How CSPs Can Boost Revenue Through Wholesale Order Automation

Why it’s time for service providers to automate and optimize their wholesale businesses

High-speed connectivity is critical for businesses to deliver the services customers are demanding.  However, the ordering and delivery of connectivity services between communications service providers (CSPs) remains a slow, outdated process. Despite legacy system investments, CSPs are still limited by their use of siloed tools, which makes adopting new business models around artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) service offerings difficult.

TransUnion® Universal Order Connect (UOC) is a platform for streamlining the entire wholesale buying and selling process, helping CSPs transform and compete effectively in today’s digital economy.

TransUnion Senior Director of Product Management Anand Rathi recently participated in a webinar on this topic alongside Heavy Reading Research Director Jim Hodges and Mid-Atlantic Broadband (MBC) Chief Revenue Officer Dave Keller.

To kick off the discussion, Jim Hodges asked the audience, “What’s your biggest concern about your wholesale business over the next five years?”  Their top three responses were:

• Ability to remain price competitive (42%)
• Ability to offer on-demand services (33%)
• Managing legacy systems and digital transformation challenges (17%)

Hearing this, the panel participants were able to shape the discussion around these three key themes — and their conversation elicited some interesting insights, recapped below.

What are the key challenges you’re facing in the wholesale market today?

Dave Keller at MBC: Looking back, there's been so much exponential change, especially in the last five years. From a size, scope and scale perspective, things have become more complex. People expect to get service much more quickly. And in looking at wholesale order requirements, we’re seeing a transition from traditional Ethernet connectivity to IP services for SD-WAN. That's had a really big impact.

I’m not surprised by the audience feedback. The ability to offer more on-demand services really speaks to today’s market, and price competitiveness has always been a challenge, especially when you look at the capex required to manage your upgrades to meet some of the higher bandwidth requirements. It's about asking: How do you best evolve your network to meet these new requirements and continue working with a lot of these key wholesale customers?

Even with all these challenges, the US wholesale telecom industry is projected to more than double by 2032, increasing from $481.29 billion to $1167.07 billion. How can service providers ensure they capture this opportunity?

Dave Keller: SD-WAN has been a big factor in moving us further away from traditional Ethernet offerings. Moreover, we’re constantly looking at new requirements from non-traditional folks in the AI space — which are ballooning. Even in our rural footprint, we get AI inquiries and need to very quickly support them. Fixed wireless growth in rural markets has been incredible as well, and their requirements for backhaul are very stringent. Having the ability to provide these services in a timely manner is key. Capex investment is one thing we've been trying to manage, along with making sure we're ready for increased order flow.

A question for the audience: What’s your biggest wholesale order management pain point?

‘Order errors and delays’ and ‘manual outdated business processes’ tied for the top pain point amongst the online audience, with a ‘lack of status updates’ and an ‘inability to connect to other systems’ tying for second place.

Turning back to the panel, the same question was asked of MBC’s Dave Keller.

Dave Keller: It’s difficult to separate these challenges because one leads to another. When I joined MBC, we really struggled to get accurate and complete information from our wholesale customers. Every operator had a different workflow and approval process. This would create documentation issues and confusion regarding what was agreed upon, which led to a lot of back-and-forth emails. We were constantly overwhelmed with emails, and sometimes it took weeks to get responses — which of course created huge delays.

In your opinion, how did order management get so painful and complex?

Dave Keller: Expectations have changed over the years; things move at a faster pace. Back in the day, we had local relationships and more time to get things done. Now, there are a lot of SLA measurements around performance as it relates to installation timeframes and requirements, so you've got to manage those as well. It's clear there's a real role for automation in terms of solving many of these wholesale order management challenges, and MBC has moved in that direction.

What improvements have you made at MBC?

Dave Keller: Automation makes it easier for buyers to buy and provide a quality order without any errors. On the seller’s side, when we get the order right the first time, we can provision it more quickly. We can do some quick checks to see what products and bandwidth are available. Then, we take it to the next milestone and provide the order status to the buyer. This just makes the customer experience much more streamlined. People can use the UOC Order Insights module to get the order status, see how everything is going and plan the next step.

Today, everybody needs to do more with less because you're trying to work from a lower-cost model. UOC has helped create efficiencies by automating many of the manual follow-ups and updates that are required. These are things people find difficult and really don’t like doing.

UOC is like a switchboard that we can utilize to communicate with some of our key customers — so both sides get the information they need in a timelier manner.

What capabilities have been integrated into the Universal Order Connect platform, and how do they help service providers streamline their wholesale businesses?

Anand Rathi of TransUnion: Before an order can happen, an availability check needs to occur to see what services are available at a specific address. We integrate with partners on this and can ingest their data to ensure everything is captured before the order process begins.

The next step is to create the order. The buyer places the order using our simple, user-friendly format. UOC takes them step by step, automatically validating everything is completed correctly before it can be submitted.

Then, the UOC Circuit Insights module checks and manages the seller’s circuit inventory so they can easily track when the circuit was installed, and if an upgrade was done and when. It also tracks disconnect orders. It collects all that circuit history, so if there are any disputes, they can be handled very easily — without emails filling up the system. It also identifies an operator’s high-value and high-volume circuits, which can be valuable information for marketing and sales.

UOC Order Insights give sellers the ability to provide their customers detailed information about the status of each order. People can do a deeper dive into issues impacting their orders and trouble tickets can be issued within the system. This practically eliminates the need for back-and-forth emails and phone calls.

“By implementing TransUnion UOC, our order completion cycles improved significantly due to better communication and accurate orders for earlier billing. Moreover, our internal staff hours decreased for order follow-up by using it for communications and removing manual processes.” - Dave Keller, Chief Revenue Officer, Mid Atlantic Broadband

Lastly, one of the most valuable capabilities UOC provides is from a strategic perspective. With built-in analytics and reporting, UOC allows users to analyze their wholesale businesses, the quality of each circuit, and how circuits are placed across which carriers.

CSPs can see the reasons for order delays across their businesses and the challenges they repeatedly run into, enabling teams to troubleshoot and process more orders, more quickly.

UOC provides the end-to-end order automation needed to stay competitive and keep business customers connected — for SD-WAN, Ethernet, broadband, fixed wireless, 5G backhaul, and more. That means carriers can deliver more services to more clients more quickly than ever before.

Learn more about TransUnion Universal Order Connect and view the on-demand webinar: Boosting Revenue Through Wholesale Order Automation.