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MTS drives transformation with cloud

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Value creation in enabling varied business models and enhancing agility of business is what primarily drives technology leadership in any environment.

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MTS also boasts of doing absolutely the same as Rajiv Batra, CIO, MTS, says: "At MTS, we integrate with business through 2 distinct processes-a structured methodology to enable businessas-usual, which inherently needs strong planning and control, and an unstructured methodology to enable disruptive innovation which inherently demands flexibility and experimentation."

This has surely done wonders for the company as it led to a number of firsts in the marketplace for MTS, including market shaping initiatives

such as ½ paisa tariffs, deep subscriber analytics for close to real-time campaigns, and cloud offerings that are generations ahead of

competitive offerings.

There are a number of other initiatives that are carried out in both the streams for control, operating efficiencies, and ensuring continued

business alignment.

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Zeroing in on the Right Solution

These include ‘Functional Days', wherein IT experts from multiple technology streams (IN, VAS, CCT, BSS, MIS, etc) spend an entire week with an identified business function (such as sales, marketing, finance,etc) to address their short-term and

long-term needs.

Leveraging on this strategy, another feather was added to the hat when BSS stack on the cloud was built-the first ever done by any operator.

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Thrust from marketing to offering its partners the ability to white label MTS data card dongles to deliver in the marketplace was the main driver for this innovation.

It wanted to see other customers who can use the resilience of the solutions. Since the brand was new, it needed multi-tenant, effective,

and reliable solution built in-house.

 

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"The main thrust came from marketing. We wanted to see other customers who can use the resilience of the solutions we are providing. Since our brand was new, we needed more volumes and market. So, this project came into being."informs Batra.

To maintain their legacy of innovating and transforming the telecom domain with their own inhouse built products and solutions, MTS decided to create a BSS stack on cloud with the help of their tech team.

Cloud gave it a multiple tenancy which helped to cater to multiple service providers. So, it was obvious for them to take the BSS stack over

cloud.

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The Transformer-On-Cloud BSS Stack

The technology team at MTS has designed and implemented the firstever BSS stack on the cloud.

They designed, architected, in-built, and implemented this solution for their customers ranging from telcos to FMCG companies,retail etc.

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Compliance to partners' information security requirement and integration with their systems for seamless operations was the primary challenge.

However it was overcome in short duration with ‘no error approach' followed by our project management team, adds Batra.The project initiation took 2 years, whereas the MTS tech team took 1 year to built it after that.

"This offering is used to offer our partners the ability to white label MTS data card dongles to deliver in the marketplace. This was a cross

functional project that included over 30 people across the organization from legal, finance, network, marketing, etc," says Batra.

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IT function managed the entire business deal construct life cycle from visioning to contract negotiation to SLA creation to commercial launch.

"Our home grown BSS stack has been re-architected for multi-tenancy with key components being optimized for effective ROI. The core telecom elements like HLR, VLR, online charging, PDSN, AAA, RAN AAA, and mediation will be shared," he adds.

 

Multi-tenancy was achieved by introducing middleware, utilizing the multi threads and processes at application layer and providing customizable interfaces to each partner.

Almost all the modules used by inhouse developed system like CRM, provisioning, rating and billing, mediation, MIS, e-Flow manager, e-recharge, SMS Engine had to be redesigned to use multiple threads and processes and were segregated for common and specific partner

activities.

Additionally, the user interface was also enhanced substantially to integrate role based access and a user-friendly experience without

compromising on data privacy and security.

How it Helps...

Since the thrust was from marketing for such kind of a solution; this initiative empowered the business with additional marketing channels

through partners to increase the penetration of white labeled MTS dongles in the market, while at the same time offers considerable cost

benefits compared to individually using different systems for partners.

"This re-architected system has reduced the time taken for setup of a new infrastructure for partners from 6-9 months to about 1.5-2 months.

This has quicker ‘revenue turnaround' both for us and our partners."

This re-architected system has reduced the time taken for setup of a new infrastructure for partners from 6 months to about 1.5 months.

"All that is required is customization specific for the partner and the white labeled data offering will be ready for launch in the market,"

adds Batra.

Standardized architecture reduces the performance tuning, planning and operations overhead for partners and lowers the set up cost. These

provide a pre-fabricated platform for jump starting operations to partners and in turn provide quality service to customers.

 

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