In 2002, for the first time in telecommunications, the number of cellular subscribers exceeded the number of fixed networks subscribers. This was the turning point. In many countries of the world, the mobile communications penetration rate has almost reached the maximum. Within each cellular standard, the main being GSM, (define - news - alert) the competition becomes fierce. It makes cellular operators think more not of attracting new subscribers, but of keeping the existing ones. The trends that accompany market saturation make operators widen the range of the services and content they provide, and also pay more attention to corporate clients.

Why has it started drawing more and more attention? Why has the corporate client become a favorite among all operators without exception?

First of all, when working with corporate clients, the operator receives a high and constant income from the services that it provides to a large number of business users. They, unlike most private users, do not care about the cost of their talks very much.

Secondly, the communication industry is currently at the verge of new technologies introduction. These technologies ensure high speed of data transfer, better security parameters, and make new solutions and applications possible. With all of this, as analysts say, 3G (define - news - alert) services will not spread all over the world very soon. It is doubtful that the corporate clients will be the first to employ these technologies. Such services will become available provided that the operator chooses the right marketing policy, a business necessity for them but not a useless toy.

Last but not least is the fact that corporate clients are more confident about what cellular company to use. This is an advantage but it is also worth remembering that if such a client is lost, it is lost forever. Without special offers intended for these clients, one cannot win today�s fierce competition. How is it possible to attract corporate clients and make them loyal?

Satisfying a Client�s Need is Not Easy. What Do Corporate Clients Want Most of All?

It is certain that the corporate market is one of the most respected and soon will become the most profitable one. This group, however, is very demanding of the quality of subscriber service and the traditional methods used to attract subscribers are not quite sufficient.

Corporate rate plans are characterized by lower billing rates (wholesale is always cheaper), but it is difficult to attract corporate client by providing them with a shared account and packet discounts. Currently, most operators have these offers. The key difference and competitive advantage that the operator may gain is offering corporate clients highly developed cellular communications integration with their business processes. Today, a corporate client favors those sets of services that it needs for work.

It is worth mentioning that many companies have stopped investing in development of their own communication infrastructure because buying them turned out to be more effective. The subscription fee is much lower than the expense on an independently developed infrastructure of support and maintenance. While not needing to spend on network deployment, a corporate client still desires to be in full control of the services. Thus, corporate clients pay most attention to the following aspects:

� an opportunity to use the operator�s infrastructure instead of creating their own
� specialized service packages required to handle daily business tasks
� control of the services: subscription management, traffic and status control (corporate self-care)

An Effective Solution For Everyday Business Tasks

Specialized service packages designed for corporate users employ an ASP (define - news - alert) model. In this model, the operator leases its infrastructure to the corporate client, helping to deal with the client�s business tasks. For instance, the operator grants the client a WEB-application that enables the company�s secretary (an employee) to conduct the address book, organize meetings schedule tasks, and create the list of the employees to be notified. What must be taken into account when organizing this seemingly simple service?

Firstly, it should be clearly defined what communication channels the system supports and how it routes the data to the users. The secretary informs subscribers using the pre-assigned notification lists. Notification channels are then selected individually in each case (SMS (define - news - alert) , voice, e-mail). This is convenient and often necessary for those who work in distributed or mobile offices. Secondly, it is important how the system processes the feedback it receives from the individuals on the list. After the notification, each subscriber must confirm participation so that the system may create a report to form the participants list. The end user may also request a change of the notification channel and time. The system must allow the subscriber to adjust these parameters independently.

Self-Care: The Key Requirement of a Corporate Client

Corporate self-care allows the corporate user to control subscribers within the group in accordance with business needs and company policy. The company should be able to:

� Control subscriber groups (create and change their parameters)
� Distribute subscribers among groups
� Decide which services will be available for each subscriber or subscriber group
� Define maximum possible expenses for each subscriber or subscriber group
� Define communication services payment types. For instance, depending on day of the week, time of day, and/or call direction, the company or the subscriber independently pays for the service
� Define permitted outgoing call directions for each subscriber

Expenses within each group are more adequately classified into different views, such as departments or call direction. The corporate client can also control subscriber activity. The subscribers that exceed the personal limit can be blocked, or a phone can be activated with restricted access for a particular employee.

The subscribers included into a corporate group can also manage their personal profiles within the limits set by the corporate policy, such as individual voice mailbox settings or defining the notification type.

Thus, when using Subscriber Service Platform CaReM (define - news - alert), the operator can provide each corporate client with customized service. The level of the service provided for each client may differ depending on the number of subscribers within a group, monthly ARPU (define - news - alert), or client importance for the operator.

Implementing Corporate Self-Care

It is necessary to offer corporate clients a complete business-solution that includes a process description, a case study, and a training course. The business roles should be as the following:

1. The Coordinator:
� Initial planning of subscriber subgroups with different access rights (financial restrictions, roaming, value added services, schedule, available call directions)
� Group management (changing group parameters and size depending on the operator�s rate policy and company needs)
� Negotiations with the operator concerning communication services provision.
2. The Service Administrator:
� Administration of subscriber subgroups
� Conduct of available subscriber data
� Distribution of subscribers among subgroups
� Blockage/deletion of a subscriber if necessary
3. The Financial Controller
� Monitoring the company�s expenses on communication services (for the whole company, for each of the groups, for each subscriber)
� Fraud-control. The financial controller traces exceeded expenses or atypical call directions. If the company has no business interests outside the north-west of Russia and one of the employees starts making calls to Krasnodar region, this may well be a reason of extreme expenses.

Depending on the company size, these roles can be carried out by different people or by one person (usually a system administrator). Each corporate self-care implementation is accompanied by a short-term training course for the persons in charge. During the course, the employees learn how to create and manage corporate subscriber group and how to create their own self-care tools.

Look Into the Future

As it was mentioned earlier, the corporate sector is most susceptible to new services. At the same time, services must be created and, if necessary, changed very quickly at a high level. If not, the operator risks losing corporate clients and never working with them again. What should the hardware and software base be in order to support corporate services effectively?

The best way in our case is to use platforms. A platform helps to develop and deploy subscriber services quickly and minimizes operator�s expenses. The operator spends less time and financial resources on designing and implementing services, as the process is iterative and includes initial forming of client requirements. The developers work on the exact business tasks without having to think about low-level protocols and billing issues. A new service means only writing new scenarios. There is no need for new hardware or software.

The platform must support multiple channels allowing access to the available services over various interaction channels, such as WEB/WAP (define - news - alert), SMS, USSD (define - news - alert), IVR (define - news - alert). It is especially important for corporate clients if they have distributed offices.

Implementing corporate sector services on the basis of a multi-channel platform allows the operator to offer its clients a high level of service and provides all the varieties of transports currently available.

Bercut Ltd., headquartered in St. Petersburg, Russia, is an innovative solutions supplier and expert in telecommunications, providing mobile and landline operators with innovative solutions in Intelligent Network, Customer Care, CRM and Messaging. Founded in 1996, Bercut has grown into a well-established company with over 300 employees and more than 110 clients in Europe, Russia and the CIS countries. During the 3 last years Bercut has shown consistent revenue growth, which totaled 15 M US$ in 2003, nearly double the 2002 figures. Bercut's software and hardware development process has been certified under ISO 9001:2000, providing the highest quality levels of its products. Bercut is a finalist of �Billing and OSS World Excellence Awards-2004� Competition.

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