Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.
Brazil is a vast country, occupying more than 8.5 million square kilometers—and dominating the map of South America. Brazil’s sheer scale and wealth of natural resources have made it one of the most dynamic economies in the world. And while Brazil’s geographic scale is undoubtedly one of the reasons for its success, that same size can spell challenges for Brazilian communications service providers, which need to provide service across large expanses to many remote areas—including rural areas far from metropolises like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
But now, the cloud is coming to the rescue of Latin American service providers—in Brazil and elsewhere.
The best tools are no longer the exclusive province of the biggest companies. Cloud computing is leveling the playing field and enabling rural and regional providers to deliver excellent customer experiences and deploy new services on par with larger service providers with much larger customer bases.
Also, rural or regional service providers can now overcome the budget and resource constraints that compelled them to develop custom business support systems (BSS) in-house or avoid using the best commercial solutions to run their businesses. The pay-as-you-grow pricing model, elasticity and economics of scale that the cloud provides democratizes access to the latest BSS solutions, while leaving ample room to grow.
Updates are automatic. There is no new hardware to buy, and disaster recovery protection is enhanced by tier-1 proven methodologies with multiple redundancies. In more practical terms, vendors who can provide cloud-based solutions will reduce their customers’ upfront and ongoing operational costs, while providing 24×7 support. Remote access, which makes it possible for a system to be used across different locations, is another advantage.
A cloud-enabled BSS solution could pre-integrate key capabilities such as billing and charging, ordering, service delivery and customer support. Service providers would get real-time network interfaces that provide a single view of their customers from the device to the network across all lines of business and the ability to launch new offers, promotions and service plans in a matter of days with unlimited service bundling potential.
To that end, Microsoft has invested heavily in the growth of Office 365, a SaaS edition of its venerable productivity suite, and business intelligence, customer service, marketing, product lifecycle and supply chain solutions are being more broadly adopted by organizations of all sizes. Now, custom solutions are emerging to service BSS requirements for the communications industry’s most underserved segments.
The message is clear: the benefits of cloud computing are now making the most advanced BSS solutions available to Brazilian service providers, regardless of their size. And the benefits will not only be felt by the service providers: their customers will also enjoy a seamless  experience.
