Geoff
Coleman
on
May 26, 2021“Once you understand the structure of data mediation, you can start to see the potential of using mediation metadata for more than just billing analytics.” - James Messer, Founder and CEO, Gotransverse, in Forbes
We’ve written extensively about mediation in billing — what it is, why automating mediation is critical for a smooth, efficient billing process, and how it enables you to scale pay-as-you-go models. But this month, Gotransverse founder and CEO James Messer took a close look at mediation from a different angle. In an article for Forbes, he broke down how the practice of automated mediation can derive important insights that enable businesses to improve operations, offerings, and customer service.
“Any consumption-based business model requires mediation for invoicing,” Messer said. But, he noted, mediation produces much more data than simply what’s needed to create an invoice. “Mining that mediation data to learn more about your business and your customers means your billing engine helps you minimize or remove revenue leakage, ensure compliance and give you much more for your money.”
Read the full article on Forbes.
Messer started with the example of a telecommunications company, which uses mediation to convert information about the duration of a phone call into a charge for the user. But mediation, he said, provides much more information than that:
“…the mediation data can also reveal statistics related to service level agreements (SLAs) or peak usage times that can affect rates. It also can tell you a lot about customer behavior and your infrastructure. For example, mediation metadata can reveal how much cellular tower usage mobile providers are using, which can affect infrastructure licensing deals and consumer rates.”
Then, he considers an IoT example:
“For example, the internet of things (IoT) is driving new automotive business models for connected cars. IoT technology gathers data about car performance and usage, such as mileage, which, in turn, can be used for lease billing or setting insurance rates based on the number of miles driven. Car dealers can use that same data for service, warranty tracking, recalls and other purposes. The same IoT data can also be analyzed to make engineering improvements, tracking gas mileage or parts failures.”
These two examples, while specifically related to telecommunications and connected vehicles, are indicative of the kinds of insights any organization can look for from its mediation engine. Service-oriented businesses can use mediation data to flag capacity issues, service disruptions (and any red flags that may allow for quicker resolution or even prevention in the future), and usage patterns in order to improve the value they offer customers. Product-oriented businesses, too, can use mediation data to identify opportunities to improve product functionality, refine business models, and adapt offerings to user preferences — ultimately leading to more satisfied customers and higher revenue.
How to Mine Insights from Mediation Data
So, how can businesses turn all the raw data from the mediation process into actionable insights like these? Messer said cloud-based mediation is the key: “Cloud computing and the availability of data lakes create new potential for mediation analytics. The more records you can store, the more data you have available for predictive analytics.” Embracing big data techniques, Messer said, allows businesses to harness and normalize more data for analysis.
Taking this a step further, Messer recommended using that mediation data to automate business applications, using cloud-based machine learning and artificial intelligence resources to streamline the process of analyzing, deriving insights, and then applying those insights to improve core processes.
The result? A stronger business, better customer relationships, and a growing bottom line.
To learn more about the power of mediation to drive transformational business insights, read Messer’s full article in Forbes. And when you’re ready to talk about how Gotransverse can help your business embrace recurring revenue models at scale, we invite you to contact us to schedule your complimentary, personalized demo.