A Legacy of Innovation
Business Chat today Features CEO Craig Palmer who spoke to me about how VAS-X’s journey began with a vision to create technology solutions “by Africans for Africa.” This ethos has driven the company to develop products that cater to the unique needs of the African telecommunications landscape.
In 2021, VASX was acquired by the Lumine Group, a move that has allowed it to leverage global best practices across its reach in Africa, Oceania, and Latin America.
Comprehensive Solutions for MVNOs
At the heart of VASX’s offerings is the VXSync platform, a comprehensive OSS-BSS solution that integrates seamlessly with network operators. This platform is designed to support MNOs (Mobile Network Operators) and MNVO’s (Mobile Virtual Network Operators), ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and Fixed Line providers providing a robust framework for billing, CRM, and provisioning on demand.
Adapting to a Changing Market
The telecommunications landscape is rapidly evolving, with fintech companies entering the MVNO space and traditional MNOs (Mobile Network Operators) exploring new opportunities. VASX is at the forefront of this shift, offering solutions that enable MVNOs to diversify their offerings and tap into new revenue streams. By facilitating integration with broadband and ISP services, VASX empowers telecoms to create comprehensive ecosystems that enhance customer loyalty and drive growth.
Listen to our conversation Here:
Key Quotes From Craig Palmer – CEO of VasX
The MNVO Echo-system Approach
“If you look at the MVNOs that are succeeding, they’ve got an existing customer base. They generally have a billing or collections relationship with them, and they generally have some type of rewards or loyalty program tied in. And what they’re trying to do with the SIM card is to create an ecosystem that they can really lock that customer in and try and get that SIM to be the primary SIM card”.
“The key to an MVNO is can you get the primary SIM card and can you get that additional revenue that you’re getting from the SIM card or can you subsidize your MVNO model through your existing business practices?”
“If you have a look at Standard Bank Mobile, when they launched with the product that said, whatever your banking fee is, we will give that back to you in airtime. And that’s a very, very, very, very clever move”.
“From an MVNO perspective, the MNOs don’t want to enter into a price war and the MVNOs also don’t want to enter into a price war because that just makes everything really inefficient and not equitable for all the parties. So where the MVNO can assist the network operator is they can find a different subset of customers, that they can bring onto the MNO’s network, that they can generate what we call ARPU, the average revenue per user, and they do that by offering different products and services that the network operator can’t offer”.
AI Needs to Be Prompted and Primed for Success
“The key word in AI for me is artificial. What you ask it is what you get. And you have to be very, very careful around how you frame that question and mitigate that question that you get the right response”.
Success Stories That Matter
“We’ve got customers dating back to 2001, who are still with us, where we launched from day one with them, activated the very, very first SIM card. And now they’re sitting with tens of millions of subscribers”.
On Their Cell C System Upgrade Success:
“And they had an MVNO that they were sitting at about a 30 to 40 second activation time. And one of the innovations was we’ve now got it down to one second and it’s activated”.
