Excelcom Accelerates VAS Transformation via Managed Services

With the erosion of voice and message service revenue, VAS and mobile data service development is seen as the answer. Joy Wahyudi, CMO of XL, says that their company is seeing the need to move beyond voice & text. Although in recent years, data services have demonstrated huge growth potential, the growth itself has largely come from the data access itself (dumb pipe access). XL feels that they haven’t yet tapped into the huge potential that comes from both the data access business and the content being delivered. So, it is essential that XL be part of this ecosystem.

The CMO thinks that one of the biggest differences between data service and traditional voice & text is that the demand is not automatic. The demand has to be created by giving the right content for the customer. In this case, what is appropriate can be derived from anywhere in the world, as opposed to Indonesia itself. “If you look at the most popular applications that are being used in Indonesia, the top ones, such as Facebook and Twitter, are not local. Also, the life of an application is a bit short-term. One that was popular one year ago can become unpopular a year from now. So the ongoing pressure for us, as a carrier, is to fill up the big pipe we have built. Therefore we are looking at Huawei as a global company that can give us exposure in terms of the knowhow and what’s happening globally”, Wahudi says.