9mobile Implements Voucher Management Software

voucher management software

In common with all Mobile Network Operators, Nigerian-based 9mobile needed to build expansive business support systems to ensure it had the business intelligence to be able to understand customer behaviours, increase ARPU and reduce churn with the help of Voucher Management Software.

Nigeria is a fast-paced and competitive business landscape, with all four major operators wanting to increase voucher sales, as well as margins, whilst reducing risk and operating costs.

Bluechip Technologies was the natural partner when 9mobile needed a robust Voucher Management Software to manage the complete lifecycle of prepaid vouchers, from PIN generation through Redemption and Administration.

Background

Nigeria has the largest number of mobile subscribers in Africa, and with four major mobile operators, it is inevitably a very competitive landscape.  One of the largest players – and the youngest – is the wholly Nigerian-owned, 9mobile.

9mobile has always operated on the core values of industry-leading customer service and innovation, and today, it boasts over 13 million customers and growing. In December 2022, 9mobile was awarded the  Deborah Leipziger Africa Prize for Innovation at the 16th edition of the prestigious Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, and Responsibility Awards.

How did Bluechip help with the Voucher Management Software implementation?

The partnership between 9mobile and Bluechip Technologies began with 9mobile’s inception as a mobile operator in Nigeria in 2008.

One of the first projects Bluechip Technologies delivered was a state-of-the-art Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) to provide a ‘single source of the truth’ and to automate the delivery of daily business Key Performance Indicators to enable proactive decision making via a self-service Business Intelligence suite which ensures that 9mobile always had accurate and timely business information at their fingertips.

Bluechip Technologies implemented Simplex – a ‘Trade Watchtower’ product to manage 9mobile’s entire Sales & Distribution Lifecycle and provide a 360° view of the business by capturing all activities within the value chain and delivering omni-channel monitoring of the ‘in-the-field sales force’.

Simplex is a cloud-based market-leading Voucher Management solution that manages the complete lifecycle of prepaid vouchers, from their generation through to redemption, covering all aspects of PIN Management, Stock Management, Fraud Management, Order and Sales Management and Security. By design, Simplex offers Open APIs with built-in integration with ERP systems to Service Providers and the IN. Using the integrated payment gateway allows easy payments via bank transfers or credit cards.

It is designed for forward-thinking telecoms, energy, retail, and entertainment businesses. Simplex is securely engineered through a combination of market-leading technology solutions as well as multiple industry know-how.

Summary

Utilising the Voucher Management Software, Bluechip Technologies was able to meet 9mobile’s needs.

It was able to achieve the following;

  • Automated the Order to Delivery (O2D) process, which improved the turnaround time from days to minutes.
  • Increase the airtime sales revenue by 2X within the first six months of implementation.
  • Increased security in the business process, thereby cutting down fraud drastically.
  • Reduced the cost by up to 50%, incurred on PIN Generation drastically through the demand management and flexible licensing of Simplex.
  • Consolidation of multiple applications reduced the multiple service failure points, thereby increasing the uptime of the platform.

Provide visibility across the inventory across the entire value chain, especially the last mile.

Read the full case study here.

Enterprise Data Warehouse Case Study – Wema Bank

enterprise data warehouse case study

Bluechip’s CMDM implementation to improve the quality of data flowing into the Enterprise Data Warehouse

Digital banking in Nigeria is on the rise, and banks need to do all they can to ensure seamless transactions and processes for clients.

Wema Bank pioneered and today operates the most extensive digital banking system across Nigeria – ALAT – a digital-only banking service launched in 2017.  ALAT is a branchless & paperless bank with the ability to perform banking transactions easily on-line using a mobile phone, PC or tablet.

Background

Wema Bank Plc (Wema Bank) is a Nigerian commercial bank licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the regulator of the nation’s banking sector. Wema Bank was established in 1945 and is Nigeria’s longest-established indigenous bank.

Wema Bank chose Bluechip Technologies to implement its Customer Master Data Management (CMDM) solution to improve the quality of data flowing into the Enterprise Data Warehouse.

How Bluechip Helped with the Digital Transformation

As part of the digital transformation at Wema Bank, Bluechip implemented several models:

CMDM

  • In 2019, during the initial phase of the Digital Transformation project, it was crucial to ensure the quality of the data in the Enterprise Data Warehouse in order to create reliable Business Intelligence from Advanced Analytics.
  •  Bluechip Technologies’ CMDM was used to automate and operationalise its Data Governance Policies & Procedures, ensuring clean customer data.
  • This project was regarded as one of the most successful during the pandemic for the bank.

Enterprise Data Warehouse

  • The next stage was for Bluechip Technologies to build an Enterprise Data Warehouse, with the objective to provide a central source of customer data across the entire organisation and to ensure a 360-degree view of their customers. Bluechip Technologies built the Enterprise Data Warehouse in 2021 using Microsoft Azure – Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Lake, Azure Synapse Analytics and PowerBI.

Segmentation Analysis and Modelling

  • Wema Bank wanted to promote the right products to customers, using properly segmented customer information to deliver insights into expected customer behaviours.
  • Using reliable data from the Enterprise Data Warehouse, Bluechip seamlessly integrated and operationalised the Customer Segmentation Model into existing customer-facing applications, increasing engagement on campaigns, offers and promotions.

The benefits included:

  • Enhanced customer understanding – Customer segmentation analysis provided a deeper understanding of different customer groups and their unique characteristics.
  • Improved Target Marketing – Segmentation enabled more focused and targeted Marketing efforts leading to improved campaign results.
  • Increased Customer Loyalty – By understanding customer needs and behaviours, Wema Bank developed tailored strategies that enhanced Customer Loyalty.
  • Better Product Development – Segmentation provided insights into customer needs and preferences that informed Product Development and improved the overall Customer Experience.
  • Increased Sales – By tailoring offerings to specific customer segments, Wema Bank increased Sales and Revenue.
  • Improved resource allocation – Segmentation helped Wema Bank allocate resources more effectively by focusing on the most profitable customer segments.
  • Increased personalisation – Wema Bank used customer segmentation to personalise customer interactions and improve customer satisfaction.

Transaction Classification & Recommendation Model

An essential deliverable from Bluechip Technologies to Wema Bank was the Transaction Classification & Recommendation Model. Wema Bank needed a solution that would enhance insight into customer product propensity and channel adoption, using customer demographics & transacting behaviours.

The approach taken was to classify ‘customer clusters’ based on demographics and behaviours.

A few of the benefits included:

  • Understanding Customer Behaviour – Classifying customers based on transactions enabled further analytical insight into customer behavioural patterns.
  • Drive Transaction Frequency via Partners – Increased the transaction frequency via Wema Bank partners.
  • Cross-selling to Transaction Categories – Enabled Cross-selling of similar transaction classification categories to other customers with similar segmentation.
  • Up-Selling Customers – Increased customer spend by recommending higher-value transaction types.
  • Channel & Product Adoption – Drove the adoption of particular products and particular channels.
  • Improved Customer Experience – Improved customer experience with ‘Right customer, right product, right time

Summary

Wema Bank invested heavily to improve its Data Quality – both old and new  – in order to be able to achieve the desired customer experience across all channels – whether it was services or campaigns. In the first year of implementation, Wema pushed its Data Quality Index up to 80%, and CMDM remains a foundational application within the bank’s Data Management ecosystem.

Read the full case study here.

Cash management for corporate banking

Modern Nigerian bank

Despite huge advances being made in cashless payments in Nigeria, the country still ranks very high in the table of countries most reliant upon cash. The challenge for a modern Nigerian bank, such as GTBank, is not only to progressively introduce new digital banking services but also, at the same time, to efficiently manage the ongoing utilisation of cash.

Typically, the challenges faced by the bank include the high cost associated with volume cash handling and the high risk associated with crime and losses from other incidents, such as fire or flooding.

Background:

Guaranty Trust Bank PLC (GTBank) was originally founded in 1990 and now serves over 24 million customers across 10 African countries and also in the United Kingdom. Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, GTBank subsidiaries are established in Cote D’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Sierra Leone and the United Kingdom. Employing over 12,000 people, GTBank services individuals, businesses, private, and public institutions with a broad range of market-leading financial products and services.

In 2012, GTBank selected Bluechip Technologies to help build an Enterprise Data Management & Business Intelligence Platform to enable better and faster insights for effective decision-making. The aim was to:

  • Automate Management Performance Reporting (MPR)
  • Provide Executive Dashboards
  • Create a 360-degree view of customers and leverage these analytics for efficient Cash Management.

How Bluechip implemented the Cash Decisioning System

Designed and built by Bluechip Technologies was a Cash Decisioning System. This enabled the bank to optimize their requirements for the management of cash across their extensive Branch network.

GTBank is traditionally a ‘cash consuming bank’, meaning that the amount of cash deposited on a daily basis is not enough to cater for the withdrawal requests for cash.

Cash requirements in the branch were tricky; Cash shortages in a branch would invariably create customer dissatisfaction. Overstocking of cash in a branch creates a greater risk of loss and also incrementally higher insurance costs.

Having implemented Bluechip’s Cash Decisioning System, GTBank was able to collect information on cash balance in an individual Bank Teller’s till, in ATM and the vault, across all branches. As such, GTBank was able to monitor the cash flow movement across branches within the bank.

Today, this Cash Decisioning System, built alongside a Tier 1 Nigerian Bank, has evolved over the years, has been productized and is known as ‘Cash Complete’.

‘Cash Complete’ is a Cloud application that can be deployed on multiple cloud environments such as Azure, AWS, OCI, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and others. The solution uses machine learning and AI technology to learn the minimum level of threshold of cash required by any bank.

Summary:

For GTBank, Bluechip’s implementation of ‘Cash Complete’  was able to:

  • Simplify the cash supply chain seamlessly by integrating all cash point data – ensuring cash needs are met at the lowest cost, everywhere required.
  • Cash management teams or central bank teams can see requests raised for cash in a single view and disperse the cash digitally.
  • With the help of Cash Complete, the demand for cash can be fulfilled immediately without causing any undue delays for customers.
  • Cash Complete massively reduces the manual work required by the cash management units. No matter the country, the currency or the demand volatility, Cash Complete provides the analytical tools, simplified procedures and accurate results to more efficiently manage cash stocks in one location or one hundred locations.

To read all about the outcomes and improvements of the transformation, click through to the full case study here.

Oracle Cloud Application Transformation – MTN Nigeria

Oracle cloud application

As telecom companies expand and grow, the requirements for efficiency and ensuring their business operates to the best of their abilities.

Telecoms company MTN Nigeria’s parent group MTN Group decided to use Oracle Cloud Applications to drive one of the largest cloud transformations in the global telecom industry across all its core business areas, including human resources, finance, supply chain and operations.

Background:

Established in 2001, MTN Nigeria is Africa’s largest provider of communications services, connecting approximately 70 million people in communities across the country with each other and the world. In revenue terms, it is the single largest contributor to MTN Group, which services 270 million customers across 19 markets.

The digital implementation aimed to drive efficiency in inventory management, scale operations and integration across its local and regional operations through automation, self-service, IoT and mobile application capabilities. A key objective was enhancing management visibility across all business operations for real-time performance measurement.

How did Bluechip help with the Oracle Cloud Application?

MTN Nigeria decided to implement Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP); Supply Chain Management (SCM); Enterprise Performance Management (EPM); Customer Experience (CX); Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Oracle Service Cloud solutions with TechMahindra as their primary partner.

TechMahindra engaged Bluechip Technologies to identify, analyse, design, test and deploy the Oracle Fusion Cloud SaaS solutions in MTN Nigeria with the following objectives:

  • Systems Implementation and Integration of IT systems into the different business processes and applications.
  • Local Integration of MTN Nigeria impacted applications to Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP.
  • End to end Integration & testing of all impacted applications.
  • Implementation of new reporting capabilities across the company.

Bluechip’s project scope involved the review and implementation of the business requirements, business processes, technical interface and integration using Oracle tools – SOAR and OIC, systems integration testing, automation testing and user acceptance resting.

Summary

As a whole, the project ensured that many of the primary objectives laid out were fully met, including (but not limited to, read more in the full case study here):

  • Increased efficiency and business performance
  • Improved business visibility across the entire organization.
  • Improved collaboration between MTN Nigeria and external stakeholders.
  • Improved features and functionality of the system for the effective close of books at period end.
  • Improved engagement between the staff and the HR department.

From MTN Nigeria’s perspective, not only have their core business ERP applications moved to the cloud, with all the cost savings and efficiencies that brings but reporting into MTN Group has become so much quicker and easier with Oracle Cloud EPM.

To read all about the outcomes and improvements of the transformation, click through to the full case study here.

Customer Data Management Key for First City Monument Bank 

customer data management

Bank increase in 2022

 

In 2022 and beyond, a bank’s success will increasingly depend on how well the growing asset of customer data is being managed. When it comes to decision making, both poor data quality and non-availability of data must be pro-actively addressed.

First City Monument Banks (FCMB) looked to Bluechip Technologies as a partner to enhance its Customer Master Data Management using state-of-the-art cloud technologies.

Background:

First City Monument Bank (FCMB) is a member of FCMB Group Plc. Founded in 1982, the bank has a long history of stability and growth and today is one of the leading financial services institutions in Nigeria, with over 10 million customers.

Having successfully developed as a retail and commercial banking-led group, FCMB embarked on a Digital Transformation programme focused on Customer Master Data Management to continue to deliver exceptional services to its customers.

How did Bluechip help with the digital transformation? 

The aim of the project was to implement an end-to-end Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence solution with strong Data Governance on Microsoft Azure to provide the foundation for the bank’s business intelligence and digital banking initiatives.

The objectives included:

  • Operationalise data governance policies and bolster regulatory compliance with effective customer data management, including monitoring, enforcement, and reporting.
  • Provide a 360-degree customer view to enable marketing campaigns, customise offers and take business decisions quickly with trusted customer information available.
  • Introduce Executive Dashboards and Predictive Analytics across Strategic Business Units
  • Deliver a robust data platform to drive highly targeted campaigns.
  • Empower the business to leverage data for decision-making without dependence on IT.
  • Build a robust and scalable enterprise platform data warehouse/ business intelligence platform.
  • Integrate Data Governance Master Data Management tool into the Enterprise Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence platform.

Using its Customer Master Data Manager (CMDM) for administering and managing data quality helped Bluechip Technologies establish policies and procedures to drive data quality improvement.

The functionalities included:

  • Executive Dashboards are provided across various business units, available anytime, anywhere on any device using Microsoft Power BI.
  • Self-Service Business Intelligence delivered across the entire organization and Strategic Business Units.
  • Richer Customer Engagement Management.

Find out exactly what this included in the full case study here.

Summary

Bluechip’s Customer Master Data Management solution proved to be the ideal foundation for First City Monument Bank to execute it’s digital transformation vision.

In August 2022, FCMB Group Plc reported impressive growth in earnings, revenue, deposits, loans and asset under management growth in its first half-year financial results for 2022. The Group also recorded a 73.2 percent year-on-year growth in profit before tax and huge growth across all of its business segments, and Gross Revenue was up 34 percent year-on-year.

To read all about the outcomes and improvements of the transformation, click through to the full case study here.

 

Cash Management software with cloud integration for a Nigerian bank

digital transformation

At a time when many banks are innovating and looking at transforming their businesses and cash management software to cloud-based solutions, companies must ensure they can offer a smooth transition for their client.

Here at Bluechip, we have helped FirstBank – a Nigerian multinational Bank and Financial Services company headquartered in Nigeria and with subsidiaries in West Africa, the UK and elsewhere – to embark on a project to move the bank’s Enterprise Resource Planning from on-premise to cloud-based solutions.

Background

Established in 1894, FirstBank offers a comprehensive range of retail and corporate financial services through more than 170,000 business outlets to over 17 million customer accounts.

With over 16,000 employees, FirstBank held the strategic ambition to enhance their human resources management and, given the availability of an advanced solution with Oracle Fusion Cloud, selected Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM to provide a cost-effective and highly efficient solution to their current and future needs.

How did Bluechip help with the digital transformation?

The aim of the switch was to support FirstBank’s Innovation goal to deliver innovative products and services to their customers, as well as improve customer experience, increase efficiency, reduce costs and ensure;

  • As an Oracle partner, we worked to support the transformation designed to be implemented in two stages. The implementation solution begins with the Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. It is then followed by the Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) solution to fully automate the human capital functions.
  • Bluechip Technologies was engaged as its fulfilment System Implementation Partner for the delivery of the Oracle Fusion Cloud solutions, the objectives for which were clearly stipulated from the outset, including;
    • Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) must be available 24/7, 365 days a year
    • Be scalable to consider business expansion
    • Automate all the back-office processes and enable seamless Group Financial Consolidation and more.
    • Achieve savings of up to 50% in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over the existing Oracle on-premise solution
    • Be able to integrate with other digital transformation solutions adopted by FirstBank, such as ‘Finacle’
    • Much more can be found in the full case study here
  • The new cloud system – Oracle Fusion Enterprise Resource Planning Cloud Service – can create processes for areas such as General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Asset Management, Cash Management, and Expense Management.

Summary

The transformation from Oracle On-Premise EBS to Oracle Fusion Cloud has brought huge benefits to FirstBank. Their primary objective was to upgrade their ‘back-office systems’. Also a vital component in their overall innovative digital transformation strategy that aims to drive the adoption of digital banking throughout Africa.

In 2022, First Bank of Nigeria Limited won two International Investor Awards awards – Best Bank in Nigeria 2022 and Best Bank in Digital Transformation Nigeria 2022 in recognition of its continued efforts at reinventing its digital banking channels.

To read all about the outcomes and improvements of the transformation, click through to the full case study here.

Digital Customer Experiences with Customer Master Data Management  

customer data management

Why is a connected customer experience important?

A great customer experience is one of the most powerful marketing tools a business can have, and if that goes, quite often, so does your customer.

According to a MuleSoft webinar, 80% of customers will leave a company if they have a bad experience. So the onus really is on the provider to transform a customer experience and create positivity – understanding not only what they want but who they are, when they want it, and how they interact.

It can be difficult for customers to keep track of all the different data points and applications involved in each transaction. Having too many touchpoints can create a lot of frustration.

It is critical to have access to data – particularly customer data — to stand apart from the competition. This is where customer master data management (CMDM) comes into play.

Challenges of building a connected customer experience  

As already mentioned, disconnected data sets are one of the biggest challenges when creating the building block for a smooth and connected customer experience. So what other challenges and barriers come into this when looking at customer data?

The 360-degree view of customers – It promises to deliver and give marketers that picture-perfect profile of their customers. However, with GDPR coming into force in 2018 and implementation costs rising, things became much more complicated. It is believed that only 10% of surveyed organisations have managed to achieve this. A report from Gartner concluded that “By 2026, 80% of organizations pursuing a ‘360-degree view of the customer will abandon these efforts because they flout data privacy regulations, rely on obsolete data collection methods, and erode customer trust.”

The absence of high-quality, dependable data – From missing data to duplicate data, it’s one of the biggest barriers. Unstructured data means a business will not be able to create a solid customer data management system and subsequent workflows.

High costs – The rising costs of system maintenance and IT support for an on- premise solutions are squeezing company budgets, with little room to invest in innovations that will elevate the business in the future.

Lack of data governance skills – The absence of a rigid data management system twinned with the lack of data governance skills in-house makes it almost impossible to get a real understanding of the customer.

How can customer master data management help? 

Eliminates silos of data – Collecting data from multiple disparate data sources, such as cloud applications or local data sets. Bluechip can collect data from various business applications, such as CRM and accounting systems.

Creates a single version of the truth – A solid master data management means the data and the customer 360 profile, a business with the real insight and intelligence of the customer to execute the next action.

Cut through different definitions and different systems  – For example, the term “usage” could have a different meaning hence a different value in a marketing system vs an accounting system. A customer master data management system helps establish common definitions of data, so that all data views are accurate and consistent.

Make trusted data available for decision-makers – This data can be presented to decision-makers in a format that allows them to make business decisions quickly, such as introducing new products or creating personalised marketing promotions, identifying up-sell or cross-sell opportunities, or bottlenecks in growth. This information can then be used to improve customer experiences further. 

Creates a balance between data analytics and privacy and data protection –

Monetising the data assets to your business advantage is important to deliver exceptional customer experiences and stay ahead of the competition. However, evolving regulations around data and privacy can restrict how you use the data. With a customer master data management, a business can define its rules of how they can use the customer data and ensure its governed, as well as remaining compliant with any data regulations such as GDPR.  

Increases business agility –  A good system will continuously clean, dedupe, and merge rogue data with AI-fuelled tools, giving you the power to verify and improve your data in real time.

Simplex E-pin Management System for Etisalat

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Etisalat accelerates data retrieval

Etisalat accelerates data retrieval

  • Oracle Communications today announced that Etisalat Nigeria, a leading Nigerian communications service provider, has gone live with Oracle Communications Data Model, which helps it more quickly analyze growing volumes of diverse data, and make better business decisions.
  • Oracle Communications Data Model allows Etisalat Nigeria to analyze data across multiple business areas – including customer, revenue and network management – to react quickly to technological, regulatory and business challenges in both prepaid and postpaid markets.
  • Upon implementing Oracle Communications Data Model on Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 Half Rack, Etisalat Nigeria reduced the time required to aggregate and analyze data by 99 percent (1). The company can now load call detail records in near real-time, and has gained improved insight to the behavior of its customers and their propensity to churn.
  • Now able to make decisions based on near real-time data, Etisalat Nigeria can take immediate action to prevent customer churn, deliver personalized promotions and identify and address revenue leakage sources.
  • The solution includes pre-built dashboards and other customized components to jumpstart development and reduce the cost, complexity and risk of data integration. Implemented in just eight months, Oracle Communications Data Model also provides Etisalat Nigeria the flexibility to upgrade systems faster and efficiently as market conditions change.
  • Oracle Communications Data Model is purpose-built for communications service providers and has been conformance certified with the industry’s TM Forum Information Framework (SID) standard, which fosters interoperability with providers’ systems.
  • Etisalat Nigeria has deployed Oracle Communications Data Model on Oracle Exadata Database Machine, which offers extreme data warehousing performance with faster upload and query speeds.
  •  Etisalat selected Oracle’s technology following a competitive evaluation to replace its legacy business intelligence (BI) systems, which lacked the functionality, performance and scalability for a dynamic and responsive BI environment.

The Oracle Communications Data Model and Exadata solution has greatly improved our ability to quickly and efficiently retrieve and analyze data from a variety of sources. Transactional data is processed in near real-time, taking about 45 minutes to process data for a full day, which is a significant improvement on the eight hours it used to take to process the same data. Oracle’s technology has allowed us to offer customers relevant and personalized services, which we can quickly make available. Because the project only took eight months to implement, we were able to experience benefits much sooner than expected,” said Ajibola Ajia, IT Specialist, Intelligence, Implementation & Integration, Etisalat Nigeria.

Considering the current data explosion in the telecommunications space, it was critical for Etisalat to implement technologies capable of collecting and getting the most from data in its various markets. The Oracle Communications Data Model running on Oracle Exadata provides Etisalat with a scalable and flexible solution, ensuring it remains competitive and maintains its position as a leading communications provider in the region,” said Bhaskar Gorti, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications.