BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH

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Background and Company Performance

Industry Challenges

As a result of the exponential rise in the use of mobile phones, there has been a surge in the number of mobile phone users. In the European market, mobile network operators (MNOs) are driven to outperform others by differentiating their product and service offerings by extending value-added and technology-driven products and services at cost-competitive prices. Some operators acutely focus on providing exemplary customer service to cement their market position.

Advances in technology like 4G infrastructure and network convergence create challenges for mobile network operators, who are working to provide seamless mobile services to keep customer satisfaction high. This implies that apt measuring and monitoring of end user experience is critical to gain an edge over competitors. Thus, companies that provide innovative technology platforms and services (as compared to the conventional network probes and protocol analyzers) that enable customers to proactively communicate with the operator in real-time, stand to create a win-win situation for themselves even amid explosive customer demand. These kinds of platforms and services eliminate user frustration and reduce customer churn rates.

An additional concern that MNOs encounter is the difficulty in improving customer service levels without much increase in operational expenditure (OPEX). To meet customer expectations (with regard to best-in-class services), operators must constantly invest to improve and upgrade their services; this is the key to superior customer satisfaction.

Technology Attributes and Future Business Value

Industry Impact

SpatialBuzz has created a unique cloud-based customer experience management (CEM) platform that provides seamless access to mobile networks through self-service options. Until the introduction of this innovative platform, very little real-time communication between customers and operators was possible. The company has demonstrated unrivaled technological excellence by developing a highly differentiated customer experience analytics and service monitoring platform, created specifically to build strong rapport between end users and MNOs.

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With easy access to customer touchpoints, this platform allows operators to get information about the network on a 24/7/365 basis. This is a major transformation of the CEM approach, with customers’ perspectives being given considerable importance. Previously, with the help of probes and analysers, companies communicated customer feedback to the operator, and had no way to promptly and efficiently monitor and manage customer experience. SpatialBuzz’s best-in-class CEM strategy, based on its sound technical understanding of networks and its drive for innovation, undoubtedly has the potential to be regarded as an industry standard, even amid stiff competition from prominent mobile operators, vendors, and service providers.

Product Impact

The cloud-based customer experience monitoring platform designed by SpatialBuzz is transparent, making network data communications between customers and MNOs flawless. Unlike competitors, the company provides distinctive crowd-sourced analysis of network performance (by readily sharing network data between customer care and marketing teams), and also provides an early warning of probable service issues. A live feed from customers and their communication with operators is a feature that was not previously available in conventional CEM platforms. By acquiring information from customers (mobile subscribers), it is possible to centralise the use of cell phone platforms to re-drive a massive amount of crowd-sourced data towards the operator, thus facilitating intelligent network performance. Such an exhaustive value-added offering has driven elite Tier I mobile operators in Europe to deploy SpatialBuzz’s differentiated platform, consequently providing it with a key competitive edge.

The company recently added new customer engagement features to HDHealth, SpatialBuzz's Web-based status solution. These features help customers track alerts associated with a specific network location while also enabling direct-to-operator feedback. With a direct communication channel, direct-to-operators can better understand customer needs and provide a superior customer experience.

“The introduction of these new features affirms our commitment to helping operators expand their customer experience offerings,” said Andrew Blake, CTO of SpatialBuzz. “The system can be monitored 24 hours a day, providing an operator’s customers with an easy-to-use tool to be able to report or track faults impacting their service in near real-time, thus increasing customer satisfaction levels and helping the operators to significantly improve the efficiency of their network management.” 1

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Visionary Innovation

The CEM platform built by SpatialBuzz has, in a short span of time, built a sterling reputation for its unmatched innovation. By reaching out to customers and paying attention to pertinent obstacles and challenges that they face, SpatialBuzz has created a customer experience monitoring system that addresses the key industry challenges today. Its transparent approach and prompt resolution, supported by the digital self-service option that SpatialBuzz’s platform provides, helped capture the attention of end users and consequently brought down the number of calls made to the customer service department.

Customer Acquisition & Brand Loyalty

SpatialBuzz's unique CEM platform is in high-demand among customers. This was largely achieved by generating awareness among end users about the impressive functionalities of its customer-centric platform. Some of SpatialBuzz’s noted customers are Tesco Mobile, O2, giffgaff, Telefonica and Eplus. With increasing awareness of the extended return on investment by deploying this unique platform, marked by the reduction in customer complaint calls by 35% and a 15% improvement in the call resolution time, Frost & Sullivan considers this an ideal solution.

As a good example of customer satisfaction, Telefónica Germany (which licensed SpatialBuzz’s tools on 20 November 2012), after having deployed the SpatialBuzz CEM platform, reported that its call centres have achieved network-related call reduction of 49% on normal days and 72% during key incidents. This clearly indicates an increase in overall operational efficiency and considerable decline in customer complaints and frustration.

SpatialBuzz has acquired massive attention in a short span of time. The company remains committed to its innovative approach and it consistently offer products unmatched in terms of quality and overall value. To increase brand loyalty by reaching out to a larger base of customers, SpatialBuzz has recently opened new facilities in Toronto and Taipei. F

Conclusion

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Significance of Technology Innovation

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Understanding Technology Innovation

Technology innovation begins with a spark of creativity that is systematically pursued, developed, and commercialized. That spark can result from a successful partnership, a productive in-house innovation group, or the mind of a singular individual. Regardless of the source, the success of any new technology is ultimately determined by its innovativeness and its impact on the business as a whole.

Key Benchmarking Criteria

For the Technology Innovation Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts independently evaluated two key factors—Technology Attributes and Future Business Value— according to the criteria identified below.

Technology Attributes

Criterion 1: Industry Impact Criterion 2: Product Impact Criterion 3: Scalability

Criterion 4: Visionary Innovation Criterion 5: Application Diversity

Future Business Value

Criterion 1: Financial Performance Criterion 2: Customer Acquisition Criterion 3: Technology Licensing Criterion 4: Brand Loyalty

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Best Practice Award Analysis for SpatialBuzz

Decision Support Scorecard

To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple business performance categories, Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Scorecard. This tool allows our research and consulting teams to objectively analyze performance, according to the key benchmarking criteria listed in the previous section, and to assign ratings on that basis. The tool follows a 10-point scale that allows for nuances in performance evaluation; ratings guidelines are illustrated below.

RATINGS GUIDELINES

The Decision Support Scorecard is organized by Technology Attributes and Future Business Value (i.e., the overarching categories for all 10 benchmarking criteria; the definitions for each criteria are provided beneath the scorecard). The research team confirms the veracity of this weighted scorecard through sensitivity analysis, which confirms that small changes to the ratings for a specific criterion do not lead to a significant change in the overall relative rankings of the companies.

THE RESULTS OF THIS ANALYSIS ARE SHOWN BELOW. Measurement of 1–10 (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)

Technology Innovation Technology Attributes Future Business Value Average Rating

SpatialBuzz 9.8 9.9 9.9

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Technology Attributes

Criterion 1: Industry Impact

Requirement: Technology enables the pursuit of ground breaking new ideas, contributing to the betterment of the entire industry

Criterion 2: Product Impact

Requirement: Specific technology helps enhance features and functionality of the entire product line for the company

Criterion 3: Scalability

Requirement: Technology is scalable, enabling new generations of products over time, with increasing levels of quality and functionality

Criterion 4: Visionary Innovation

Requirement: Specific new technology represents true innovation based on a deep understanding of future needs and applications

Criterion 5:Application Diversity

Requirement: New technology serves multiple products, multiple applications, and multiple user environments

Future Business Value

Criterion 1: Financial Performance

Requirement: High potential for strong financial performance in terms of revenues, operating margins and other relevant financial metrics

Criterion 2: Customer Acquisition

Requirement: Specific technology enables acquisition of new customers, even as it enhances value to current customers

Criterion 3: Technology Licensing

Requirement: New technology displays great potential to be licensed across many sectors and applications, thereby driving incremental revenue streams

Criterion 4: Brand Loyalty

Requirement: New technology enhances the company’s brand, creating and/or nurturing brand loyalty

Criterion 5: Human Capital

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Decision Support Matrix

Once all companies have been evaluated according to the Decision Support Scorecard, analysts can then position the candidates on the matrix shown below, enabling them to visualize which companies are truly breakthrough and which ones are not yet operating at best-in-class levels.

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The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best

Practices Awards

Research Methodology

Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree research methodology represents the analytical rigor of our research process. It offers a 360-degree-view of industry challenges, trends, and issues by integrating all 7 of Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies. Too often, companies make important growth decisions based on a narrow understanding of their environment, leading to errors of both omission and commission. Successful growth strategies are founded on a thorough understanding of market, technical, economic, financial, customer, best practices, and demographic analyses. The integration of these research disciplines into the 360-degree research methodology provides an evaluation

platform for benchmarking industry players and for identifying those performing at best-in-class levels.

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Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching,

Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices

Frost & Sullivan Awards follow a 10-step process to evaluate award candidates and assess their fit with select best practice criteria. The reputation and integrity of the Awards are based on close adherence to this process.

STEP OBJECTIVE KEY ACTIVITIES OUTPUT

1 Monitor, target, and screen

Identify award recipient candidates from around the globe

 Conduct in-depth industry research

 Identify emerging sectors

 Scan multiple geographies

Pipeline of candidates who potentially meet all best-practice criteria

2 Perform 360-degree research

Perform comprehensive, 360-degree research on all candidates in the pipeline

 Interview thought leaders and industry practitioners

 Assess candidates’ fit with best-practice criteria

 Rank all candidates

Matrix positioning all candidates’ performance relative to one another

3 Invite thought leadership in best practices Perform in-depth

examination of all candidates  Confirm best-practice criteria Examine eligibility of all candidates

 Identify any information gaps

Detailed profiles of all ranked candidates 4 Initiate research director review Conduct an unbiased evaluation of all candidate profiles

 Brainstorm ranking options

 Invite multiple perspectives on candidates’ performance

 Update candidate profiles

Final prioritization of all eligible candidates and companion best-practice positioning paper 5 Assemble panel of industry experts

Present findings to an expert panel of industry thought leaders

 Share findings

 Strengthen cases for candidate eligibility

 Prioritize candidates

Refined list of prioritized award candidates 6 Conduct global industry review

Build consensus on award

candidates’ eligibility  Hold global team meeting to review all candidates

 Pressure-test fit with criteria

 Confirm inclusion of all eligible candidates

Final list of eligible award candidates, representing success stories worldwide

7 Perform _{quality check}

Develop official award

consideration materials  Perform final performance benchmarking activities

 Write nominations

 Perform quality review

High-quality, accurate, and creative presentation of nominees’ successes 8 Reconnect with panel of industry experts

Finalize the selection of the

best-practice award recipient  Review analysis with panel Build consensus

 Select winner

Decision on which company performs best against all best-practice criteria

9 Communicate _recognition

Inform award recipient of award recognition 

Present award to the CEO

 Inspire the organization for continued success

 Celebrate the recipient’s performance

Announcement of award and plan for how recipient can use the award to enhance the brand

10 Take strategic action

Upon licensing, company may share award news with stakeholders and customers

 Coordinate media outreach

 Design a marketing plan

 Assess award’s role in future strategic planning

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