The Supportive Role of Information Technology and Business Intelligence in Telecommunications.

With the first development of Information Technology it had helped a lot of businesses in the world to prosper and develop along side with the ever changing need of consumers. Not only that Information Technology made business processes faster it had also brought a lot of advantages on every business it had catered.

The most recognizable effect of IT to businesses is through globalization. It did not only make the rest of the world reachable but it had also allowed the company to become interdependent. Second, IT had reduced the cost of every business process, Information technology has helped to computerize the business process thus streamlining businesses to make them extremely cost effective money making machines. Thus it had helped companies decrease cost and increase revenues. And third, it had cut a lot of operational time in every business it means that if a company takes a month to make a forecast before, now they can make forecasts as fast as a week. With this they can do more things in a given time.


In the Telecommunications industry Information Technology had became helpful in making these companies more attractive to the eye of the consumer. As explained by one of the porter’s five forces of competition the Telecommunications industry can tell whether what to do with a certain operation (e.g. expanding, research and development etc.). The buying power can tell a lot of how much can consumers spends for a certain service for example calling or making a text. With the help on information technology companies can actually record the call or text durations of each customers so they can see estimate a proper call and text rate for their services.

Information Technology is also accommodating in making Value Chain Analysis in the company. How is this possible? Information Technology acts as a reservoir of processed data which records all of the existing trends post by the consumers, when these trends are interpreted by companies like GLOBE, SMART and SUN cellular, they can respond to these trends by adding value to the services they offered that is related to the needs of consumers. A good example of this is the when SUN cellular introduced the unlimited call and text. Not only it answers the need of cheap telecommunication service, it gave Sun cellular a major competitive advantage over Globe and Smart Company. I.T. had identified the need of the consumers and Sun cellular succeeded in putting it into their value chain thanks to it. Value Chain and I.T. not only identifies the need of customers it also helps the company gain an advantage over the other by being the first one or respond to the change of wants and needs of the consumers.

It also helps in maintaining Customer Relationship Management. Since it keeps tract of the customers’ needs wants and behaviour the customer relationship management of a company can treat its customers better, understand their needs and wants, tailor offer response, and devise more effective market campaigns and better customer support systems. An example of better customer management is when customers have some inquiries about a telecommunication service. In companies such as PLDT, Globe, Smart and Sun they have customer hotline where you can ask about your network coverage, billing statements or other inquiries, the tellers of these companies can actually look for an answer by accessing their information guide a giving the appropriate solutions. In this method more consumers will be loyal to the network they are in to and will prevent them from changing networks.584

Another element of competitive advantage is Business Intelligence. The site www.CIO.com defines Business Intelligence as “an umbrella term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization’s raw data. BI as a discipline is made up of several related activities, including data mining, online analytical processing, querying and reporting. Companies use BI to improve decision making, cut costs and identify new business opportunities. BI is more than just corporate reporting and more than a set of tools to coax data out of enterprise systems. CIOs use BI to identify inefficient business processes that are ripe for re-engineering.”

To gain better competitive advantages from consumer business intelligence ought to know its customers better and brings out the most optimal decision for its company. Business intelligence not only gives access to information but it also gives the right information for a certain decision and in turn it gives the appropriate solutions.

In conclusion, not only guts feeling of guess- estimates are the foundation of company methods such as business intelligence, CRM’s and Information technology are now present to give us a better understanding of how the market behaviour moves. And in turn it gives us a grasp on holding to better decisions than other companies. And with this competitive advantages develop on every company which uses the methods mentioned above.

And with this, I end the topic about I.T. and competitive advantage. Reading those articles make me feel more informed about the relationship between competitive advantages, business intelligence and Information Technology. The advantages of these readings is that they give you new insights about these business methods and how you can apply this to your future needs and the disadvantages is that as a student I do not understand some of the too technical terms mentioned in the articles compare to the book.

To better understand the topic please refer to the post of my colleagues Danielle Benig, Camille Caleon, Jerika Hemedez and Julie Nolasco. This blog is for the benefit our Data Mining Class under Mr. Ramon Duremdes Jr.