Pactera is also providing ongoing advisory, high value IP and Cloud enablement

Zuora founder and chief executive Tien Tzuo (right) in Sydney

Australian telco BigAir has partnered Chinese outsourcer Pactera to implement Zuora's relationship business management platform.

BigAir selected Pactera as its IT partner to consolidate its billing systems and deploy Zuora’s RBM platform, which makes all customer subscription, billing and payment data visible within Salesforce.com.

The new platform has provided BigAir with a single, lead-to-cash system that also offers a 360-degree view of all customer activity, enabling it to quickly quote and invoice for new services, upgrades and renewals.

As part of the agreement, Pactera is also providing ongoing advisory, high value IP and delivery services around BigAir’s continued adoption of Cloud enabled business models.

According to a company statement, BigAir has grown rapidly over the past few years via acquisition, expanding its customer base and network assets to become one of Australia’s largest metropolitan fixed wireless network operators.

As a result, BigAir had inherited a number of billing platforms which made it challenging to achieve real-time visibility across all its operations.

BigAir chief financial officer, Charles Chapman, said his company selected Pactera as BigAir’s long-term IT partner to help consolidate our billing systems and implement a Cloud-based billing platform that would give the company the flexibility to streamline billing and improve our customer service,” he said.

“With deep local expertise in the Australian telecommunications industry and global strength in IT outsourcing, we knew we could rely on Pactera’s advice and support to help us establish a new, modern billing platform that could grow with us.”

Pactera has experienced increasing demand for SaaS billing within the Australian telecommunications industry this year, with several communication companies in the region in the process of moving their billing operations to the Cloud.

This has led Pactera to establish a large-scale consulting practice in Australia, with a view to becoming APAC’s leading IT services and BPO provider for enterprise in the cloud.

Pactera A/NZ country manager, Bob Hennessy, said, when it came to billing and customer care, telecommunications companies were complex businesses that required smart software to provide them with real-time visibility of their operations’ billing to improve their efficiency while reducing cost.

“Using the Cloud model for critical business processes is ideal for fast-growing companies like BigAir, in that it gives them the flexibility to launch new services quickly, avoid upfront infrastructure costs and easily scale their business," he said.

"With Pactera, BigAir can be assured that the value of their IT investment in the Cloud is enhanced through our ongoing consulting support and expertise, global capability and quality management processes.”

Zuora vice president, APAC, Greg Cullen, said it was not uncommon for his company to see enterprise businesses acquiring companies for growth and market traction and later realising that each new company has it’s own IT strategy.

"It’s a huge undertaking for a company to reinvent and align their IT strategy within the subscription model,” he said.

“Between Zuora’s proven enterprise-grade RBM platform, Z-Business, and Pactera’s in-depth knowledge of Cloud-based platforms, BigAir has the modern IT infrastructure to enable them to continue to dominate the telecommunications market in Australia.”