MultiChoice Africa, with a subscriber base that runs into the millions and counting, uses the Integrated Business System (IBS) to handle its complex needs for billing and subscriber database updates from the support centre in Randburg, South Africa.
The IBS is based on software licensed from Entriq, an American-based company, which specializes in providing such systems to pay-TV operators on various continents; and was installed in the late 90s as MultiChoice conducted a comprehensive overhaul of its technology before the turn of the 21st century.
The IBS is a billing engine – a central point that ensures that money is collected from DStv subscribers across Africa. If a new subscriber signs up in Nigeria, for instance, the MultiChoice office here would send the customer information to the IBS support centre and the new account is created immediately.
Like other operational hubs, the IBS centre is manned round the clock. “All the monitoring and batch processing is done here and after hours the service desk takes over,” said the centre’s Jerry Jordan.
To keep operations simple and flowing smoothly, the database for MultiChoice subscribers is kept at the central office, and that is why all account information and updates are collected there, no matter the subscriber’s location.
The IBS centre ensures that the data connections carrying this information are always available and also keeps MultiChoice informed about its customer base. According to Jordan, “all the data flow here so we have some business intelligence we can make use of, such as seeing exactly how many customers we have in Luanda and how many have just signed up.”