First Hop Launches Operator Business Intelligence Solution at CommunicAsia
First Hop has announced the launch of the mobile value added services (VAS) Business Intelligence Solution at CommunicAsia. The new solution gives the operator a complete view across their portfolio of in-house and external content provider services, subscriber usage patterns, as well as the revenue that each service brings in.
Timo Laaksonen, the Chief Executive Officer of First Hop, remarked: “The operators are like supermarkets, they want the shelves to be stacked full of goods for people to buy. Unlike supermarkets they are not aware of customer preference and real purchasing behaviour, and don’t fully exploit mapping CRM details. Real-life traffic paints a different picture compared to market surveys.”
The solution is the latest addition in the First Hop Wireless Broker suite of products, introducing the ability to accurately monitor the business performance of VAS. The solution comprises of a data warehouse and reporting system targeted and optimised for VAS usage analysis and business management. The market intelligence is based on the transaction data retrieved from the traffic and service management modules of the product suite.
In the last few years value added services have become a serious proposition for mobile operators. As the profit margins from traditional voice services began to dry up operators recognised that they needed to find new ways to increase ARPU. First Hop Wireless Broker was developed to complement the growth in this market sector and help operators to drive up the value of their VAS.
“VAS Business Intelligence Solution gives the operators the means to find out which services are performing well and more importantly who is using them. With this knowledge the operator and its content partners can quickly react to trends, and develop targeted bundles, campaigns and promotions for the identified segments or even individual subscribers”, added Laaksonen.
Another major issue for operators and content providers in managing VAS is the question of revenue share. The new solution addresses this issue as well, producing complete revenue reports for dispute prevention and third-party settlement.
The launch of the solution coincides with First Hop’s appearance at CommunicAsia 2006 in Singapore. This marks another year of rapid development for First Hop in the Asia-Pacific region with a customer base of 12 mobile operators in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
About First Hop
First Hop is a global leader in Value Added Services (VAS) management. First Hop combines multi-channel traffic management & gateway solutions with automated service provisioning, billing data generation, and business reporting in a single product suite.
First Hop Wireless Broker is a business management solution that caters for all aspects of running profitable and efficient mobile VAS portfolios. A significant feature is its ability to record real time transaction data and subscriber usage patterns giving the operator the ability to react quickly to market trends and offer targeted, dynamic content service portfolios.
Founded in 1997, First Hop is privately held and headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, and with sales and support operations in the UK, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and Singapore. First Hop products have been deployed for over 60 mobile networks worldwide, such as Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, and Telefonica, serving over 400 million mobile users accessing value added services.
