Cloudera, Inc., the enterprise data cloud company, announced that telcos across Asia are relying on Cloudera to make sense of every bit of data and use real-time insights to make smarter decisions for greater business agility and sustained business growth. By leveraging Cloudera’s cloud-agnostic data management platform, these leading telcos are able to manage their end-to-end data lifecycle, and apply analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to gain a 360 degree view of their customers to reduce churn, improve network performance and drive innovation.

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The rise of 5G and changes in customer behaviour as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have presented telcos with an opportunity to rewire themselves and deliver services beyond their traditional connectivity offerings. GlobalData predicts that Asia Pacific will lead 5G adoption, accounting for 65 per cent of global 5G subscriptions by 2024. However, capturing the opportunities presented by 5G and new customer expectations will require telcos to capture data from new sources, analyse it, and use those insights to optimise their operations and deliver innovative services. To reinvent their data management and analytics strategy in this era of data-driven business, telcos will require a multi-function, open, end-to-end platform that makes it possible to generate the enterprise data insights needed to drive business value across multiple critical use cases.

“As Asia Pacific is expected to lead 5G rollout and adoption, telcos in the region need to have an effective data strategy if they want to truly maximise the value they can get out of 5G,” said Mark Micallef, Vice President of Asia Pacific and Japan, Cloudera. “Telcos are among the largest aggregators of data, and this will continue as 5G-powered applications will lead to an influx of data. However, they are continually challenged by the intricate process of managing and monetising that data effectively. With Cloudera’s full edge-to-AI enterprise data cloud, we’re seeing telcos harness real time insights to accelerate decision-making that increases revenue, and unearths new competitive advantages.”

Cloudera has also recently announced its membership in the TM Forum, a global association that promotes collaboration and digital transformation in the network and communications industries. Cloudera’s participation will focus on the engagement and support of data and AI initiatives as part of Cloudera’s ongoing development and collaboration with telecommunications organisations. In the process, Cloudera will render its expertise in data infrastructure to enable automation and digitalisation for enterprises. These efforts will eventually inform and drive industry standards in areas such as IoT and Smart Cities.

“Cloudera’s membership of the TM Forum demonstrates their commitment to empowering the industry through data and analytics,” said Aaron Boasman-Patel, Vice President, AI & Customer Experience at the TM Forum. “There are many exciting developments in data and AI, and also many organisational challenges in areas like data and AI governance that Cloudera can help the industry to address. Innovative data-driven solutions, developed in collaboration with service providers and other solution members, can really move us forward to raise the bar for the entire industry.”

Cloudera counts 10 of the top 10 global telcos as customers. In Asia, leading telcos that are using Cloudera’s solutions to achieve business objectives and drive value within the telecommunications industry include China’s three telecom operators, and the following:

LG Uplus – Improving 5G services with real-time customer data analysis
LG Uplus is one of South Korea’s largest telecommunications companies and one of the world’s first few telcos to offer commercial 5G services. On Cloudera’s data platform, it has built a Network Real-time Analysis Platform (NRAP) to collect and analyse hundreds of terabytes of network-related data from its wireless (LTE/5G) and wired (Home/Business) services in real time. With NRAP, LG Uplus can automatically analyse if any customer experiences 5G service lapses, and can quickly identify the root cause to rectify the problem in a timely manner. The Cloudera-powered platform also allows LG Uplus’ data analysts to predict service quality issues to minimise the risk of downtime.

Jin-Soo Jang, Manager of the NMS Development Team at LG Uplus said, “In pursuit of our vision of ‘A Digital Innovator that Brings Joy to Customers’ Daily Lives’, LG Uplus became the world’s first telecommunication company to launch 5G services to respond to the evolving needs of customers. By building NRAP with Cloudera, we were able to gain confidence in using and analysing data. This enabled us to improve operational efficiency and provide fast and reliable 5G services, thereby reducing network operating costs and increasing customer satisfaction.”

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Robi Axiata Limited – Adopting enterprise-wide AI to enhance the customer experience
Robi Axiata is Bangladesh’s second-largest mobile network operator, with over 46.8 million subscribers. It created an effective data lake by combining Cloudera’s data platform with Cloudera Data Science Workbench (CDSW) to provide more personalised services. The data lake stores all network and customer business data, as well as integrates third-party data such as Facebook and Twitter feeds, market insights, as well as customer internet footprint from advertising agencies. The move enabled Robi’s data science teams to develop and tune machine learning models using nearly 20TB accurate data on a daily basis in order to improve business outcomes and eliminate operational challenges across multiple domains and use cases. Based on some of the use case deployments, the company expects to see a 4% improvement in customer churn, an 8% rise in upsell recommendations, and over 5% improvement in quality acquisition.

“Cloudera’s data platform with CDSW is the best combination for any organisation planning to build a collaborative data science environment,” Mamun Bin Shaheed, Vice President, Enterprise Data Warehouse & Analytics, Robi Axiata Limited. “Even though we started out with three use cases, our roadmap to analytics covers all areas of our operations. We see Cloudera bringing together an ultimate solution that enables us to make informed decisions to enrich customer experience and help us become the country’s most preferred telecom service provider.”

Telkomsel – Creating a single source of truth to support enterprise-wide data-driven decision making
Telkomsel, Indonesia’s largest and leading digital telecommunications operator, serves over 164 million customers and aspires to be a world-class trusted provider of mobile digital lifestyle services and solutions. Faced with data deluge due to consumers’ increased reliance on their mobile phones, Telkomsel first deployed Cloudera’s data platform in 2015 to store and secure its massive amount of data cost-effectively. It then proceeded to integrate data from various departments using Cloudera’s data platform over the years, such that it now has a single source of truth. This enables Telkomsel to gain valuable customer and network insights that can drive improvements to the customer experience. Additionally, Cloudera’s data platform allows the telco to use analytics and machine learning to better understand its customers’ sentiment and preferences, which help it to offer customised offers on its mobile app.

“The key to achieving sustainable growth in today’s competitive landscape lies in our ability to broaden and deepen customer relationships,” said Tina Lusiana, Vice President of Business Intelligence and Analytics at Telkomsel. “With the support of a reliable partner, such as Cloudera, Telkomsel has increased its capabilities to harness the massive amount of data and gain a better understanding of our customers. Now, we are able to confidently expand our service offerings and deliver more compelling and personalised customer experience.”

XL Axiata – Achieving data democratisation with AI-based self-service analytics to drive insights-based decision making
PT XL Axiata Tbk. (XL) is one of the leading mobile service providers in Indonesia, with nearly 57 million subscribers. The company offers a range of data, voice, SMS, and other digital services to both retail customers and businesses across Indonesia. To foster a data-driven culture, it relies on qbo Insights – an AI-based self-service conversational tool from Unscrambl (Cloudera’s partner) powered by Cloudera’s data platform – to democratise data and make decisions based on insights. Users can ask the tool business-related questions (such as revenue, number of customers, usage and consumption) in English and get the insights they need within five to 60 seconds, depending on the complexity of the questions. They can also perform factor analysis in seconds due to an algorithm based on machine learning and AI technologies. Additionally, they can be assured that the insights provided by the tool are accurate as Cloudera’s data platform consolidates data across the organisation to provide a single source of truth.

“Thanks to Unscrambl and Cloudera, we’re now a step closer to achieving our vision of becoming Indonesian consumers’ most preferred provider of data connectivity with high integrity,” said David Arcelus, Chief Commercial Officer, XL Axiata. “The new tool plays a key role in fostering a data-driven culture in our organisation as it allows even non-technical users to utilise self-service analytics and make insights-based decisions quickly. With the time saved from having to generate ad-hoc reports and the actionable insights gained, we can spend more time on revenue-generating efforts such as developing more customer-centric services.”

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