Taking Control of Devices

How Spark New Zealand Did It

INTRODUCTION

Service providers today have the extraordinary challenge to manage and control multiple devices within the home, regardless of type or brand. As the number of connected devices within the home grows, this challenge has become a mandate. To remain competitive, service providers must be able to control the lifecycle of multiple devices within the home efficiently and effectively or face spiraling costs and propensity of customer churn.

CHALLENGE

Spark New Zealand, the country’s largest retail broadband and wireless service provider, managed over half a million residential gateways of various technologies operating on two different Device Management Platforms. Neither communicated with the other and were limited in terms of providing features that would allow Spark to proactively monitor and trouble-shoot their subscriber devices. This led to the ‘swivel-chair’ experience and reliance on customer feedback when there was an issue rather than addressing the issue before the subscriber was aware of it. The result is not unexpected: customer satisfaction goes down.

Knowing the average New Zealander uses 3 or more connected devices daily, with those numbers predicted to rise dramatically*, Spark decided an aggressive move was necessary. They had to figure out a way to consolidate device management, improve functionality, integrate with existing back-end systems and scale to better serve current and future customers. It was time to take back control of their devices.

Bottom-line, Spark had two vital business-level objectives:

1. Complete the entire project in weeks, not months
2. Execute the conversion with no disruption of services