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Covalense Digital has been selected to lead a major business support systems (BSS) modernisation programme for a leading telecommunications operator in West Africa, in a move designed to unify billing, customer management and commercial operations on a single digital platform.
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The programme will consolidate the operator’s fragmented billing and customer management infrastructure for both consumer and business services onto a convergent BSS stack powered by Covalense Digital’s Csmart Digital BSS platform.
The transformation is aimed at replacing disconnected commercial systems with a unified environment that provides the operator with a consolidated 360-degree view of customers and accounts, while simplifying interactions for customers, agents and other commercial channels.
Fragmented Telecom Systems Drive BSS Transformation
The operator currently manages critical commercial functions across multiple platforms, with billing and collections separated from customer information and other operational systems.
This fragmented architecture has created complexity across customer and agent journeys while limiting the operator’s ability to maintain a complete view of its relationships with individual consumers and businesses.
Covalense Digital’s programme will replace that fragmented estate with a single platform for customer management and billing, creating a more integrated foundation for the operator’s expanding service portfolio.
Mobile, FTTH and Enterprise Services on One Platform
A major component of the transformation is the consolidation of the operator’s diversified portfolio onto Csmart Digital BSS.
The portfolio includes mobile services, fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband and enterprise connectivity. Rather than maintaining separate commercial systems for each business line, the convergent platform will bring them together within a single environment.
This means, for example, that a customer subscribing to both mobile and home broadband can be managed as one commercial relationship, giving the operator a unified view of the household.
The platform will also extend across the wider commercial organisation, including contact centres, retail outlets and indirect channels such as partners, resellers and franchisees.
Enterprise Connectivity and Digital Services Join the BSS Stack
The modernisation will also cover corporate connectivity services, including dedicated and leased lines, alongside the operator’s digital services portfolio.
USSD, short codes and bulk SMS services will be managed through the same commercial and billing environment, allowing business customers to be contracted, provisioned and invoiced through a common platform.
The approach is designed to eliminate the operational silos that can emerge when individual products and services are supported by separate legacy systems.
Billing at the Centre of Telecom Transformation
Billing is at the heart of the programme, with Csmart Digital BSS bringing customer accounts and balances, rating, invoicing, taxation, receivables and collections together on one platform.
Covalense Digital’s Csmart iPaaS will connect billing and customer management with the operator’s provisioning systems. This integration is expected to enable an order captured by an agent to flow through service activation and ultimately to invoicing without requiring manual intervention.
For the operator, the transformation represents a shift from fragmented and manual revenue operations towards automated billing and collections with greater financial traceability.
Contract and order processes will also be standardised across channels, while complaints and service requests can be managed against defined service levels.
Customers, meanwhile, will have a single interface through which they can view and settle invoices rather than navigating multiple systems.
Cloud-Native Architecture Built for Growth
The Csmart Digital BSS deployment will use a cloud-native model, giving the operator greater flexibility to scale its infrastructure as its subscriber base and service portfolio expand.
For telecom operators operating across increasingly complex product environments, the ability to scale commercial systems without repeatedly adding disconnected platforms is becoming an important component of digital transformation.
The unified architecture is also positioned to give the operator greater visibility across customers, products, transactions and revenue operations.
Covalense: Convergence Can Unlock Commercial Value
Kiran Sundarrajan, Vice President – Sales at Covalense Digital, said many African telecom operators continue to operate BSS environments that have evolved incrementally as new services were introduced.
“Operators across Africa are running BSS estates that grew service by service and were never designed to work together, and the cost of that fragmentation shows up in every customer interaction,” Sundarrajan said.
He added that convergence provides an opportunity to create a common commercial foundation for both consumer and enterprise customers.
“Convergence is where the commercial upside sits, and Csmart Digital BSS gives an operator one foundation for billing and customer management, whether the customer is a household on fibre or a business buying connectivity.”
Phased Rollout Underway
The programme is being delivered in partnership with a regional systems integration partner, while Covalense Digital is responsible for the design and implementation of its flagship Csmart Digital BSS platform.
The rollout will be phased over the coming months, with the programme expected to progressively consolidate the operator’s commercial operations and create a more unified digital foundation for its consumer, broadband and enterprise businesses.
The initiative highlights a broader shift in Africa’s telecommunications market as operators seek to modernise legacy BSS infrastructure, reduce operational complexity and create more integrated digital experiences across increasingly diversified service portfolios.
