Enabling real time monetization through no-code charging configuration
The technology revolution of recent years has led to increased complexity for businesses and consumers. Who hasn't felt a bit worried by this complexity? By how fast or should we say how much faster we must deliver new services? By all the changes we now need to accommodate? But with this worry, there is also enthusiasm and excitement about all the new opportunities they bring.
At Nokia, we also went through these mixed feelings and asked ourselves: ‘Is there a way we can bring simplicity to our solutions without losing all the flexibility we need to address the business needs?'
Our solution: Nokia's Charging Configurator
That is when we started building our Charging Configurator, as part of our Convergent Charging solution.
To kick off the process, the first thing we had to do was understand where to start and how to be certain that we were focusing on the correct areas.
We started by gathering feedback from customers who configure monetization systems and create charging offers based on the latest marketing ideas. The feedback we received frequently was that:
- Learning and using a new system can be challenging, unnecessarily difficult, and time consuming
- Building charging offers requires deep technical knowledge of the monetization system and of the network implementation
- When trying to address future use cases, often there will be missing pieces requiring product development which can lead to months of delays.
Based on this user feedback, we started to build our Charging Configurator. They key product elements we implemented were:
- Simple and easy to use UI
We created a user interface that is easy to use and enables business users to configure the charging offers themselves. The interface is based on the idea that users have everything they need at hand when they start working. This eliminates the need to move around multiple screens and pre-configure tons of components.
- Pre-integrated components
The user has the canvas, pre-defined and configured components, and they can start creating the charging logic using drag and drop functionality. The result is an easy-to-read, simple language flow based on true false statements that can be created quickly. The rich list of components embedded within the product enables users to configure offers immediately.
- No code configurability
Our is truly no-code – there is no need to be an expert in coding or in 5G interfaces as the components provided abstract the complexity.
Leave the complexity, take the flexibility?
Time for the skeptics to ask how long it takes to have new components made available and for the code lovers to tell us they miss the scripting capabilities of the rules.
All of these are valid concerns and we want to make sure that simplicity does not equate with a lack of flexibility. Our Configurator is built using A.R.T. technology, a unique rule engine that is the cornerstone of our product. If you are not familiar with it the most important thing to remember is this one sentence ‘with A.R.T. whatever you can measure you can charge’.
The Configurator is based on rules, advanced or more technical users who want to continue using script mode can continue to do so. The same technical users will also be able to create new components on-the-fly and make them available to business users.
Our Charging Configurator will bring agility to your business without losing flexibility and the ability to address future use cases. It is easy-to-use and will allow business users to bring new offers to production within minutes instead of months.
Check out our video or our webpage for more information about our charging solutions: Nokia Converged Charging
