IBM Helps Idea Cellular Improve Postpaid Customer Service

BANGALORE, March 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Successful Postpaid IT and Business Transformation Enables Idea to Deliver Superior Experience to Over 5 Million Customers Across India

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Idea Cellular Ltd (Idea), India's 3^rd largest mobile operator, has leveraged the company's business consulting expertise to transform its postpaid business, enabling Idea to provide improved customer service while simultaneously reducing operational costs and growing revenue.

This postpaid transformation program is part of an existing 10-year business transformation agreement signed in March 2007 between both organizations, to integrate, innovate and transform Idea's business processes and IT infrastructure.

In India's increasingly competitive telecommunications market, Idea turned to IBM to help further differentiate its services by overhauling internal processes to improve customer experience. The engagement focused on Idea's postpaid business, and included the implementation of a new customer relationship management system as well as improved billing and payments system. New data insights and intelligence resulting from these systems now provide the basis for differentiating customer service at key touch points and uncovering critical cross-sell opportunities.

"With the rapidly changing demands of our customers, it is becoming increasingly important to rethink how our organization operates by automating and improving both internal and external processes," said Mr. Prakash Paranjape, Chief Information Officer, Idea Cellular. "As Idea continues to grow and expand services across India, this transformation will enable us realize our business goals and offer better, more innovative products to our postpaid customers."

IBM also helped Idea standardize information technology processes by introducing a centralized IT system with higher processing capacity and enhanced automation. A rich and growing portfolio of IBM software including IBM Websphere, InfoSphere, Tivoli and DB2 Enterprise are being utilized to help Idea drive greater efficiency into customer service adding value to every asset, capability and strategy. The standardized yet flexible IT architecture will also help accelerate time to market for new services and enable the company's operations to keep pace with its accelerated business growth and expansion.

"As we work closely with telecommunications providers in India and across the world, we see a unique opportunity for these organizations to improve service and capture increased market share," said Jeby Cherian, Vice President and Managing Partner, Global Business Services, IBM India/South Asia. "By leveraging the power of standards based technology, increasing access to customer data and taking advantage of industry best practices to streamline operations, providers like Idea are able to grow and bring next generation services to the market."

Primary Media Contact: Bhavana, [email protected], 91-9886445384