Phones have become a major part of people’s lives due to their ability to connect them to the world, whether it is social media or phone calls. However, the phone is only a device, while the soul of the device is provided by telecommunication companies that facilitate all communication. The telecom market in India is valued at $48.61 billion and is expected to grow to $76.16 billion at a compound annual growth rate of 9.64%, as per market intelligence platform Mordor Intelligence. The teledensity in India stood at 84.88% as broadband subscriptions increased to 788.77 million, and the overall subscriber base stood at 1.16 billion, as of April 2022, according to an Indian Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) report. In a conversation with BrandWagon Online, Gil Rosen, chief marketing officer, Amdocs, talks about the company’s campaigns for India, collaborations and leveraging emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT), among others and its plans to further assist modern society. (Edited Excerpts)

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The financials of the company could not be accessed by BrandWagon Online.

As the chief marketing officer of Amdocs, how do you ensure that your marketing strategies are both globally scalable and locally relevant, taking into account diverse regional nuances and cultural differences, but preserving a unified brand identity?

Our systems are crucial for enabling companies like Airtel, AT&T, Vodafone, T-Mobile, and others worldwide to provide communication services to customers. Connectivity powers modern society, and scalable systems are essential to maintain this. We enable our customers to deliver connectivity services, such as music streaming, using our technology.

Recently, we launched a campaign in India, a crucial talent pool for us. We aren’t a consumer-facing brand, we’re not widely known. We partnered with singer-songwriter Raja Kumari, creating a song that highlights our motto, ‘live amazing, do amazing’. The campaign was tailored to Indian culture, using local colors, and tones, and celebrating Aryabhata, who discovered zero. The historical reference ties into the digital world, which relies on ones and zeros.

The campaign also emphasises equal opportunities for all genders, reflecting our values. Raja Kumari’s video has more than 30 million views with a high completion rate, similar to the Amdocs page which has 25 million views. Our strategy involves understanding our audience and tailoring content to resonate culturally. 

Can you discuss a recent project or initiative at Amdocs that highlights the company’s commitment to leveraging emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, or machine learning to solve industry challenges?     

These domains are core to what Amdocs does. Amdocs creates technologies, products and services that enable telecommunication companies to launch 5G services. Everything that we do today is based on cloud computing. We have a division dedicated to IoT services. We launched a platform in Barcelona, called amAlz, which is the first telecom GPT, which takes the capabilities that became available with generative AI and enables telecommunication companies to use them for their benefit. 

The problem with generative AI in telecommunications is that it uses the available information on the Internet, to build its large language models (LLMs). These are the infinite databases that make up the knowledge base of generative AI but the information that resides inside telecom companies is not available on the internet. Therefore, it’s not known by LLMs. Amdocs is very focused on telecom and our databases, which include telecom taxonomy, are necessary to allow telecommunication companies to put generative AI to use in their use cases. 

In order to allow the generative AI to understand what was the status of the customers, one has to understand how telecom works, which a generic generative AI doesn’t know. Nvidia and Microsoft partnered with Amdocs to launch generative AI for telecoms. There is no other equivalent telecom GPT. We have an edge on this and Amdocs is at the forefront of advanced technologies like 5G, IoT, generative AI, and cloud.

Can you give insights into Amdocs attribution modelling methodologies, including proprietary algorithms or any data modelling techniques, that it uses to attribute conversions across multiple touchpoints? 

We have a customer reference program, we have a sales enablement platform, we have a web content platform, we have a customer management system, we have a lead in conversion like a Marketo, we have account-based marketing, and we have conversational chatbots. We manage our social activity through platforms, everything is being connected to track as much as we can. We are present in 90 countries, selling to customers, globally. We have to engage with so many customers, simultaneously, over different product launches. 

Under the brand name, we have around 100 products and each product has a team and has its own sales objectives, which require different marketing strategies to get to market because every product may have a different target audience have a different buyer. Some of our products are sold to the network division of the telecommunication company while some are sold to the IT side. We have technologies implemented within our marketing tech stack. The vision is to have everything connected to attribute and see holistically but it’s an ongoing challenge for us.

In terms of data governance and data quality management, how does Amdocs approach those areas within its marketing systems, particularly in ensuring accuracy and integrity across diverse data sources? 

This is something we are constantly working on. While we are present in different industries, serving the likes of Tesla, Apple, Mercedes Benz, and Federal Express, most of our revenue comes from the telecom space. In that domain, when it comes to business marketing, it’s different from what we do now, which is mass market talent acquisition in India. Our current focus is much broader, aiming at friends and families, making it more generic.

However, when it comes to our telecom industry activities, we target professionals within the industry. Data integrity is very high because most of the personas are known or listed, and we might even know them by name, not just by function. The lack of data on LinkedIn makes it straightforward because there are very few publications in this domain that matter to us. These publications are unique to telecom professionals, hence the data from those sources is relatively high quality. 

Unlike mass market segments, which can be fuzzy and unclear, the segments in the telecom industry are very specific. We target specific people and departments, and the relevant publications. From that perspective, we are in a different situation because this is classic enterprise marketing. We have a very clear target audience, allowing us to run high-quality campaigns, whether for awareness or conversion, depending on the campaign’s objective.

What are Amdocs’ strategic priorities and focus areas for the next few years and how do these align with the company’s long-term growth objectives? Adding to that, what are Amdocs’ growth projections and targets for the Indian market?

Our objective is to enable the growth and success of telecommunication companies by excelling in several key domains: cloud, 5G, digital, generative AI, and network. These areas are crucial for developing technologies that support our customers’ services, ensuring they can both launch and maintain them effectively.

For instance, after implementing a 5G network, the primary challenge is not just the implementation but the sustainability of the network. Amdocs provides the initial setup and the managed services required to keep these systems operational. We chose these domains because they represent growth opportunities for our customers and are integral to the future of connectivity services.

Looking back 10-20 years, technologies like IoT and 3G were emerging. Today, we have advanced to hyper-fast broadband connectivity with fibre optics and the widespread adoption of 5G, enabling devices and sensors to be used by consumers and enterprises, including applications in manufacturing, agriculture, and more, powered by telecommunications companies using our technology.

Looking ahead, connectivity will continue to improve, leading to a world where everything is interconnected. The telecommunication industry is essential for supporting modern society and driving these advancements. As connectivity advances, it will enhance every industry, including healthcare and education. For example, medical breakthroughs often depend on telecommunications technology, such as remote healthcare and high-performance computing for complex calculations. Many of these advancements would not be possible without the connectivity provided by telecommunication companies. We believe we are investing in the right areas of the telecommunication industry, positioning ourselves and our customers for growth.

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This article was first uploaded on May twenty, twenty twenty-four, at fourteen minutes past eight in the morning.