Electronic Prepaid Distribution in the Communication Sector

Problem Statement

 

A field marketing and distribution company based in the Middle East, approached Globetom to help them move their prepaid operations in Qatar over to electronic distribution in order to increase their distribution network while at the same time overcoming some of the challenges physical distribution create. These challenges included high supply chain costs, fraud, and laborious financial management processes. On the basis of this successful rollout, the company also decided, after extensive field research, to open an electronic distribution business in Zambia. This rollout represents a good use case for a Wholesale Distributor setting up an entirely electronic distribution channel from the ground up.

 

 

Solution Overview

 

Globetom supplied the customer with Revenue Weaver for electronic prepaid distribution and management as a public cloud solution. Access to the multi-tenant Revenue Weaver enabled the customer to set up different country operations from the same platform. This means that the technology platform was immediately available for rollout. The customer set up field operations and recruited Regional Sales Representatives for each of the 9 provinces in Zambia.

 

On the back of Revenue Weaver, the customer offers a number of differentiating products and services. These include a solution which allows for internet access at hotspots across the country, and access to Airtel airtime, MTN airtime, Zamtel airtime and DStv.

 

 

Solution Description

 

The Prepaid Management Platform offers the following functionality:

 

• Pinless over-the-counter purchases
• Handling of bill payments
• Management of full revenue assurance for all stakeholders
• Retail outlet networks

 

A key feature is that Revenue Weaver is extremely scalable and, due to its commoditised hardware environment, distributors benefit from the ability to scale easily to meet fast-growing electronic distribution channel demand.

 

Globetom’s entire prepaid distribution technology platform also tightly adheres to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) standards. Transaction fulfilment is therefore controlled through business process management (BPM) and business process orchestration (BPO).

 

Other key features include:

 

• Centrally controlled product and service distribution – no need to re-program mPOS devices to launch new products
• Formal management of retail outlet network down to operator access control and sales levels
• Secure transactions with authenticity and origin of transactions guaranteed
• Complete revenue assurance functions providing retail outlet, wholesale distributor and service provider revenue assurance
• Real-time reporting function for all stakeholders, i.e. retail outlets, wholesale distributor and service provider partners
• Balance management for retail outlet network including retail outlet hierarchy management
• A mobile money transfer ready platform
• Web-based self-reporting portal for retail outlets
• Web-based administration interface
• Full voucher lifecycle management
• Prepaid electricity payments
• Prepaid Pay TV payments
• Sports betting voucher sales
• Cloud accounting integration for daily retail outlet credit age analysis

 

 

Results

 

The customer operated as one of Zambia’s largest electronic prepaid and payment distribution operations on the back of Globetom’s Prepaid Management Distribution Solution. They were able to quickly add new services and could rapidly respond to market changes.