Selected ICT and Related Industry Case Studies

1. A mobile operator was awarded the second mobile telephone license in South Africa by industry regulator ICASA; the license award was significantly delayed compared to that of its incumbent competitor. ICON’s established reputation for the successful delivery of complex projects led to the award of a contract to fast track the rollout of this operator’s network to achieve parity in network coverage. This work further extended and included support throughout the business’ capital-intensive phase to a going concern.
2. Strategic assignments focused on specialist ICT industry-specific knowledge and expertise, applied to a wide variety of confidential strategic assignments for top management teams in mobile operators. Key assignments delivered include:
   • Industry Analyses (with an international focus), conducted on a quarterly basis over several years, to inform the strategic thought processes of an operator’s top management team;
   • Development of Industry Scenarios as inputs for strategic options to ensure relevant, resilient all-inclusive strategic plans as well as extraction of an internal strategic agenda;
   • Preparation of various business models for a Mobile Operator’s initiatives in targeting opportunities in the wider African market.
   • Facilitated the preparation of an Operator’s Bid for a second network license in Uganda;
   • Prepared the entire Bid Application (all Legal, Technical/Commercial, Financial and Product/Market aspects) on behalf of two Under-Serviced Area Licenses, to regulator ICASA; both bids succeeded in the award of licenses.
   • Conducted a confidential assignment to advise a new mobile market entrant on a cost-driven strategy to capture expanding data market opportunities.
   • In line with international ITU trends, ICASA made the implementation of mobile number portability compulsory for licenced mobile operators in SA; the development of a two-tier number portability strategy;
   • Implementation of a strategic projects group to continually prioritise, structure and plan its CAPEX projects to ensure reliable delivery, accurate cash flows and effective use of limited critical resources;
   • Undertook strategic assignments for various South African Telecoms Operators to advise on technologies; including wireline and wireless technologies.
   • Advised a regulator as a subject matter expert and assistant to validate the models used, and sense check the resulting determined fixed and mobile termination rates for all South African operators for the next few years as a part of the regulator’s renewed interconnect initiatives. A set of bottom-up models and top-down models were applied in conjunction with one another to determine the correct call termination rate glide slope for various types of voice calls over the next few years;
   • Technical/commercial valuations in a number of Telecoms Industry Due Diligences, including a Due Diligence on a city council broadband fibre network, and a Due Diligence at the time of the corporate acquisition of a Tier 1 network infrastructure provider.
3. Additional ICT professional consulting and operational services included:
   • Implementation of project management methodologies in Marketing and Corporate Sales; project management and business analysis to launch new marketing Products and Services;
   • Policies, processes and procedures; the design and launch of E-Bucks, Pre-Paid and Customer Service Centres;
   • Provision of project management and business analysis resources in Nigeria to assist in the establishment of an Operator’s business operations after the successful award of a mobile license;
   • Project management and technical resources to establish the first-ever integration of a mobile access solution that gives mobile users access to information on corporate exchange servers; a unique combination of airtime, SMS and IT (VAN) services, based on the Ericsson Moso platform and Microsoft MMIS server functionality.
   • Regulatory (LRIC, CCA & AS), engineering and operational, financial, and cost modelling required to perform cost analysis, P&L for products and customers, and scenario planning; used for regulatory purposes, the launch of new products, business units and operations.
   • Development of business frameworks and network technology solutions for African telecommunication and ISP providers. This included the business operational aspects, design, and the procurement process for network equipment (Broadband Wireless Access, VoIP & ISP) and extended to price and product development.
   • Business process and user requirement specification for various products launched by a major mobile operator in SA.
   • Technical specialist on the implementation of an interconnection model for the revenue services between different Business Units within a fixed and mobile operator in the Middle East; this included the development of a model as well as the technical verification of the implementation of internal services sold between the different business units within the company.
   • Participated in a core team responsible for procurement of a New Generation Billing and Customer Care system for a major South African Mobile Operator. Responsibilities included development of business and architectural requirements for core parts of the system, business case development, evaluation of the proposed solution, and the development for strategic billing requirements.
   • Consultant for the development of various business cases and financial models used to analyse and evaluate the feasibility of new products and services for Next Generation and Mobile Networks. This included Software upgrades for a Circuit Switch Voice Network, the dimensioning of a NGN network and numerous other products and services offered by a mobile network.
   • Business Analyst on various major telecommunication projects (short & medium term); responsibilities included definition of business requirements for product development and the start-up of a virtual network operator.
   • Training sessions aimed at bridging the Finance, Regulatory and Technical Network “silos” within an operator to streamline future cost model development for both regulatory reporting and internal management requirements. The course included detailed reviews of Historical Cost Accounting – HCA, Current Cost Accounting – CCA, and Long Run Incremental Cost – LRIC methodologies, and the various variants of these. The sessions existing deployed and future technologies; Mobile, Fixed, Core, Transmission, International subsea cables, Media (TV), etc.
4. Complex, high technology projects with strict parameters on operational performance, safety, reliability and maintainability require an understanding of systems engineering processes, specification practices and technical reviews that closely emulate commercial contract and project/commercial deliverables.Projects in the ICT, rolling stock and the aviation sectors usually entail high risk, high safety, high value technical solutions.However, the need always exists for a thorough understanding of a practical application of this technical integration expertise on business projects; for example, complex digital ICT/Banking solutions.
   • Verification/Evaluation of the technical and operational performance of a fixed line operator in Africa, both quantitative and qualitative in terms of a regulatory assessment.This included the technical evaluation of all operational support systems and business support systems to determine:
     • Modernization of the networks to cope with current technological developments;
     • Capacity utilization of the various networks within the operator;
     • Efficiency of networks to provide modern telecommunications in a cost effective manner.
   • Technical modelling to assist in the modelling of operator’s networks to determine the Cost Volume Relationships (CVRs) and Current Cost Accounting (CCA) valuations for the purposes of their Regulatory LRIC (and CCA & HCA) submissions to the relevant regulator.
   • Planning and execution of a test program with the objective of evaluating the performance and functionality of an ATM/MPLS/IP network and its voice and signaling interoperability with a legacy network.
   • Development and presentation of technical courses covering network architecture and related prepaid and post-paid charging of GSM (and all related messaging services), GPRS and 3G.
5. In addition, ICON’s successes and consistent fulfilment of creative solutions attracted diverse clients from various industries and independent professional assignments include:
   • SA commercial banks are extensive corporate users of innovative mobile technologies; to help banks understand the dynamic nature and the topical strategic drivers of the ever-changing landscape in mobile technologies which is essential for any mobile banking strategy;
   • An investigative study for a SA banking group to provide insight on new and alternative mobile technologies and applications and the relevance to its youth market.