Is your organization ready to grow? You’ve got the business plan buttoned up, and you’re ready to exponentially increase your customer base, expand to global markets, and overhaul your packages and business models so customers can purchase and pay for exactly what they need, when they need it.

But do you have the systems in place to empower that growth?

We talk a lot here at Gotransverse about the power of intelligent billing to enable a business to scale — growing quickly both in volume and complexity of business models and offerings. We talk about real-time usage and rating, complex billing, automated revenue recognition, and more. Now, let’s put all those features into a more concrete context by looking at how Gotransverse has enabled one of our clients to break through barriers of volume and complexity, managing high volumes of subscriptions and reaching customers across 19 countries.

Starz Play is a subscription video on demand (SVOD) service that streams thousands of blockbuster Hollywood movies, TV shows, documentaries, kids’ entertainment, and same-day- as-the-US series — plus dedicated Arabic and Bollywood content — to 19 countries across the Middle East and North Africa. As the service grew and evolved, Starz Play wanted to offer customers a range of time-based usage and payment methods — above and beyond the standard subscription — in an effort to increase adoption and loyalty. But the transition wasn’t going to be easy.

“We needed a billing system partner that was flexible and could manage highly complex business and account management rules to be applied to meet market requirements.”

- Saleem Bhatti, CIO, Starz Play

The Starz Play team chose Gotransverse to implement the billing platform that would empower both short-term and long-term growth.

“Gotransverse has been a trusted partner for more than five years. Their platform and unique monetization expertise have given us the ability to offer our customers multiple payment options and methods and to scale quickly as we add customers, countries, and carriers.”

- Saleem Bhatti, CIO, Starz Play

Let’s take a closer look. Here are three of the growth challenges Gotransverse’s intelligent billing platform has helped Starz Play solve.

High Volumes

Starz Play’s billing platform supports more than 5 billion transactions per month, managing as many as 10 million general ledger postings (or more) a day. While traditional, legacy, and DIY systems are liable to freeze up at numbers like that — especially when hiccups like payment retries or change requests occur — the Gotransverse platform is designed to handle them with finesse, leaving a clear trail for every penny to make revenue recognition and management a breeze.

Learn more about the power of high-volume billing to help scale your volume without scaling your efforts.

Multiple Languages & Currencies

Starz Play operates in 19 different countries with multiple languages and currency requirements. They needed a sophisticated billing system that would support global customer acquisition and retention by automating transactions in multiple currencies and managing varying pricing structures for their global marketplaces.

Once again, Gotransverse was ready, with capabilities to handle rating, invoicing, and revenue management, calculating fees per customer, per invoice, no matter the currency or language.

Complicated Payment Methods

And it wasn’t just the high volume or the multiple currencies complicating Starz Play’s billing efforts. Switching from a basic subscription model to more complex, pay-as-you-go models is tricky enough, but their customers’ payment preferences added another layer of nuance. In the middle east, it’s popular to pay for services through a phone bill instead of a typical credit card or ACH. This payment method, Direct Carrier Billing, is highly complex and relies heavily on post-development and implementation support to succeed. Fortunately, Gotransverse is well-versed in the telecom industry, and our team was up to the challenge.

“We chose Gotransverse as our strategic partner due to their industry-leading telecom and billing domain expertise, which enables them to deftly handle internationalization of billing at high volumes — including mobile billing — and their ability to scale as we expand. The Gotransverse solution enables us to provide an optimal experience for our customers, who prefer to pay as they go via mobile platforms without long-term commitments.”

- Saleem Bhatti, CIO, Starz Play

Starz Play’s new offering provides more flexible payment options for its customers across the Middle East and North Africa, leading to higher engagement and retention rates, and we are proud to partner with Starz Play to empower this kind of growth. If you’re ready to learn what Gotransverse can do for your organization, we encourage you to read our full Starz Play case study here, or contact us to schedule your complimentary, personalized demo today.