Case study of Virgin Mobile South Africa's MIS implementation

1. The Implementation of Virgin Mobile SA’s MIS MBA Mod 2010 Group 5

2. Background Virgin Mobile SA is South Africa’s first Mobile Virtual Operator (MVNO). “Copied” in-house developed MIS from Virgin Mobile Australia. Integrated business critical processes into the MIS. Hardware failure resulted in unrecoverable MIS. Business was blind. Made strategic decision to outsource MIS.

3. Choosing the outsourcing partner Major business impact, management realized problem and was prepared to invest. Immediate requirement to implement business critical processes and reports. 4C consultant contracted as DWHS manager during vendor selection process. 4C offered pricing model in line with VMSA’s strategy.

4. Implementation Process Project implemented in 3 Phases Phase 1: Data source ETL Phase 2: Business Critical Process Implementation Phase 3: Reporting Configuration Commission Processes Credit Vetting COGNOS Old DWHS Prepaid Billing System – Cell-C CRM Cell-C Allied Shipping Company Nedbank Roaming

5. Phase 1: Gathered information regarding data sources, formats, frequencies and samples. Configured interfaces on new MIS resembling interfaces used by old MIS. VMSA concerned about progress due to lack of visibility. Involved VMSA with data validations to improve visibility and confidence in data integrity of new MIS. Commission Processes Credit Vetting COGNOS Old DWHS New DWHS Prepaid Billing System – Cell-C CRM Cell-C Allied Shipping Company Nedbank Roaming

6. Phase 2: Prioritized business critical process to be implemented. Testing done by running processes in parallel with current MIS and comparing outputs. Interfaces to external systems kept similar to current MIS output to eliminate additional development. Production implementation transparent to external systems. Commission Processes Commission Processes Credit Vetting COGNOS Credit Vetting Old DWHS New DWHS Prepaid Billing System – Cell-C CRM Cell-C Allied Shipping Company Nedbank Roaming

7. Phase 3: Started by prioritizing reports to be delivered. VMSA already invested in COGNOS as reporting and BI tool. COGNOS user interface embedded into new MIS user interface. Several new reports requested by users. No clear user requirements for reports caused delay in project. Signed Business Requirement Specifications required before reporting configuration start. Commission Processes COGNOS MIS UI Credit Vetting COGNOS Old DWHS New DWHS Prepaid Billing System – Cell-C CRM Cell-C Allied Shipping Company Nedbank Roaming

8. Old vs. New End-of-life storage with no redundancy Data quality not up to standard No knowledge base Lacked MIS review processes

9. Conclusion VMSA lacked in-house MIS expertise, made strategic decision to outsource. New MIS would reduce risk by addressing issues faced with current system. Consultant from 4C acting as DWHS manager provided technical insight. Change management minimized by utilizing known user interfaces. Resulted en several new projects between VMSA and 4C.