How telecom providers can win in the age of AI & automation

Around the world, communication service providers are moving towards becoming digital service businesses. Digitally enabled, highly automated and customer focused.

Telecom process automation is a cornerstone of this digital transformation. The peak mobile industry body – GSMA – predicts that by 2025, 80% of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) will have automated at least 40% of their network operations.  

This statistic underscores the industry's pursuit of process and network automation, promising not only increased productivity but also enhanced customer experiences.

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Why automation matters for telecom providers

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Operational excellence

The promise of automation is that staff and resources can be moved away from routine or recurring tasks, and instead redirected to customer service and product innovation.  

McKinsey analysis reveals that in about 60 percent of occupations, at least one-third of constituent activities could be automated. And the telecom industry is no exception.

For telecom providers, automation could reduce the amount of manual effort that is required for network operations, service provisioning and customer account management.

This efficiency is especially important when bringing customers onto your network: such as the phone number porting process. In this example, even small improvements to porting or number provisioning can help to accelerate your time to revenue.

Automation may also help telecom providers minimize customer wait times, improve customer service, and reduce customer service costs.

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Cost efficiency

Automation requires that service providers adopt new operating models. Ways of doing business where they are asset light – owning and operating only core network assets.

The essence of this transformation is the need to move from operating networks and infrastructure to delivering services. This transformation in turn allows telecom providers to tackle rising network costs, legacy processes, and operational complexity.  

For many telecoms, this means rethinking the business case for owning and operating legacy voice infrastructure, especially their costly international voice networks.  

So how can operators adopt this asset-light, telecom automation paradigm?  

Step one is to find network partners that can augment your core capabilities. (For example, providing international call routing for the regions outside your home network).

Step two is automation. This is typically achieved through telecom APIs or adopting self-service tools which are integrated with your suppliers’ networks.  

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How Symbio enables telecom automation

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Programmable communication

In the past few years, communication providers have embraced APIs to automate the busywork of carrier processes.  

Programmable telecom capabilities can be used to deliver process automation at scale, but few carrier networks have this capability available.  

Within the Asia-Pacific region, Symbio is an exception.

Born in the cloud, the Symbio voice network supports a wide range of programmable telecom capabilities such as number ordering, number management and porting.

By incorporating programmable communication into apps and software, service providers can elevate user experiences while streamlining internal processes.

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Self-service management portal

While APIs have enormous potential, the reality is that many service providers lack the developer resources to consume and integrate programmable communications.  

Instead, self-service portals offer a compelling alternative. These are user-friendly tools that can be quickly rolled-out to operational staff and deliver many of the benefits of automation.

These digital platforms empower service providers to take charge of their Symbio accounts, Symbio-hosted numbers and access information seamlessly.  

The Symbio Connect portal provides all this capability, and more. The portal seamlessly integrates with our multi-regional network interfaces and carrier APIs, allowing you to efficiently manage, allocate, and optimise number resources.  

One of the standout features is automated number management, which revolutionizes how telecom providers handle their number resources.  

This means reduced manual intervention, fewer errors, and a streamlined process that empowers you to focus on delivering unparalleled service and innovation to your customers.