In the last week Three in the UK announced a deal to zero rate Netflix. The media saw this as big deal, which for customers watching Netflix on their mobiles, it is. But this is only the first step. There is so much more telcos can do with content and partnerships to drive new revenues, get customers more engaged and increase loyalty.

While some telcos are buying up content (typically TV) this is very expensive. For most telcos selling content means partnering. Effectively the telco is a digital shop for content. But it’s a two way shop. While most shops have to wait for people to walk into their stores, the telcos have a selling channel direct to the customer. Most people look at their smartphones over 100 times a day. This is an opportunity for telcos to sell a partners products and services, including content.

But the key is make it relevant to each customer. Make it relevant and the customer will engage with the telco. This is where BSS comes in.

BSS can provide the tools to enable more effective marketing of products and services. Here’s three ways BSS can play in helping telcos go beyond bundling.

Business intelligence – this is the foundation to build offers. What’s attractive to which segment – and at what price point? Closed loop automation can constantly analyse offer success (or not). It can enable on-going refinement of offers and identify micro segmentation opportunities. The telcos are able to collect a lot of this information. Why don’t they open up this intelligence to their content partners as part of a content deal? This sharing of intelligence is more akin to a partnership – rather than a wholesale supplier type deal.

Fast time to market – a lot of content has a shelf life. Music, TV, videos, games – being able quickly develop offers and get them out to market is key. There’s no point in pushing the latest app craze two months after the craze has died down.  This is not just about using an offer catalog to get offers built and launched quickly (something that legacy BSS doesn’t really have a good record of). It’s also about refining offers – changing price points, changing entitlement rules and having the ability to retire offers quickly.

Personalised offers – BSS collects usage data in real time. A telco has a lot of information on customers. They have an offer catalog to quickly develop new offers. Using a combination of these telcos can trigger real-time contextual aware offers to individual customers. We’ve seen real-time offers work very well with customers selling add-ons to telco services (e.g. roaming service passes, data add-ons). The potential for contextual offer management to promote, sell and activate a multitude of services is substantial. It’s more than streaming TV and music. Contextual offers can be tied into sporting events, concerts, charity events (donations), gaming and so much more. This can enable personalisation. This can make telcos more relevant to their customers, which will drive engagement and spend.

There are many other ways that BSS can enable telcos to be attractive to content partners and in turn customers.   For more details and some new ideas have a read at Openet’s new white paper – Beyond Bundling: New Ways to Monetize Content and Partnerships.