SOURCE: Convergys Corporation
Convergys Corporation (NYSE:CVG - news), the global leader in billing and customer care services, announced today that Vodacom, South Africa's largest mobile operator, has selected its Geneva(TM) Active Revenue Management (ARM) software to support the rollout of all future service offerings, including GPRS, SMS, and content-based services. Vodacom, which has its headquarters in Johannesburg, has over a million contract (post-paid) and four million pre-paid customers.
Vodacom selected Geneva for a number of reasons, including its ability to provide support for the rapid introduction of new products and services as well as its capacity to handle pre- and post-paid options. Geneva's extreme flexibility means that its rating engine can be harnessed to Vodacom's existing billing engine. This allows new services to be introduced with minimal delay and offers a smooth transition for its use to be extended within the billing environment. Geneva will assist Vodacom to introduce groundbreaking tariffs as well as extend the services currently supplied to contract customers to its many millions of prepaid customers.
``We were looking for a system that could provide convergent billing across all voice and data services,'' stated Allan Beets, Executive Director of Billing & Administration at Vodacom. ``Geneva impressed us as a product because of its versatility and its ability to bill for any service without requiring changes to the code. Convergys impressed us as a company because of its commitment to high standards of service and support.''
Vodacom is the leading mobile operator in Africa and has won a number of prestigious awards. These include induction as a Gold Member of the GSM Association for the role played in making mobile communications widely available across South Africa, the prize for the top emerging brand in the Sunday Times Brands of the Year awards in both 1999 and 2000 and the Professional Management Review (PMR) Golden Arrow award for the Best Cellular Network.
Stephen Thomas, Managing Director of Convergys EMEA, commented that Vodacom is a company at the forefront of developments in the South African mobile market. ``Vodacom is planning to introduce some extremely innovative new services which will make use of Geneva's advanced capabilities in handling billing for content as well as its ability to bill on behalf of third parties and to settle with multiple parties. We are delighted that such a significant mobile operator in South Africa has given us this vote of confidence in Convergys and its Geneva software.''
Vodacom and Convergys have an aggressive timetable for the implementation of Geneva, which is planned to be in live operation less than three months after the start of implementation work. Geneva will be integrated with Verizon Mediation software, iCAP messaging software and the BATS billing system. In the longer term it is planned that Geneva will be integrated to Siemens Pre-Pay Intelligent Network (IN) platform in order to allow Geneva to manage all non-voice charges.
