first section of this report goes further into the use of different types of A3 in the Telco A3 applications map. Our analysis focuses in turn on the six types of problems that are being addressed and how automation, analytics and/or AI can provide solutions – and for which types of problems and in which parts of a telco’s business each of these three technologies can have the greatest impact.

Summarising the six types of problems A3 can help with:

  1. Making sense of complex data – using analytics and ML to identify patterns, diagnose problems and predict/prescribe resolutions
  2. Automating processes – where intelligent automation and RPA helps with decision making, orchestration and completing tasks within telco processes
  3. Personalising customer interactions – where analytics and ML can be used to understand customer data, create segmentation, identify triggers and prescribe actions
  4. Supporting business planning – where analytics and ML can be used in forecasting demand and optimising use of existing assets and future investments
  5. Augmenting human capabilities – this is where AI solutions such as natural language processing and text analytics are used to ‘understand’ and act on human intent or sentiment, or surface information to customers and employees more quickly
  6. Frontier AI solutions – cutting edge AI solutions which have specialist uses within a telco, but are not widely adopted yet

Following our analysis of the key application areas, we look at how A3 is used not only for the individual parts of the business illustrated in the map, but how more sophisticated implementations require significant integration and interdependencies between A3 solutions across multiple areas of a telco’s operations.

It should be noted that this two-part series only considers the application of A3 to telcos’ internal operations and we will consider both the external monetisation of such services and their use in telco products in follow-up reports.

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How telcos should use the A3 map

  • Innovation teams within the telco should consider plotting their existing and planned A3 activities on a map such as that shown below
  • This map should be presented to the board and also socialised within IT and support teams such as customer care. It can be used to describe current top-level focus areas and those which are more nascent but considered key in the short and medium-term
  • The map can also be shared with vendor partners and other interested external parties to ensure that they are aware of the company’s priorities.

Table of contents

  • Executive Summary
  • Introduction
  • The A3 problem/solution types
    • Type 1: Complex data uses A3 to conquer size and speed
    • Type 2: Automation to replace or augment human resources
    • Type 3: Personalisation uses algorithms to reveal what’s next
    • Type 4: Bringing optimisation and forecasting into planning
    • Type 5: Augmenting human capabilities focuses on chatbots
    • Type 6: Frontier AI solutions are the leading edge of the A3 future
  • Cross-type applications of A3
    • Concept 1: Sharing data between boxes using a data lake
    • Concept 2: The flow of data across different A3 application areas
  • Appendix 1: Further definition of applications by type
    • Type 1: Making sense of complex data
    • Type 2: Automating processes
    • Type 3: Personalising customer interactions
    • Type 4: Supporting business planning
    • Type 5: Augmenting human capabilities
    • Type 6: Frontier AI solutions
  • Appendix 2

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