|
2001/05 Billing Magazine
A new arrival on the
Asian market
Arcotect, a new billing
solution provider, has officially launched itself into
the Asian market with offices based in Hong Kong. Anders
Lindstrom finds out more.
North America and Europe
have become the home to many of the leading billing vendors,
with a few exceptions in Israel that is. But now, an Asian
billing company is set to make its presence known on the
market. Launched in June last year Arcotect Ltd. is now
ready to be introduced. Based in Hong Kong, they exhibited
at IIR's AsiaPacific Billing 2001 event in March, which
was the company's first major appearance. Aiming specifically
at the Asian market, Arcotect offers billing, customer
care management and inventory management, within its product
line.
The initial founder of
Arcotect is Daniel C.S. Ng, who is now the company's CEO
and chief architect. Mr Ng has already made an impact
on the Chinese press, by standing out as a non-typical
Hong Kong chief executive. He told South China Morning
Post in December last year, "I want people on my
team to think about fun when they think about working
for me. We work long hours and if my staff do not have
fun, they will die." The Chinese journalist also
noted that Mr. Ng had guns on his desk, but not to fear,
they were from a recent paintball game. Somewhat surprising,
for any chairman, is that he encourages his staff to take
out their anger and stress with paintball games. An interesting
theory that might lead to many paint-covered bosses in
the Western world!
On a more serious note
though, is there room for another billing vendor? Well,
Daniel C.S. Ng is confident that there is "Enterprises
around the globe are weaving the Internet into the fabric
of their strategic goals at an alarming rate," he
tells Billing. "Never before has a new medium had
such a profound effect on all facets of business. In such
a competitive market, ISPs must transform their own operation
to meet the ever-changing and sophisticated customer's
need."
He considers the company
being Hong Kong-based as a key differentiator. "The
edge of Arcotect Billing System (ABS) is that we have
the knowledge and understanding of Asia Pacific, especially
Hong Kong and China." he explains. Furthermore, as
a new company on the market, what positive and negative
information did they 'take' from the existing billing
vendors? "Most vendors focus on technologies and
forget operation issues such as front/back office integration.
Our solution is tailored for the Asia Pacific market,
where custom solution is very important. In most cases,
we don't package our solution." Even though it is
only targeting Asia at present time, a globalisation is
in future plans. "Asia Pacific is our springboard,
but in the long run we are targeting the global market.
At the moment, we are just at the beginning of attaining
this goal."
Does Mr. Ng see any difference
in what requirements the Asian operators ask for, in comparison
to the European or American operators? "When compared
with European or American operators, the requirements
asked for by Asian operators are less 'sophisticated',
which means they will not ask for too complicated CRM
to go with the billing. However, in Asia, where the telecommunication
market has been opened for external competition, say for
example in Hong Kong at the moment, flexibility in rating
is a perennial concern for a lot of operators. The SAR
[Special Administrative Region of China] Government decided
to progressively open up the external telecommunication
facilities market from the 1st of January, 2000. This
enables Hong Kong to take advantage of newly emergent
technology and innovative services." The SAR Government
is now only licensing companies that will bring new cables
to land in Hong Kong, rather than those who simply purchase
IRUs of existing cables. This will be allowed until December
31, 2002. "Under this gradual opening of the market,"
continues Daniel C.S. Ng, "the operators still face
more competition from Europe and North America, and the
demand for more sophisticated applications for billing
will increase."
The name Arcotect comes
from the term Arcology, which embodies the fusion of architecture
with ecology. The company's remit in terms of client base
is: "Telcos and ISPs who are looking for a cost effective
billing solution and local expertise with local support,"
explains Mr Ng. "And those who are looking for total
solutions that ABS will be incorporated with other applications
from Arcotect, say for example Customer Relationship Management
(CRM), Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) and Enterprise
Information Portal."
Shortened to ABS, Arcotect
Billing System, the software platform's core features
include extended channel management, flexible billing,
scalability and multi-location operation support. Additionally,
ABS offers several optional features, such as marketing
campaign management, a customer loyalty programme, retention
and churn management, extendibility to Voice over IP (VoIP)
and web-enabled remote agent management. The latter feature
allows you to manage more channel partners effectively
to disseminate your products and services information
to various potential customer segments. "ABS provides
a comprehensive billing, provisioning and customer care
software suite for ISPs, ASPs and telcos," clarifies
Ng. "It features on-line subscription, billing, bank
reconciliation, customer support, e-mail to customers,
online billing presentment [EBPP], RADIUS interface, and
both automated provisioning on-, and universal billing
interface to accept usage information from - a variety
of Unix/NT/Win2K based servers."
Even though the company
has not even existed for a year yet, the ABS product has
been around for a much longer period. "ABS has been
developed for over four years," he says. "It
has been perfected over four solid years of billing system
development experience. The billing system development
team has witnessed and experienced various phases of system
requirements according to market competition both in narrowband
and broadband Internet service provisioning." Currently,
ABS Version 8.0 is out on the market.
Even though the company
is not lacking confidence, they are currently lacking
operators. "We are bidding some projects at the moment,
but it is too early to disclose," he states. However,
Arcotect is not only aiming at telcos, but also the utility
market and the company's product line expands beyond billing
and customer care with one of their other offerings HRMS
2000, an HR (Human Resources) solution developed specifically
for the e-Business world.
Besides ABS, Arcotect
also offers DNA, Digital Network Alert System, a multi-purpose,
global platform messaging system. The solution enables
its subscribers to receive an alert message through their
mobile SMS, pager, e-mail and fax whenever their credit
card is stolen and an unauthorised payment transaction
is being carried out. Basically, it is a security system
for non-cash payment alert services, made both online
and off-line. The product was patented back in 1994 in
China PRC, Hong Kong SAR, the United States, France and
Germany, and a year later in Taiwan and the United Kingdom
as well. How does the DNA work with the ABS platform?
"In billing systems, the operator can pre-set the
alert level, say for instance, customers will receive
SMS through their mobile or pager," explains Ng.
"In the case of content billing, DNA can be incorporated
to remind the content usage of a customer and give the
customer a better idea of content fee." A major alliance
has already been struck in Hong Kong for the DNA system,
including Hutchinson Telephone Company Ltd., Peoples Telephone
Company Ltd., SmarTone Mobile Communications Ltd. and
other operators in Hong Kong. " With such a strong
alliance and wide coverage," says Ng, "by mid
2001, Hong Kong's telecommunication network will be fully
covered by the DNA system. At the moment, if you are the
user of one of the [previously named] operators, the SMS
cannot be sent cross-platform. With this alliance, the
DNA server is connected to all the operators so that the
SMS can be sent cross-platform."
Looking ahead for the
future market of billing, what does Daniel C.S. Ng personally
think are the key features for billing in the coming period?
"Definitely, convergent billing system. In fact,
we are working on our ABCS (Arcotect Billing Convergent
System) which will have the mediation module for WAP,
GPRS, m-commerce, and roaming. This will help telcos to
incorporate all billing into one single bill." The
ABCS solution is yet to be released.
Back to the question
of being an Asian vendor in Asia. Will it make it easier
for Arcotect to get attention from the operators because
of its Hong Kong base? "As an AP based billing vendor
I think AP operators will be prone to choose us and we
have the presence and support here in Asia." And
how do they expect to get the operators' attention in
the first place, besides marketing? "With our expertise
and experience, we expect that ABS will penetrate to telcos
by word of mouth."
With a fresh approach
and understanding of the market, Arcotect is now ready
to sway the Asia Pacific market, fighting the competition
of European, American and Israeli billing vendors. And
considering its non-typical CEO maybe the Asian market
will appreciate the new arrival.
Back
|
