Easy billing

zoom

Eskadenia is the only Jordanian company to have designed and developed a convergent billing and CRM system, amongst a portfolio of other advanced telecom software products. Managing director Nael Salah tells CommsMEA about the origins of the company and some of the products that it offers operators in the region.

What products and services does Eskadenia offer to telecoms companies?

In telecom we have the billing area in general, which is quite big, and in particular we have the convergent billing system. It is convergent in many aspects, and serves cellular segments, landlines, fixed telephony, ISPs, WiMAX and both prepaid and postpaid services. We also have interconnect systems and mediation gateways. Another product relates to customer access; online systems for the consumers to look at their accounts and calls and to add and change services. We also have an e-voucher management system, and a normal voucher management system that comes with prepaid or converged billing system.

Apart from that we are working as well on messaging, and we have a multimedia messaging centre and a short messaging service centre, we have wireless corporate messaging system, where companies can access the system through the internet and send SMS or MMS or emails and faxes to their customers.

They also have certain CRM functions where they can segment their customers and communicate with them. We have a content delivery system as well, where the content providers and the GSM operator can use the system and provide it to the content providers as a centralised system where they can charge for the usage of content on a real-time basis. Another area that we have is value added services, and one of the most important products that we have in that area is the mobile wallet, both for money transfers and for payment system.

Tell us about how Eskadenia started?

I had worked in telecoms for 22 years prior to founding Eskadenia in 2000, five years for Etisalat, and 17 for Ericsson. We started with a focus on telecoms, enterprise software and internet related systems. When we started we had 15 people, and today we have more than 160. The major focus is on research and development, and 85% of our staff work on research and development, including system support and customer relations and so on, and only about 15% work with sales and staff functions. The focus has to be on perfecting the products that we have and making them more advanced to compete with the best in world class software.

What are the benefits for operators in the middle east and africa choosing Eskadenia?

As a regional company in the Middle East and Africa we understand the culture in a way that maybe European, American or Asian companies don't. We understand the culture and the language, for example our systems are all multilingual. We can take care of certain requirements that we understand are valid for the region in a better way than other suppliers.

Our cost is very competitive; we offer total cost of ownership that I would say is lower than most of our competitors. And we have access to lots of resources in Jordan and to provide a very good customer after sales support service. The location of Jordan is good as well; it is centralized for the Middle East and it is close to Europe, and Asia. It has a very good geographical location as well. Our focus is on Africa and the Middle East, and to a certain extent European operators. This really is the most important segment for us. We tend to serve them and support them in a much better way than companies that come from outside the region.

Who are Eskadenia's main customers?

We have followed many companies with origins in the Middle East. In Jordan we have worked with Zain, Umniah and Orange.  We have worked with WiMAX operators like Kulacom who are using our converged billing system. We have worked with Korek Telecom in Iraq, and we have worked with a number of companies that originate from the Middle East but have regional operators in Africa. We also have customers in Eastern Europe, and a company in Belgium with origins in the Middle East. Our ambition and objective is to be a global supplier and to target other operators than Middle East and Africa.

Apart from telecom customers, we have a number of other systems in the enterprise area, like CRM systems, workflow and document management system. We feel that we have most of the products that any operator will require, apart from the core switching network and the access network. One of our strongest advantages is that we have a broad and a comprehensive product portfolio and an operator can work with us in many areas. In this way, they work with a main network supplier and then maybe they can work with just one other supplier. They tend to come with us because we have a broad product portfolio and the quality and stability of our products is good. Also, we are available in the region, and we tend to send people to the operators very quickly.

Print | Email | Discuss this article

| Share |

READERS' COMMENTS

Click here to post a comment

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Arabian Business would like to point out that only comments relevant to the story will be published. Any containing personal insults or inappropriate language will not be approved.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Enter the words above *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM