MetroPCS Wireless is the latest carrier to install Scorecard Systems’ subscriber analysis software, Scorecard announced this week.
Typically, wireless carriers use custom-designed applications from large consultants or conduct subscriber analysis with off-the-shelf data reporting tools, Scorecard CEO Simon Marwood said. But his company is quickly gaining a foothold in the mobile market with customers such as AT&T, Bell Canada, Sprint Nextel and Vodafone.
As of June 30, MetroPCS had 4.6 million subscribers, so Scorecard’s software will help the prepaid operator analyze its churn and acquisition reporting, Marwood said. MetroPCS officials were not available to comment.
However, MetroPCS may be part of a bigger trend. There are a limited number of major post-paid operators in the world, so it’s companies like MetroPCS that Scorecard will target in the future, Marwood said. “In the past when we approached this type of carrier, they said, ‘We just throw some Business Objects at it,’” he explained, referring to the business intelligent software company acquired by SAP last year.
To stay ahead of such general-purpose approaches, Scorecard recently began a new effort to more accurately report on associates’ sales commissions, which are often purposely tagged as “new activation” even though they’re from existing customers, he said. This is known as rotational churn and it’s a bigger problem than carriers like to acknowledge, he said.
Scorecard’s application is based on the number of subscribers and can cost from less than $100,000 to more than $1 million.
