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Accenture Communications Solutions Case Study

MTN - Powering towards high performance with 3G services

Company overview
MTN Groups vision is to be the leading provider of telecommunications in developing markets. Founded in 1994, the Group now operates in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East and recorded in excess of 34 million subscribers across its operations on 30 June 2006. MTN South Africa is the second-largest of three mobile network operators in South Africa and is renowned for network excellence and product innovation.

Business challenge
MTN recognized that the South African market, supported by a strong economy and growing mobile phone subscriber numbers, was open to the launch of new and innovative services which would help support MTNs continued growth and revenue strategies. In 2005, a strategic decision

was made to roll out a third generation (3G) network in South Africa, complementing their existing data offerings. We recognized that, in order to leverage both this investment and our strength in the South African market, MTN would need a long term strategy to build and integrate the 3G network into a scalable service delivery architecture says Ashraff Paruk, Head: Strategy and Product Innovation at MTN SA. The architecture would support MTNs product strategies and help them move towards high performance by creating, delivering and launching new 3G and converged services cost-effectively. Accenture was appointed to assist in translating MTNs business strategy into a robust design and implementation of the Accenture Service Delivery Platform Solution in order to achieve acceleration of their service innovation at lower cost.

How Accenture helped


Accentures top-down approach for defining a solution blueprint helped MTN translate their business needs into a robust functional model for the proposed service delivery platform and create a master plan, delivery strategy and phasing according to their business priorities. Accenture Senior Executive Shamalan Soobiah explains what was involved: We supported MTN in the quest to deliver high performance through their 3G network implementation. Our involvement spanned working with the MTN team to define the approach, business plan and product requirements, through software selection and design of the Accenture Service Delivery Platform architecture and components, to systems integration, content migration and program management. Accentures strength in systems integration and project management helped to bring all the components together and deliver every step of the way. The first phase of the project was delivered in 2005 and achieved implementation of the Accenture

Service Broker, a streaming solution and ring back tone solution. The project focus in 2006 changed to moving MTN towards high performance through implementing a re-engineered MTN mobile customer portal to serve content to MTNs subscribers, integrated into the Accenture Service Delivery Platform Solution. This allows content and applications to share services and resources, such as rendering based on device capability, content storage, management and delivery, authentication and interfaces to billing and operational support systems. Accenture also assisted with the migration of content from legacy systems onto the new network, meeting the stringent challenge of no loss of service to existing users.

high performance by developing innovative new products to increase average revenue per user (ARPU). Utilizing the enhanced data rates made possible by 3G, these services can be launched quickly and costeffectively and continue to increase revenues for mobile content. Accentures re-engineering of the existing MTN customer portal onto the Accenture Service Delivery Platform Solution was achieved against an unforgiving deadline in only nine months. This has enabled significant business improvements to be achieved, for example, reducing turnaround time for modifications to service menus from months down to a few days. Centralization of function within the Accenture Service Delivery Platform Solution has streamlined processes and reduced costs; centralized purchasing logic has reduced costs by eliminating the staff effort required to update purchasing rules across services. MTN noticed a jump in the volume of service usage at launch and this has helped drive steadily increasing

High performance delivered


Exploiting the capabilities and serviceoriented architecture of the Accenture Service Delivery Platform Solution alongside the implementation of the 3G network in South Africa has enabled MTN to make significant progress along its journey towards

revenue since. MTNs users experience has improved due to upgraded service rendering according to device capability and, alongside the ability for the user to manage their content easily, this has led to an increase in the number of services used and higher average usage time. Video content streaming in addition to download is now available from the MTN portal, meaning that new video services such as streaming JamCams, showing a live video stream of the traffic on major highways on the users mobile phone, can be developed and quickly launched. Streaming of video on demand such as music videos, news clips, and movie trailers can all now be accessed via MTN mobile phones, cementing MTNs reputation as an innovator in the South African marketplace. MTN has identified requirements for the next phase of development and work continues to implement new functionality into the MTN SDP environment, enabling them to deliver new services to the market faster and to continue to move their business towards high performance. Says Paruk:

The strength of our partnership with Accenture enables us to be faster, more flexible and more responsive to customer demands for new valueadded services than ever before. With the Accenture Service Delivery Platform Solution we are now strongly positioned to take advantage of the exciting opportunities in the growing South African marketplace and to expand our market share accordingly.

Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Republic of Congo (Congo Brazzaville), Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda and Zambia. The acquisition of Investcom adds the following countries of operation to MTN's portfolio - Afghanistan, Benin, Cyprus, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Republic, Liberia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

About the MTN group


Launched in 1994, the MTN Group is a multinational telecommunications group, operating in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. The MTN Group is listed on the JSE Securities Exchange under the share code: "MTN". As of 30 June 2006, MTN recorded more than 34 million subscribers across its operations, including those of the newly acquired Investcom LLC. In August 2006, the MTN Group launched operations in the Islamic Republic of Iran following the successful purchase of a 49 percent shareholding in Irancell. The MTN Group operates in Botswana,

Contact Accenture
For more information about how the Accenture Service Delivery Platform Solution can propel operators on the road to high performance please contact: Emmanuel Lalloz Marketing Tel: +33 4 92 94 88 15 Email: emmanuel.lalloz@accenture.com

Copyright 2007 Accenture. All rights reserved. Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture. Accenture was awarded first place among nearly 200 entries in the Enterprise ROI category at the CTIA WIRELESS 2006 Convention (www.ctiawireless.com, www.ctia.org), further validating the benefits wireless customers may achieve in creating and managing data services through Accenture Service Delivery Platform Solution.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills and technologies to help clients improve their performance. With approximately 146,000 people in 49 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$16.65 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2006. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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