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Veridian Systems, the first Romanian Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator (MVNA), announces the completion of the integration of its platform services with Telekom Romania Mobile Communications network and the launch of commercial services for MVNOs.

From now on, Veridian Systems offers to companies from different industries the opportunity to complement their services and products with mobile communications services in order to get new customers and / or to retain existing ones. Veridian offers, to those interested to become Mobile Virtual Network Operators, all functionalities and services in order to provide to their customers mobile communication services.

The commercial launch of Veridian platform brings to Romania a new and innovative business model, which bundle products and services from industries such as retail, banking, energy & utilities, pharma, etc. with mobile services, creating a unique package that bring more value to customers. Among the benefits that this mechanism brings to MVNO companies include the customer fidelity and new customers which will increase the revenue of the main business.

“We can say that the commercial launch of our platform will trigger the convergence between mobile and other industries. Thus, the Romanian mobile market is entering in to a new stage of evolution and development, following the example of Western European countries where MVNOs hold a market share between 10% – 40%. I am confident that the new business model, that bundle products and services from various  industries with their own mobile services, will encourage companies with a significant customers base to take the step to become Mobile Virtual Network Operators in order to retain customers and to generate additional revenue, “said Marian Velicu, CEO of Veridian Systems.

As a novelty for Romania, Veridian Systems offers its customers the possibility to charge the mobile services in RON, eliminating the currency risk for the end users.

For further information:
marketing@veridian.ro

Veridian Systems concluded a MVNA agreement in October, this year with Telekom Romania Mobile Communications S. A. As a result, Veridian Systems could offer a complete range of mobile telephony services, alongside the features of Veridian platform.

Veridian targets especially the companies with big customer’s data base and which wants to add to their offers new services of mobile telephony in order to get new customers and / or to develop loyalty programs for the existing ones. Another important category that Veridian is targeting are those companies with a significantly volume of Machine 2 Machine (M2M) telecommunication needs, so that these may benefit of services and features of mobile telephony at very favorable prices.

Mr. Marian Velicu, Veridian Systems CEO mentioned that “the agreement concluded with Telekom Romania Mobile Communications represents the recognition of all the endeavors made in the last years allowing us to kick off the mobile virtual operators in less than 90 days”.

As an MVNA, Veridian Systems operates as an interface between Mobile Virtual Operators (MVNO) and traditional mobile operators MNO), by facilitating and managing the business relations between them. The Veridian platforms allows the mobile virtual operators to kick off more quickly on the market, without the need to appeal to an expert in telecom, while Telekom România Mobile Communications benefits of an easier partnership with mobile virtual operators.

The team of Veridian Systems is coordinated by Mr. Marian Velicu, one of the leaders of Romanian telecommunication industry, the promoter of developing the mobile virtual operators.

Bucharest, the 23^rd of October, 2015.

The platform offered by Veridian Systems offers the MVNOs all the functionalities needed for them to create their own mobile communication products and services, under their own brand, as well as the tariff plans for prepaid users. Based on such functionalities, the MVNOs may define their own sales and distribution strategy, will have detailed information on the target public and market segments, which they may use to develop efficient marketing, acquisition and loyalty campaigns. Moreover, all the processes related to invoicing, payments, customer and partner management, will be developed easily and in real time.

“Veridian Systems aims to become the main full service provider for all the companies willing to have their own MVNO with the help of an MVNE (Mobile Virtual Network Enabler). We have a turnkey solution, easy to deploy irrespective of the MVNO’s industry. The technical solution is enhanced by complementary services such as before and after launch advisory services and permanent support services. It is the first MVNE solution in Romania and we believe that we will contribute significantly to the development of the local MVNO market”, Marian Velicu, General Manager of Veridian Systems, stated.

Veridian platform is modular, flexible and allows a quick launch of services on the market. It has a redundant, capable and error-tolerant architecture and may be integrated easily, based on standard interfaces, with any mobile operator.

Veridian Platform functions on two layers: a business system and a technological platform. The business system is used by the MVNO for the implementation and monitoring of business processes, while also providing the informational support for the business decisions. The technological platform is managed by Veridian Systems and is used for the technical implementation of the business decisions, assuring the operational management of all the business processes.

By working together with an experienced MVNE, an MVNO reduces the risks related to market entry, as well as the financial, time and human resources invested in obtaining the specific know-how. Furthermore, by hosting an MVNE platform, the MNOs optimize their integration costs for each MVNO.

You may find below a few links to the information published following the announcement regarding the completion of Veridian platform:

http://www.zf.ro/zf-news/lansarea-primului-operator-virtual-mobil-local-interes-exista-dar-discutiile-avanseaza-lent-10878144/poze/

http://economie.hotnews.ro/stiri-telecom-14804242-fost-finalizata-prima-platforma-tip-mvne-din-romania-care-putea-gazdui-primii-operatori-mobili-virtuali-locali.htm

http://www.dailybusiness.ro/stiri-it-c/lansarea-primei-platforme-de-tip-mvne-duce-la-aparitia-operatorilor-mobili-virtuali-locali-89495/

The essential topics covered were:

• Where are the Growth Opportunities for the Global MVNO?
• How Will New Regulation Shape Global Telco Services?
• Unlimited Pricing – Great for the Customer – But What are the Economics for the MVNO?
• Why Every Major Challenger MNO Needs an MVNO
• Creating a Compelling Offering to Approach the MNO – Partnership not Threat
• Quadplay – Why Adding Mobile to the Offering Makes Good Sense
• How Does the MVNO Model Lend Itself to M2M?
• Disrupting the Wireless Industry with a Low-Cost, WiFi-Centric Offering
• What Opportunities Does LTE Throw up for MVNOs and MNOs?
• The impact of OTT on the MVNO market

More details on these topics and approaches may be found here: http://mvnosworldcongress.com/.

One such way is to develop a ready-to-deploy wholesale MVNO strategy.

Such a strategy not only helps MNOs to nurture and build opportunities in new niche market areas, but also helps them to build a more defensive position in the medium- to long-term.

Further, the MVNO route provides an indirect way for MNOs to regain customers that may have churned.

MVNO operations will become more common across the industry; currently, there are around 800 MVNOs registered globally with a subscriber base of around 100 million.

This is expected to reach 185 million by 2015, according to Ovum.

The number of MVNOs will exceed that of MNOs by 2013, according to Wireless Intelligence, while the market will be as big as €31.4 billion by 2016, according to Visiongain.

Western Europe, in particular, has pioneered the MVNO space worldwide and has approximately 357 active MVNOs.

We are likely to see more new MVNO players that have missed out on earlier opportunities enter this booming business and bring their own innovative services to targeted subscriber segments.

This offers specific advantages for the existing MNOs: typically their brand name and customer segment-specific product strategy means that MVNOs are in a strong position to appeal to the niche customers that an MNO is not able to reach, enabling rapid customer acquisition.

For many existing operators, the customisation of an existing business stack to introduce new, innovative services for these new customer segments, via the MVNO route, would call for a substantial change to their existing business processes and IT stack.

In many cases, this may not be practical, due to the complexity of work involved, capex, and the outages required during MVNO launches.

A ready-to-deploy, pre-packaged, wholesale, MVNO platform that can accommodate multiple MVNOs in a single stack will help the MNOs’ objective of acquiring more subscribers with more innovative services at almost zero cost.

The aim is to enable the MNO/MVNE launch services for the MVNO to be fast and to optimise the total cost of ownership.

Investing in a hosted, wholesale MVNO stack – that can support multiple MVNOs – brings significant wholesale traffic volumes from multiple third-party service providers into an MNO’s network.

MVNOs benefit from economies of scale, access to new service platforms, flexible service deployment and the operational simplicity that comes with a wholesale MVNO platform provided by MNO/MVNEs.

MVNOs also help to bring more innovative, value-added services to end users to ensure more ‘stickiness’, brand loyalty and hence reduce overall churn.

In short, the wholesale MVNO platform route ensures higher revenue at a minimal cost for an MNO.

Article written by Santosh Anchan, Wireless BSS solutions Product Manager at Tech Mahindra.

http://www.eurocomms.com/features/opinion/8754-how-mnos-can-build-wholesale-business-opportunities-through-mvnos-

A broad range of operational models were tested, from the lightweight “reseller” MVNO that essentially re-sells minutes/SMSs/data bought from an HNO, through to the “thick” or “full service” MVNO that operates its own customer care, billing system and even parts of the core network.

MVNOs may also be classified according to their customer business model; they concentrate on specific market segments: low-cost, youth, business or ethnic categories.

Reseller MVNOs – they usually have a well known brand and a complex retail infrastructure and focus on sales and on leveraging customer relationships. They resell services on margins, the pricing being agreed with the HNO. They have control over their sales and marketing processes, but they usually differentiate only on pricing, brand identity and value.

The main advantages of this model are its fast time to market, low startup costs and HNO availability to embrace this model as it is not perceived as a real threat to their traditional business, enabling them to enjoy complete control over most of the MVNO’s business processes; furthermore, resellers use HNO/MVNE-provided SIM cards and the HNO maintains all customer details.

Service provider MVNOs – supplementary to the reseller, the service provider MVNOs manage all customer care processes, including the CRM, customer support, self care and billing processes from flexible account lifecycle, complex tariff bundles and packages, voice, data and SMS services. The Service provider model suits businesses with brands or service concepts that differentiate them from existing players

Enhanced Service Providers – in addition to their own billing and customer care processes, enhanced service providers usually have their own infrastructure which allows them to have complete control over their business and service offerings. The enhanced service providers usually run their own value added services platforms such as voicemail, missed call notification, VPN. Having their own infrastructure, MVNOs become serious competitors for HNO in terms of price and service offerings.

Full infrastructure MVNOs- full infrastructure MVNOs have complete control over the operations, data and services launched due to certain core network nodes such as the GMSC (Gateway Mobile Switching Centre) or HLR (Home Location Register). Such MVNOs operate in similar way to any HNO, but without their own radio network. Full infrastructure MVNOs also have their own SMSC (Short Message Service Centre), MMSC (Multimedia Messaging Service) and GGSN (Gateway GPRS Support Node) allowing full control over all the services they offer in the market and flexibility in designing and deploying new services. Full service MVNOs can have their own roaming and interconnect agreements.

In the long term, this business model might benefit all consumers and players in the market. Spectrum shortage has allowed only 3 to 5 mobile service providers to operate with a full infrastructure in a country via an expensive and prolonged licensing process. Using such advanced MVNO business models, competition will develop a healthy climate for everybody and advantages for all those involved: the newcomers, incumbents and, most of all, the end customers. The Full MVNO model suits businesses that aim to totally embrace the telecom opportunity, to differentiate through innovative services, to enhance an existing customer base and to create and grasp new markets.

Up-front challenges
Even though the regulatory environment is increasingly favourable from the strategic point of view, MVNOs are quite vulnerable because they are late entrants in an oversaturated market and small niche players in comparison to incumbents. The list of failed MVNOs is long, demonstrating how challenging and difficult it can be to create a viable MVNO business model.

To be successful, MVNOs must identify profitable niches. On the other hand, if the chosen segments prove to be profitable enough, the host operator may launch its own competitive offer and thus cannibalize the MVNO’s market segment. This reinforces the statement that the most successful MVNO formulas are based on a strong existing brand and a compelling business strategy and not simply a low price offering strategy.

Even with a strong brand and a targeted business model, success for the MVNO is not automatic. As mentioned whilst discussing about MVNO business models, Disney shut down the US MVNO after less than a year of operations, however its second attempt from Japan proved to be very successful. This suggests that customers seek to see real value, not just brand recognition.

By correctly leveraging existing brand, customer base and distribution infrastructure and choosing the right partners the level of success can be impressive as in the case of Virgin Mobile UK, which already outperformed its HNO.

Despite the attractiveness of the mobile industry, the risks and challenges to which MVNOs are exposed even before launching their services intimidate most of the attempters. Such challenges may discourage the ones not experienced in the field. They have to manage and take advantage of a broad area of relationships and alliances, to evaluate and choose the most suitable partners for their business model and to conclude competitive and safe commercial arrangements. Also, they have to deal with challenges such as various restrictions, unfavourable leasing terms, high costs for network usage, uncontrollable service quality, difficulties in channel development, lack of skills and expertise in mobile communications industry.

From a process perspective, the MVNO starts with a network leasing agreement with one or more HNOs and then continues with challenging back-office systems and integration selection process. The MVNO must then design offers and service bundles, develop user interfaces, select handsets and then pass to developing or enhancing their brand and distribution channel. These are only the main steps MVNOs follow on their path from concept to real life and each of these steps has potential obstacles or limiting partnership dependencies.

For the operational part, MVNOs need to partner with individual back office systems/process providers, MVNEs, mobile data platform providers, content providers and handset manufacturers to profitably deliver a differentiated value proposition to their target segments.

In terms of entry barriers, the lack of wireless skills and expertise is key to success. New entrants lack the experience needed to guide them through the different steps of the wireless service delivery chain. MVNOs must focus on combining internal resources, skills and business strengths with those of best-of-breed partners to overcome all known and unknown challenges and risks.

Challenges whilst growing
Economies of scale characteristic to wireless business models represent another great challenge for all MVNOs. Put simply, this means that the business becomes competitive in terms of costs after it expands by decreasing the total cost per unit.

Even after the MVNO becomes a success, however, further challenges appear due to high peak funding as the investments needed after turning cash flow positive remain high.

After MVNO launch, employees have to execute, coordinate, keep track of and monitor the progress and risks of hundreds of interdependent milestones across each level of the wireless service delivery chain. MVNOs that fail to do this in the launch phase could end up suffering from long delays or developing a value proposition that is not differentiated enough to attract customers in their target segments.

MVNOs need to have a worthy story, a source of differentiation and they must strive to secure a network deal at an attractive wholesale rate. Furthermore, they should carefully select their vendors and think of a flexible business model that would enable them to keep pace with the rapidly changing mobile industry. Additionally, they need to have a clear technology roadmap and be prepared for the transition from 3G to 4G and focus on following current trends, keeping pace with technology developments and anticipating future trends.

Most analysts agree that key success factors for MVNOs to keep debt and costs low are to have staff that understand the whole end-to-end process of mobile service delivery or work closely with highly experienced partners. Only the larger and stronger MVNO models are robust enough to justify the significant infrastructure investment of the MVNO.

Key success factors – keep it simple

There are several steps to follow that might increase MVNOs’ chances of success:

• Build a pragmatic and competitive business plan and choose the revenue stream sources carefully (call charges, data usage, applications, advertising, bundling or other service)
• Build an attractive business case for the HNO of choice
• Correctly evaluate the current value of the brand (in case of existing brands) and focus on enhancing it and on finding means to transpose it into new markets
• Choose business executives with strong skills and deep insight into wireless economics, technology and competitors
• Assess the value of your existing customer base and choose the targeted niches carefully based on the segments you already cover and strive to get further insight into these segments in order to be able to differentiate with tailor-made services
• Reduce the costs pertaining to location (rentals), headcounts, acquisition of systems not really required by the present business model etc.
• Build a compelling go-to-market strategy, assess the value of the existing distribution channel for the go-to-market strategy and find the means to diversify and widen it, adapting it to the target customers
• Prepare for Convergence and the Triple Play Market
• Prepare a roadmap for the innovative services to be brought to the market in the coming years and continuously follow and evaluate the latest industry’s trends
• Create an innovative and attractive mix of products and services or embrace a multi-brand concept-tailored offer supported by an adequate infrastructure in affordable price ranges
• Carefully design your business infrastructure:
  • HNO of choice based on careful and empirical evaluation
  • Distribution channel enhancement strategy to support logistics, enabling faster time-to-market
  • Technical infrastructure, from core network systems, SDP through to best-of-breed solutions for BSS/OSS from messaging, voice, data session control, voucher management, real time rating and charging, provisioning, order management, CRM and analytics
  • Best-of-breed partners for content, distribution, devices, applications and prepare a mutual beneficial use cases before starting to negotiate with each of them
  ]]> https://veridian.ro/aboutmvno/business-strategy-the-recipe-for-success/feed/?lang=en 0 https://veridian.ro/aboutmvno/cannibalization-reality-or-just-a-myth/?lang=en&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cannibalization-reality-or-just-a-myth https://veridian.ro/aboutmvno/cannibalization-reality-or-just-a-myth/?lang=en#comments Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:33:08 +0000 admin http://veridian.ro/?p=929 Continue Reading]]> On mature telecom markets, upon liberalization, there was a lot of hype around the MVNO threat for incumbents. There are plenty of reasons why HNOs should not consider themselves threatened by MVNOs and all MVNOs negotiating with their chosen HNO should be aware of these aspects.
  • In fact, MVNOs do provide various economic benefits to HNOs as they increase their market share by addressing untargeted or poorly targeted market segments. However hard their marketing department tries, HNOs still struggle to cover all market segments and cannot experiment as they might like with myriads of campaigns without cannibalising other profitable packages or customer segments. Basically, if an operator is reluctant about embracing this business model, its competitors will surely welcome them, enjoying the possibility to attract new customers without additional costs or efforts.
  • On the other hand, enhanced service providers and full MVNOs with their own real time invoicing system, can become serious competitors for HNOs. The HNO is still in a favourable position in terms of market penetration and expansion, network utilization, lower operation costs due to higher economies of scale and generation of additional revenues through wholesale volumes.
  • Moreover, HNOs bear expensive license, network construction and marketing costs, which make them keen on sharing their network. MVNOs are the ideal opportunity in this respect.

  Therefore, MVNOs may conclude profitable partnerships with the existing HNOs by creating a business plan and an attractive and straightforward business case beneficial for both parties, creating new revenue streams, addressing new customer segments whilst reducing their marketing costs and enhancing their product and service offering by various partnerships with innovative and value added services.

  ]]> https://veridian.ro/aboutmvno/cannibalization-reality-or-just-a-myth/feed/?lang=en 0