The world of business messaging has evolved greatly. A2P messaging is seeing steady growth and enterprises are recognizing immense value from strategically adding SMS to their omnichannel strategies. This growth in A2P messaging has also offered MNO’s compelling growth opportunities as volumes and applications grow. OTT messaging apps have also gained traction, especially in the enterprise communication market. While OTT messaging platforms are steadily integrating into enterprise omnichannel strategies, challenges associated with rolling them out on a global scale, limited reliability and privacy concerns have discouraged enterprises from leveraging this medium to exchange critical and sensitive information.
Given the universal applicability, A2P messaging will continue to be a part of the enterprise messaging strategy. MNO’s however have to now gear up to enable next-gen messaging services such as RCS or Rich Communication Services, M2M communication etc. to meet with the enterprise needs to enable next-gen messaging.
The growth of next-gen messaging
By enabling RCS messaging, MNOs will be able to deploy an enhanced native messaging experience for their enterprise customers (and their end customers!). RSC messaging promises to deliver an elevated and seamless experience using personal and interactive messaging and rich media to drive customer engagement. While OTT platforms offer elevated messaging experiences, mobile operators provide ubiquity, reliability, and trust thereby making them more suitable to the enterprise narrative.
That apart, there is also an incremental incline in the usage of M2M (Machine to Machine), communication. Technologies such as Big Data and AI are working in M2M to improve customer experiences by ensuring maximum speed and deliverability. M2M messaging also makes it easier to schedule bulk message delivery and helps businesses stay top of the mind of their customers. Applications are also growing in the context of enterprise automation and autonomous actions driven by M2M capabilities.
5G is also poised to become a mainstay in the mobile mix sooner rather than later. While 5G promises to enable the interconnected world and make business messaging even more personalized and effective, it also opens up the surface area of cyber-attacks demanding greater and more airtight cybersecurity standards.
Given the forces of change and evolving market dynamics at work, focusing on operator readiness will assume paramount importance to enable next-gen messaging. A few of the things MNOs have to evaluate are:
Capacity to address the grey route challenge
Revenue leakage due to grey routes will lead to a cumulative loss of $37.1 billion, or an annual average leakage of $7.69 billion between 2020- 2024. Next-gen messaging is attractive to MNOs because it comes with the promise of greater profits thereby placing paramount importance on addressing the grey route challenge.
While mobile operators are proactively trying to address this issue and thereby securing messaging revenues, fraudsters and non-compliant SMS aggregators are working hard to identify loopholes and other methods to deliver SMS’. Advanced firewall solutions and integrating traditional firewalls with big data and advanced analytics can assuage this problem by identifying fraudulent patterns faster and hence become imperative capabilities to develop to enable next-gen messaging.
Building zero trust networks
With M2M communication coming into the messaging mix coupled with the rise of 5G, operator readiness also involves establishing zero trust networks to keep the network safe from malicious intent and activity.
Aligning 5G specifications with zero-trust tenets helps in establishing a zero-trust architecture. A zero-trust architecture ensures secure network access to resources (data, devices, and services) and provides access to only the authorized and approved subjects ((users, devices, and services).
Securing digital identities, and the communication transport and of user and signalling data across 3GPP interfaces, along with designing the right security posture of network assets contribute towards creating a zero-trust architecture.
Plug leaks and increase monetization opportunities
The mobile playing field is only set to become more competitive with next-gen messaging entering the channel and services mix. Mobile operators have to develop their capabilities to deliver differentiated and more personalized experiences while identifying monetizing opportunities. While doing so, they also need to ensure that there is no revenue slipping through the cracks.
Operators thus have to employ the right anti-fraud solutions to actively monitor and block fraud and SPAM. Intelligent AI and ML-based firewall solutions become critical enablers of 360-degree network protection of messaging traffic. Such intelligent solutions protect subscribers against fraud by proactively monitoring security breaches with contextual analysis to block fraudulent messages.
The added advantage of using intelligent solutions is the access to advanced analytics that provide insights into usage and consumption patterns and help MNO’s identify revenue-generating opportunities and gaps.
In Conclusion
As next-gen messaging evolves, the focus has to be on improving the security posture. Concerns on network security, grey routes, SIM jacking, and SIM phishing have to be addressed and there has to be an increased focus on data security. Mobile operators will have to develop their capabilities to proactively deal with security threats that are increasing in scope and complexity. Partnering with experienced telecom solutions providers to access robust solutions that improve monetization and performance will become inevitable to enable next-gen messaging services. Let us help you get ready for the next-gen of messaging solutions.