Business Logic Systems established its new Asia-Pacific regional solutions centre in Malaysia in the the first week of July, Vicks Kanagasingam, its President Asia Pacific announced in Kuala Lumpur on 22 July.

The solutions centre is based in Amcorp Mall, Petaling Jaya just outside Kuala Lumpur, while Business Logic Systems (BLS) Asia Pacific office is based in Kuala Lumpur. Besides Malaysia, the solutions centre will serve BLS' current customers in Australia, Indonesia, Brunei, Pakistan and Mongolia.

Headquartered in the UK, BLS' InTelestage business suite of business intelligence software enables fixed line and cellular network operators to design, test, monitor, launch and manage fully-automated customer loyalty and retention programmes, including customer lifecycle management, campaign lifecycle management, the lifecycle management of customer segments and so on.

BLS next hopes to achieve MSC Malaysia status and to work with the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) to establish local industry standards and best-practices for customer lifecycle management.

“We want to work with MDeC to help set up a steering committee to create domestic standards for customer lifecycle management, since no one size fits all and you cannot simply apply standards from overseas into the Malaysian context with its different socio-economic, cultural, linguistic and other factors, and likewise you cannot apply standards for Peninsular Malaysia in the context of Sabah and Sarawak,” said Vicks.

BLS also works with the communications industry's leading developers, mobile platform providers and communications solutions providers such as Acision, Alcatel-Lucent, Emircom, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, the Hewlett-Packard & Intel Solutions Centre and Microsoft.

The InTelestage suite includes Real-Time Marketing Manager, Knowledge base, Profiler, Reporter, Marketing Manager, Relationship Manager, Loyalty Manager, Reward Manager and Lucky Draw.

“We don't just sell our customers the software and leave them to do the rest. Instead, our solutions team works with them to provide consultancy in the type of campaigns they want to run, tailor our solutions to meet their needs for specific campaigns, train them how to use it and provide technical support when needed. The ideal customers we can help are organisations which are passionate to find ways to serve, understand & extend the lifetime value of their subscribers.” said Vicks.

“For example in 2004, InTelestage let Australian operator Telstra design, test, monitor and launch campaigns within a day, instead of in eight to 10 weeks and for all operators it helps them improve their profitability and realise a return on their investment within months, rather than years,” said Vicks.

InTelestage gives operators an ongoing perspective of each of their customer's usage data, behaviour, movement, changes in usage patterns, helps predict their satisfaction level and enables operators to act in time to address any apparent issues.

InTelestage Segmentaion Lifecycle management addresses customers throughout their lifecycle beginning with customer acquisition, followed by customer retention at which time usage – hence the average revenue per user (ARPU) for that customer is the highest.

However, when it notices that revenue from a customer has begun to drop, it can be designed to automatically kick in with loyalty incentives to retain that customer and encourage more usage. It continues into the next segment by cross-selling and up-selling services and into the next with further loyalty and extended lifetime value (ELV) initiatives and incentives.

Otherwise, usage, hence revenue from a customer may gradually decline from its peak from the third segment onwards (the red line in the graph above).

“For example if a prepaid customer who has been recharging his airtime by RM100 each month suddenly recharges by RM50 a month, InTelestage can be configured to react by sending him an additional RM10 free airtime as a bonus to encourage him to remain,” said Vicks.

“However, it would not know whether the drop is due to financial difficulties during these tough economic times, because he recently broke up with his girlfriend so does not call her anymore or he recently married her so does not need to call his new wife as much, so it can send him a survey to find out more,” Vicks added.

BLS was established in London, UK in 1998, moved its research & development operations to Cluj, Romania in 2001 and set up its Asia Pacific office in Kuala Lumpur in June that same year.

Celcom has been BLS' local customer for three years and it had very recently signed up Maxis as well.

“For example, in 2007 Celcom ran a campaign using InTelestage aimed at its XPax prepaid customers and realised a 5% increase in usage,” said Vicks. “Typically, campaigns have resulted in between 5  and 10% increase in revenue for operators.