Customer Relationship Management Helps Celcom Become Number One Celcom Axiata Berhad (Celcom) is the oldest mobile multiple SIM IDs scattered among various records telecommunications company in Malaysia and also in the system. The company wanted to be able to its largest, with an unrivaled reputation for quality see a customer as a specific person, not a SIM or a and reliability. Nevertheless, maintaining its com- number petitive edge has been a struggle. In 2006 Celcom Celcom's solution involved changes to the compa dropped to third place among Malaysian cellular pro my's technology, processes, and people. At the core is viders. Since then, management has worked fever- an Oracle-based business support system (BSS) that ishly to turn the company around, and Celcom has consolidated customer records, centralized invent- regained the top spot in its market. This turnaround tory management, and sped up business processes. required new technology and business processes for This system consolidates customer information into managing the customer experience. a single view of the customer to improve customer To become number one in the Malaysian mar service across online, call center, and retail channels: ket again, Celcom's senior management knew that The Oracle implementation included new customer the company had to build better networks and portal sites and retail stores as well as an Oracle market more aggressively. But the real key to suc- Siebel call center system and Oracle inventory man- cess lay in improving the customer experience. agement and Communications Order and Service According to Suresh Sidhu, Celcom's chief corpo- Management applications, rate and operations officer, there will always be a The BSS project team asked approximately 700 competitor who can beat you on price or even out- Celcom employees in customer service, retail, innovate you. But it's much harder for a competi- marketing, and other divisions to list the top 10 tor to disrupt a strong, positive relationship with experiences that users and dealers wanted, such as customers. Celcom believes it's the market's best fast activation, less paperwork, and always having differentiator the most popular phones in stock. The BSS trans- The Malaysia telecommunications market is quite formation team then developed technical and busi- mature, with few opportunities to acquire new cus- ness process requirements based on these top 10 tomers Customer retention is essential, as is luring lists and compared offerings from several vendors. customers away from competitors. Malaysia's cus- Celcom chose Oracle as the primary technology tomer base of 14 million is large and diverse, which provider for the new customer experience manage requires multiple approaches to interacting with ment system. The company wanted the most com- them. Older customers prefer in-person service from plete suite of customer relationship management Celcom dealers or retail outlets, while sophisticated (CRM) tools that would support multichannel and young urban users prefer to do business online. All cross-channel marketing efforts. Oracle seemed want reliable mobile service the best fit and had the most functionality built in Celcom was saddled with a siloed information without requiring additional modifications technology architecture and business processes that Celcom's transformation plan entailed retaining could not provide a complete view of customers. some of Celcom's existing systems, and the Celcom For instance, customer data from one system such team liked Oracle Communications modularity and as billing were not easily available to other systems interoperability as well as its cross-channel capabili- such as inventory. This is a common problem for ties Oracle Communications is a cross-channel prod- mobile providers because carriers have traditionally uct suite that provides a variety of services, including counted customers by looking at SIM (subscriber broadband data, wireless data, and mobile voice identity modules in mobile phones) IDs. However services. It helps communications services provider many customers have multiple devices and SIMS such as Celcom manage and integrate customer inter- for personal and work uses. Celcom needed systems actions across multiple channels to improve customer that could identify and serve cach customer rather support, reduce problem resolution time, customize than that person's SIMs. Otherwise, Celcom service marketing to narrow market segments, and expe- representatives would waste valuable company dite time-to-market for new products and services, and customer time making sense of a customer's Celcom understood the importance of cross-channel customer experiences and wanted to make this differ- entiate the company among its competitors. Celcom's systems solution cnables customer interactions to seamlessly traverse its retail shop, online shop, call center, and partner/dealer channels. The BSS provides a single customer record, regardless of how many services (mobile, landline, and data) and devices a customer purchases, that is populated with data from various touchpoints. By consolidating customer data into a unified customer record, Celcom can offer tailored promotions offers in real time that fit a customer's individual history, Celcom's holistic view of a customer includes fam. ily relationships, which has special significance when marketing in Asia. The company is able to sce every aspect of service each customer uses, which makes cross-marketing and up-selling more efficient Celcom completed the BSS implementation in just 18 months, replacing 17 separate systems with one seven-module Oracle system Celcom officials explicitly tried to get employees invested in the new system to ensure it aligned with the business. The company enlisted project directors from both business and IT departments. Represen- tatives from sales and marketing chaired the tech- nology selection committees to ensure that people outside of IT were making the case for the project. Top management, including sales and marketing department heads and Celcom's CEO, are part of a steering committee for customer experience man- agement that meets every two weeks. Celcom's integrated systems make it possible for call center representatives to respond much more rapidly to customer queries. In the past, cus- tomer agents needed to toggle between two to five screens to do their work. Now they work with just a single screen, which increases efficiency. Using fewer screens cuts average call-handling time by 15 to 20 percent. BSS includes a new tablet-based app for Celcom dealers that makes signing a customer up for a new mobile phone completely paperless. New phone activation time has been cut from two hours to two minutes. Fewer activations require manual follow-up. Celcom dealers and customers are happier. Inventory of mobile handsets at Celcom facili- ties and dealer stores is now centralized and man- aged using BSS. Dealers can see what Celcom has in stock, and Celcom inventory managers can monitor the stock on dealer shelves. More detailed inventory control helps Celcom move more products because it can ship fast-selling units to dealers before shortages occur or have marketers target promotions in regions where the company want to move specific products. This would have been impossible before. Salespeople are beginning to use big data collected in BSS to bet- ter manage sales by region. Celcom is now much closer to achieving its brand vision: pleasing its customers and exceeding their expectations. Source: Jessica Sirkin, "Oracle Implementation at Celcom Brings IT, Business Together Searchoracle.techtarget.com, accessed January 17, 2016, www.celcom.com, accessed January 18, 2016 Fred Sandsmark, Customers First Profit Magazine, May 2014 and Oracle Corporation, "Celcom Transforms its Customer Expe- rience with Industry Leading Oracle Communications Suite March 31, 2014 CASE STUDY QUESTIONS 1. What was the problem at Celcom described in this case? What management, organization, and tech- nology factors contributed to this problem? 2. What was Celcom's business strategy, and what was the role of customer relationship manage- ment in that strategy? 3. Describe Celcom's solution to its problem. What management, organization, and technology issues had to be addressed by the solution? 4. How effective was this solution? How did it affect the way Celcom ran its business and its business performance