Future Telco Profits Will Depend on Emerging CEM Tools, Heavy Reading Reports

NEW YORK, Feb. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Network operators will increasingly have to rely on customer experience management (CEM) initiatives to maximize subscriber retention and service profitability, a development that will place more importance on ensuring customer satisfaction, rather than just delivering advanced services, according to the latest report from Heavy Reading Services Software Insider (www.lightreading.com/servsoftware), a paid research service of TechWeb's Light Reading (www.lightreading.com).

Beyond CRM: Customer Experience Management identifies and analyzes the new technology ecosystem developing around the CEM concept for network operators. The all-new, 33-page report evaluates the category of customer intelligence (CI) systems emerging in the CEM sector, based on technology used to provide operational intelligence (OI), a branch of business analytics. The report profiles 13 leading suppliers in the emerging network operator CEM market.

For a list of companies analyzed in this report, please see:  http://img.lightreading.com/ssi/pdf/ssi0210_companies.pdf

"CEM covers a wide range of activities and, like all such buzzwords, is very loosely defined at this stage of its development," says Caroline Chappell, research analyst with Heavy Reading Services Software Insider and author of the report. "Telco CEM is primarily focused on the customer experience of services as the operator delivers them. The more an operator understands about the customer's experience as it occurs, the more it can align the customer's expectations of that experience with its delivery."

CEM is most critical for operators in mature markets where churn is costly, revenues are flattening, and new technologies and services are having a serious impact on network capacity, Chappell notes. "The quality of the customer experience is seen as key to customer loyalty and willingness to buy additional services," she says. "It will also be a critical consideration for third-party partners using telcos as a channel to market for their services."

Key findings of Beyond CRM: Customer Experience Management include:

• CEM requires an ecosystem of vendors to support the customer experience of the service provider, rather than just the experience of the individual service.
• CEM adoption will be essential for network operators to move beyond their conventional business models and into the emerging Telco 2.0 service environment.
• Early specialists in telco CEM tools will see stiff competition from IT vendors and from big suppliers of analytics tools, such as IBM and SAP.
• Vendors with multiple CEM-related products are struggling to articulate a coherent strategy that ties them together.

Beyond CRM: Customer Experience Management is available as part of an annual single-user subscription (six issues) to Heavy Reading Services Software Insider, priced at $1,595. Individual reports are available for $900 (single-user license).

To subscribe, or for more information, please visit: www.lightreading.com/servsoftware. For more information on all of Light Reading's Insider services, please visit www.lightreading.com/research.

To request a free executive summary of the report, or for details on multi-user licensing options, please contact:

About Light Reading

Founded in 2000, Light Reading (www.lightreading.com) is the leading online media, research, and focused event company serving the $3 trillion worldwide communications market. Lightreading.com is the ultimate source for technological and financial analysis of the communications industry, leading the media sector in terms of traffic, content, and reputation. Light Reading's research arms, Heavy Reading and Pyramid Research, provide the most comprehensive communications research, market data, and technology analysis in close to 100 markets around the world. Light Reading produces nearly 20 targeted communications events including TelcoTV, and TelcoTV Asia, Ethernet Expo New York and Ethernet Europe, and The Tower Summit @ CTIA, as well as focused one-day events tailored for cable, mobile, and wireline executives in the US, Europe, India, and China. Light Reading was acquired by United Business Media in August 2005 and operates as a unit of TechWeb.

About TechWeb

TechWeb (techweb.com/aboutus), the global leader in business technology media, is an innovative business focused on serving the needs of technology decision-makers and marketers worldwide. TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed media brands in the business technology market. Today, more than 13.3 million* business technology professionals actively engage in our communities created around our global face-to-face events Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat and VoiceCon; online resources such as the TechWeb Network, Light Reading, Intelligent Enterprise, InformationWeek.com, bMighty.com, and The Financial Technology Network; and the market leading, award-winning InformationWeek, TechNet Magazine, MSDN Magazine, Wall Street & Technology magazines. TechWeb also provides end-to-end services ranging from next-generation performance marketing, integrated media, research, and analyst services. TechWeb is a division of United Business Media, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

* 13.3 million business decision-makers: based on # of monthly connections

About United Business Media Limited

UBM (UBM.L) focuses on two principal activities: worldwide information distribution, targeting and monitoring; and, the development and monetization of B2B communities and markets. UBM's businesses inform markets and serve professional commercial communities – from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists – with integrated events, online, print and business information products. Our 6,500 staff in more than 30 countries are organized into specialist teams that serve these communities, bringing buyers and sellers together, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently. For more information, go to http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com.

SOURCE Heavy Reading Services Software Insider

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