For many years, Telekom Malaysia provided a range of mobile telephony services. However, in April 2008, the company diverted its cell phone business and subsequently rebranded its internet business. Following this restructure, Telekom Malaysia wanted to rebuild its IT and telecommunications architecture to support new services for voice-over-broadband and internet, as well as Enterprise Metro Ethernet.

The company’s existing IT infrastructure contained multiple customer care and order management platforms, and it didn’t provide staff with a complete view of a customer’s history or current service subscriptions. Sales staff and technicians couldn’t immediately see when an order for a phone line or ADSL broadband connection had been fulfilled and activated at a customer’s premises, or when customers required further visits to repair or reactivate phone and internet services.

Telekom Malaysia needed to improve its reputation and customer satisfaction by quickly responding to service installation and restoration and by providing competitive, state-of-the-art broadband services. The company also needed to provide a consistent and integrated view of customer and order management information. Finally, it wanted to provide next-generation telecommunications infrastructure to support its broadband and core IP technology.

Parallel to the changes within Telekom Malaysia, the Government of Malaysia announced plans to invest in competitive public infrastructure, including HSBB.

In late 2008, Telekom Malaysia signed a public-private partnership with the Government of Malaysia to provide a fiber-to-the-home HSBB network across Malaysia. The network would provide customers with a telecommunications triple-play service, known as UniFi, including high-speed, fixed and wireless internet in a range of speed options, cheaper fixed-line phone services, and enhanced IPTV services. It would also enable the creation of WiFi hotspots in public places across the country. The network needed to be developed and deployed in less than 12 months and to reach 30% to 40% of households within three years.

By working with the government on the HSBB network, Telekom Malaysia would be able to meets its goals to provide advanced broadband and fixed-line phone services on next-generation fiber infrastructure. However, the company needed to provide end-to-end support for these services and still wanted to ensure fast order and activation times for customers. To do this, it required an integrated operations support system (OSS), business support system (BSS), and customer relationship management (CRM) system.

“Oracle’s products have been instrumental in our deploying and managing the new HSBB and other fixed-line services,” said Rozainee Muhamad, project director, HSBB systems, Telekom Malaysia. “We knew our legacy, IT infrastructure couldn’t support the new services, and we wouldn’t be able to deliver the project or the services on time.”

Telekom Malaysia deployed a variety of Oracle products, including Siebel CRM, Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management, to form the company’s new OSS, BSS, and CRM system, known as NOVA (next generation opportunity and vibrant ambition). NOVA contains a number of modules, including service control, network inventory, order management, service activation, customer billing, fault management, and three online portals. 

The system uses Siebel CRM to store information, such as consolidated customer contact details and service histories, customer calls, interactions, and complaints, marketing information, and initial data entries for orders. It provides a consistent view of customers and data to use for any interaction, from capturing a new customer’s contact details, to testing broadband connections and sending bills.

“The staff across the organization can see customer order and service activation flowing through the system and complete order and activation tasks efficiently and effectively,” said Muhamad. “NOVA tracks each fulfillment task in order received, and the activation cycle is fulfilled, so staff are more accountable.”

Siebel CRM has also improved Telekom Malaysia’s customer service levels by increasing the efficiency in the call center’s recording customer interactions, providing information about services, orders, appointments, and troubleshooting.

“Depending on their role, employees have access to a consolidated list of products. They can see other services that customers subscribe to, and they have a full view of customer information to better understand the full package or cross-sell products,” said Muhamad. “Previously, there was no way of cross-checking what other services customers had or whether services had been ordered or activated.

“We also had to raise level-one diagnostic requests—which require a customer’s service to be taken offline to be fixed—through a number of different systems and manage the workflow manually,” she continued. “Now we can easily raise a trouble ticket to report a fault in service, and the request can be dealt with in a timelier manner.

“Not only does this kind of efficiency improve customer service, but it also increases our staff’s satisfaction as they can see requests through to completion.”

Siebel CRM also enables Telekom Malaysia to configure new packages and promotions for its broadband and phone products faster, reducing time to market for new services.

“We are currently working on aligning new product packages with the product development framework set out in NOVA,” said Muhamad. “When we can do this, we reduce the time to configure new product packages from four weeks to two weeks. The system’s flexible product bundling and pricing capabilities also enable us to offer greater value to customers by launching innovative packages with competitive prices and discounts.” 

By providing state-of-the-art, fixed-line products, such as the UniFi triple-play services, Telekom Malaysia has improved its reputation and attracted more customers. The company is now installing around 1,200 fixed-line and HSBB services per day, up from 200, prior to its partnership with the Government of Malaysia.

NOVA supports this increase by using Oracle Communications Order and Service Management and Oracle Communications ASAP to ensure customer orders are processed quickly and assigned immediately to the correct network group and an available installation team. The system can also activate more than 98% of its triple-play services automatically.

“We can fulfill orders for fiber-to-the-home services 43% faster, reducing the time to connect customers, from seven hours to four hours,” said Muhamad.
 
“In addition, we can complete orders for services that require equipment, such as wireless routers, to be delivered and activated on customer premises with one visit from a technician, rather than two or more required, previously,” she continued. “We anticipate this will significantly reduce our operational costs and help us generate revenue from our services faster.”

The NOVA system uses Oracle WebLogic products to support customer, wholesale, and partner portals to provide customers with services related to their broadband and wholesale products, and better service and integrate information from resellers.

The customer portal has further improved customer service by enabling customers to go online to check bills or the status of an order. They can also place a request for a new fixed-line service or product bundle, rather than calling or e-mailing. This reduces the time customers have to spend waiting in a call center queue or for an e-mail reply and frees up call center staff to take other calls.

The partner portal has enabled resellers and staff in the company’s TM Shops (TeleKom Malaysia Shops) to better manage orders and service requests—and improve customer service—by providing a consolidated product catalog; FAQ sheets; video guides to different internet and phone services; and service reviewing, tracking, and upgrading capabilities.

“The partner portal has also eliminated the need to reenter customer details and product order information from resellers by enabling resellers to enter this information straight into the integrated NOVA system,” said Muhamad. “This reduces the risk of human error and means we can process orders for our fixed-line services 60% faster.”

In addition, Telekom Malaysia can provide more detailed technical and installation information to its wholesalers about network infrastructure access and transmission and connectivity products.

NOVA uses Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management to manage customer billing and payment processes. NOVA ensures consistency between fulfilled orders and customer bills, and it eliminates manual intervention by integrating order information in the Oracle order management and CRM applications with the billing application.

“In the past, orders for different fixed-line services were processed in disparate systems, and bills had to be raised manually, so customers could receive payment requests for all their services and products on the same document,” said Muhamad. “We’ve now cut out the manual work in the middle, and bills are raised automatically that contain all the relevant information.”