Regardless of the ISV’s product features, to properly capture activities and transactions, there is a requirement for real-time Rating, Charging, Analytics, and Entitlements to charge for different levels of usage and activities. In essence, ISVs have a new opportunity to convert just about any customer activity into an opportunity if they understand how to combine subscriptions, promotions, coupons, discounts, bundles, add-ons, and incentives.

In doing so, ISVs insulate themselves from the variability of customers lives, and in fact, can profit from it. And, the business becomes more sustainable in the face of change.

With that in mind, ISVs should not only think about appealing to the ‘greater whole,’ but perhaps to niches where people are willing to pay premiums for content, services or goods that resonate with their lifestyles, wants and needs.

“ISVs have to accept the concept that a single market no longer exists,” says Chris Couch, Chief Operations Officer, for Transverse, makers of TRACT - the all-in-one activity, rating and subscription billing platform that can bill for anything.

“What matter is how quickly you can support the launch of new pricing models. While super-segmented markets create new opportunities, the speed by which you capitalize on those opportunities matters more than anything,” said Couch.

“You need open-ended flexibility in creating new parameters and attaching a price to the value-adds that are appealing and enticing to different types of customers – whether segmented by age group, geography, usage patters or any other characteristic,” adds Couch, noting rating and charging engines should accommodate virtually anything marketing can dream up, thus moving companies toward the concept of “dynamic revenue management,” where you can say “if it can be measured, we can charge for it.”

With a more dynamic approach to rating and charging, it becomes possible to stimulate customer consumption with offerings and price plans that combine relationships (via subscriptions) and dynamic sources of revenue (via consumption or usage).

“In the same way mobile service providers learned, other industries can learn that they can engage people with base offerings available for predictable rates, and then deepen the loyalty with add-ons that are appealing enough that people pay extra for the access to the value adds as they build over time,” said Couch.

In other words, companies can start out with ‘all-you-can-eat’ charging and pricing, but strive to introduce usage and caps and then personalization that carries them toward true personalization of services in the same way mobile carriers have since the days of ‘friends-and-family.’

Competition and commoditization of services will necessitate this evolution in all industries. The ones who survive will be the ones who heed the lessons learned in telecom by building in flexibility into billing and charging capabilities sooner rather than later. The consistent goal should be the endless creation of not only predictable revenue streams that first entice customers, but to further engage those customers in more personal ways.

But that requires that billing and charging become truly automated and intelligent.

Originally posted on Marketing, Sales and Anything Else