Strategic Alliance with Amdocs

Strategic Alliance with Amdocs

In mid-February SAS and Amdocs (NASDAQ: DOX) announced a strategic alliance that promises to deliver advanced marketing automation (MA) and decision-centric BI solutions to communications service providers (CSP). Amdocs, an Israeli-based, global provider of billing systems, customer care, and support for the communications industry, has revamped its marketing strategy aiming to become a customer relationship management solutions provider offering software and services that encompass the entire customer life cycle—from target, sell, deliver, bill, and support. In this new alliances the two companies seek to give CSPs a better means to track and analyze customer data, offering a solution that will present valuable information dynamically in the operational systems that span the customer life cycle. Ultimately, through this alliance, SAS and Amdocs promise to decrease their customers' total cost of ownership (TOC) while increasing their customers' ROI.

The first offering from SAS and Amdocs is the Customer Profitability and Segmentation solution. It offers augment the ability of CSPs to make and execute decisions by looking at customers' behavioral drivers thereby creating a personalized and differentiated customer experience. Other solutions, such as churn management predictive modeling are also forthcoming. In addition to joint products, SAS will also take over Amdocs' current marketing campaign management application.

Amdocs will encourage dozens of its campaign management clients to migrate to SAS Marketing Automation 4 offering. Customers will also be offered access to SAS Telecommunications Intelligence Solutions. This prepackaged solution has been available since mid-2004 and caters to the distinctive needs of carriers. Marketing Automation 4 incorporates SAS' proven activity-based management (ABM) and gives carriers the ability to identify customers, product, channel, and tariff profitability. Ultimately, this strategic partnership should give customers granular views of cost and profitability for more effective decision-making.