By Ovum's Raymond Yu
10/08/2008
Aperio CI launches SNAP: will it crackle or pop?
ast week, we attended analytic solution provider Aperio CI's conference in London. The focus of the event was its new product, Social Network Analysis and Propensities (SNAP), a tool to identify social networks in a subscriber base. Such analysis should aid retention activities, but faces a much tougher challenge to upsell premium services.
Aperio has its feet firmly on the ground
The Aperio team talks a lot of common sense, especially considering that topics such as social networking and data analytics were under discussion. Simply put, Aperio CI regards itself as a 'data expert'. Its core competence is its ability to reliably process a huge volume of subscriber data (both past and near-realtime) and analyse it to help clients, for example, increase ARPUs, upsell new services, improve retention and identify 'bad' customers. It is particularly refreshing to hear Aperio CI continue to let the data determine the answers, especially after eighteen years' experience.
SNAP identifies the 'highly influential' subscribers
SNAP allows operators to examine their subscriber base and identify social networks. It builds the social networks by analysing each subscriber's on-net call and text traffic and generating links between different subscribers. It intentionally excludes off-net traffic from the social networks as it does not have complete information on these customers, but it does use such information to identify potential customers to target.
Aperio CI believes that by building social networks it can identify the highly influential subscribers - those that have a great influence on other subscribers in a social network. For instance, if the highly influential subscriber leaves then several in their social network may follow. Hence, Aperio CI believes that the highly influential subscribers, or those with the highest 'connected value customer valuation' (a way of ranking subscribers in relation to their role in a social network), should be the most important for the operator - not necessarily those with the highest ARPU.
SNAP still needs to be proven
It is easy to see how SNAP could aid retention activities - find the highly influential individuals and keep them happy - but Aperio CI believes that SNAP could also help drive mobile data revenues. However, the social networking case for upselling seems weaker. For instance, even if an operator knows which subscribers download music, does this really help sell to other people in their social network? In addition, although such data analysis is legal, there is the potentially explosive issue of user privacy, and operators must consider this seriously. Skype's recent issues in China are an example of what happens if they don't.
However, it is early days and the SNAP platform needs to be rigorously tested in the field before final judgement can be passed on its effectiveness. Therefore, we eagerly await the results of an intriguing concept.
For more information, contact:
Lynn McAuley
Aperio CI
+1 (631) 468-4014
lynn.mcauley@aperioci.com
Glen Zimmerman
Netezza
+1 (508) 382-8267
gzimmerman@netezza.com