Nexign and MegaFon Introduced the Unified Billing to Facilitate Digital Transformation

Saint Petersburg, Russia — March 17, 2021: Nexign (a part of ICS Holding LLC), a leading Business Support System (BSS) and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions provider, and MegaFon, the pan-Russian operator of digital opportunities, have completed the project of unifying billing systems for all 8 MegaFon’s subsidiaries on a single BSS platform. The companies also migrated data of its subscribers to the new environment simultaneously and with no impact on customers.

The need to go beyond classical telecom services pushed MegaFon to transform the billing core and develop a unified billing system in order to facilitate digital transformation. Among the strategic goals of the project were the reduction of total cost of ownership (TCO) by 20–30%, as well as centralization and acceleration of new product launches.

The new BSS platform was developed and implemented by a joint team of Nexign and MegaFon. In the course of the project, 7 billing systems utilized in MegaFon were replaced with a single solution. The migration of a huge subscriber base to a new platform was carried out in stages, while operating the outdated billing solutions until they were completely replaced. Thanks to the joint efforts of the two companies, the migration of subscribers was seamless for customers, and the specifics and working arrangements of individual organizations were taken into account during the migration of the B2X segment.

MegaFon achieved the following results:

• Unification of processes for all branch offices;
• Transition from a regional-based to a single shared operation service, which resulted in the increase of its efficiency;
• The product portfolio aligned within all branches of the operator while maintaining the flexibility of local pricing policy;
• Introduction of joint call centers with the same service KPIs and standardized routes for handling calls;
• Improved quality of customer service in the operator’s coverage area;
• Time to market (TTM) for various product categories reduced by 2-5 times.

“The collaboration with Nexign has proven to be efficient and successful. We pursued a number of goals traditional for large companies. Aside from optimizing TCO and shortening the time to market for new services, we aimed to improve the customer experience and, as a result, facilitate digital and business transformation. We managed to move all 8 subsidiaries to unified billing processes and switch to a single operation service, which minimized support costs and enabled us to develop an ecosystem for the seamless integration of external partners,” says Sergey Nikiforets, Director of Digital Services at MegaFon PJSC .

Besides the actual implementation of the unified billing system, a number of related projects were completed:

• The integration of the FastTrack methodology designed to automate the update implementation process. Consequently, the team responsible for it decided to spend no more than two weeks on minor changes to the system core — a process that used to last for about a year.
• Development of a microservice factory. Its goal was to accelerate the formation of a partner ecosystem. By using this tool, MegaFon has already launched more than 100 new business projects.
• The introduction of a product catalog that acts as a single point of development and modification of MegaFon’s products and services. The product catalog has a three-level structure. Two levels have already been launched, and work on the third one that will ensure rapid integration with partners and channels will be completed in 2021.

“The joint project with MegaFon is unique for the telecommunications market — both in terms of organized interaction and in terms of results achieved. The Nexign team carried out a comprehensive transformation of the operator’s systems, which enabled MegaFon to not only improve business efficiency and enter a new phase of development, but also to ensure customer loyalty while maintaining a high level of service in all regions. Whereas MegaFon will be able to upgrade the unified billing system to address short-term and long-term business challenges, Nexign’s scalable expertise will benefit telcos looking to develop digital services,” says Igor Gorkov, CEO of Nexign.