Being a predominant 21st century phenomenon, Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) have already been through waves of evolution. The first ever wave was in the early 2000s when the penetration of mobile technology was low, and voice was the primary offering.
The second wave was during the 2010s. This was the time when Value added services proliferated and with the advent of 3G and 4G there was a growth in mobile data and its applications.
MVNOs tried to serve smaller segments and niches and offered differentiated services and a variety of customized Value-Added-services and tariff offerings which were distinct from those provided by Mobile Network Operators or MNOs.
These new developments have drawn a diverse set of players in the mobile market with many retail, utility, banking, finance, sports, and other consumer brands extending to mobile services. But irrespective of the number of players, the success depends on intricately addressing key problems and taking appropriate decisive actions towards their resolution by the form of new or modified offerings.
Featuring for The Enterprise World’s this issue of The Best Telecommunications Service Provider In 2022 is Plintron, a company providing innovative mobile services across the globe.
The Company
A digital communications company, Plintron enables brands to acquire and engage customers across all six continents. Operating for over 14 years, Plintron is the world’s largest multi-country MVNA/MVNE and a leading IoT Solutions and CPaaS provider. The company has integrated 143+ MVNOs to 40+ MNOs enabling them with innovative mobile services and activating over 165 million subscribers around the world in more than 31 countries.
With a vast global experience, Plintron has successfully built a comprehensive digital experience platform and an innovative model serving various Mobile Network Operators, Mobile Virtual Network Operators, the Internet of Things (IoT), and Enterprises/Brands, including Over the Top innovators (OTTs).
“WE ARE ON THE VERGE OF TRANSFORMING THE LANDSCAPE OF BUSINESSES BY USING CURRENT CHANGING TECHNOLOGY TRENDS AS WE ADVANCE.”
Headquartered in Singapore with offices spanning across London, Dubai, New Delhi, São Paulo, and Seattle, the company has established strong partner relationships in 31+ countries, with many more in the pipeline. Their Global Technology & Support center in India has allowed them to provide 24*7 support to the clients, further enhancing the client experience.
Building on this experience, Plintron has evolved its ‘MVNE’ capabilities to a comprehensive digital experience platform and an innovative MVNA model serving Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs), Internet of Things players (IoT /M2M), and Enterprises/ Brands, including Over the Top innovators (OTTs).
Challenging the Challenges
The technologies Plintron dealt with were state-of-the-art innovative solutions based on emerging Cloud-based technologies. Being an industry pioneer, the real challenge was to first create awareness about the product and solutions. Commercializing and monetizing the technology was the later part of this.
And thus, the journey started, from first building awareness to evangelizing the technology and products, creating the market for the services, and most important of it all, continuously innovating to meet all customer requirements.
A dedicated team, a hunger to emerge as the best, and everything in between helped Plintron to overcome these challenges successfully.
“Stepping up, challenging the challenges and consistent innovations have made us the world leaders in the MVNA/E-Business of empowering the mobile virtual network operators worldwide.”
Stable, Strong Growth
Every step towards success teaches new things, and those are what shape the company. For Plintron, being one of the pioneers in the industry, it wasn’t an easy journey. But certain strategies helped them gain momentum. The first was adapting a product-focused approach.
Then shift the focus to ensuring the adoption of the latest state-of-the-art technologies thus ensuring product lines remain competitive in the market, hiring the best talent thereby bringing dedication, out-of-the-box thinking, and creating a conducive work environment that empowers employees.
Plintron Group’s hands-on experience, industry knowledge, and strategic business approach have also led to rapid growth as the team excelled in understanding the nitty-gritty of each project along with the right market research.
“We aim to ensure the scalability and adaptability of its people, processes, and technology globally.”
Being agile in the changing digital world is a key differentiator between Plintron and the rest of the MVNA solution providers which has contributed to the Plintron growth story.
How Have the Graphs Changed?
Plintron is not just the largest multi-country MVNE/MVNA, but is also the fastest growing company as evidenced by the substantial increase in the MVNOs launched, subscribers activated and countries served.
Plintron had activated 50 million subscribers in 2015, 75 million subscribers in 2016, and by 2021 had crossed the 150 million subscribers tally and is currently at 165 million plus subscribers. The company also launched more than 143 MVNO brands in 31+ countries.
“We have expanded to 6 new geographies in the last 12 months.”
The sheer commitment to excellence, innovation, customer centricity, quality focus, flexibility, and ownership is the reason why Plintron has been A1 in the game from the start. Having built a well-experienced team across the globe, Plintron endeavors in enhancing existing value and develop new and innovative solutions.
Fourteen years of rapid growth gives Plintron leadership in the telecom industry. Commanding the largest global presence in its area of business, the company leverages its multi-country network to stay ahead of the curve.
This focus on creating the best-fit & innovative solutions for clients, providing them access to advanced technology, a comprehensive scalable and flexible cloud-based platform, and having a strategic approach has helped Plintron reach new heights each year.
The Products and Services
MVNE
Plintron offers a cloud-based Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE)- Telecom SaaS platform which is a world-class high-performance, affordable, scalable, and responsive end-to-end solution with comprehensive features like post-paid/prepaid & convergent billing, 5G support, eSIM, and Remote SIM provisioning support, proprietary library of 400+ APIs, GGSN and PGW support, IMS and VoLTE support, integrated OSS/BSS/NSS suite, Analytics and BI report support, Campaign management support, Loyalty engine, multi-language support, and white-labeled portal and app support.
MVNA
Plintron’s innovative MVNA model includes the MVNE platform in addition to wholesale airtime contract, readymade roaming arrangements, SIM support, and a franchising model which includes Go-to-Market support and customer care support for the branded mobile service providers (MVNOs) supported.
Being a Customisable Mobile Network, Plintron’s MVNA model offered as Telecom as a Service enables enterprises and brands to launch their own branded mobile telecom services for their consumer base which is attractive to any brand having footfalls of more than 5000 at their stores.
CPaaS
Plintron CPaaS is a platform for companies to simplify communication and enable meaningful conversations with their customers using personalised messages, voice services, and AI-powered chatbots. The award-winning platform offers flexible APIs and a low code platform experience through an easy-to-use drag-and-drop flow builder to automate customer journeys across industries and use cases. The Omni channel platform enables customers to engage using their preferred channels – SMS, Voice, Chatbot, Email, Whatsapp, and 14+ other OTT channels, and is built on global infrastructure to support multi-country requirements of companies, at scale.
IoT
Plintron offers IoT connectivity services, IoT SIM cards in a variety of form factors and IoT Connectivity Management Suite which allows businesses to easily view, monitor, manage and control their IoT SIM cards. Using a single login – management of all SIM cards is possible.
Customer Communication, Scalability, and Sustainability
Efficient customer communication always helps to deepen engagement, increase the share of wallet, boost your reputation, and can also invite new, exciting ideas from the most honest source of feedback at your disposal – your customers.
All in all, a constructively laid out customer communications plan plays a vital role in boosting loyalty and retention of business. Ongoing communication with existing customers is a fantastic way to keep them engaged with your brand.
By keeping in touch with them via social media, e-mail campaigns etc. you can cultivate a loyal, engaged following – which means you’re in an optimal position when it’s time for them to re-purchase your product or renew their subscription.
Plintron has a dedicated quality management team and a strong focus on quality and for meeting SLAs. It has a 24*7 delivery center to support all its global partners and has constant communication with its customers for feedback and to take corrective action if required.
The company ensures that the services are highly reliable by its focus on quality, risk management, resource management, rigid compliance, and problem-solving nature.
The Next Big Thing
“Our platform is elastic, scalable and all its products are scalable with attention to detail. Ensuring scalability for a business leads to sustainability and helps it perform efficiently even under intense pressure.”
Plintron keeps on augmenting its existing solution like the MVNE platform with the launch of new features like eSIM support, remote SIM provisioning and white labeled app support.
Plintron is also launching new services under the CPaaS umbrella.
The company intends to launch several new products and services by making use of the latest technological innovations and also hiring the appropriate talent.
Mohan Kumar Sundaram- Leading the Way
Chairman & Co-Founder, Plintron
“The key to success is recognising successful ideas and then backing it to the fullest yet being flexible to make corrective changes to plans on the journey to success.”
Mohan Kumar Sundaram, Chairman, and co-founder, of Plintron, is an entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience, and an Industry thought leader in Cloud Communication Platforms for Wireless Mobile and connected devices. In his role as Chairman of Plintron, he is responsible for building the 1000+ strong technology team which developed and is also looking after international business development.
In his Leadership role, he is responsible for enabling businesses with products/services for additional revenues and optimizing costs by network sharing and offshoring. His expertise is to bring the business focus on technology and service delivery. He has widespread international business exposure with experience working with various countries’ regulators and network service providers in formulating the full mobile virtual network operator [MVNO] model and network sharing commercialization.
In his previous roles, he has worked in management positions for large international groups and public limited companies in the areas of Non-Banking Finance, Construction, Investments, Telecom & IT. His other area of specialization includes Security, M2M, and Smart Devices.
Mohan was recently honored with the Global Indian of the Year 2020-21 Award, by AsiaOne. He is also conferred membership of the prestigious Forbes Council in 2019 and is an active thought leader in the industry.
The Many Accolades of His Journey
Mohan’s key achievements included establishing Plintron as the World’s largest MVNA/MVNE with a presence across 31 countries in all 6 continents and the launch of IoT services which was possible with strategic planning, hard work, and deft execution along with possessing significant domain knowledge of both business and technology.
He is now spearheading the launch of a Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS)
Mohan has widespread international business exposure and has worked with various countries’ regulators and network service providers in formulating and evangelising the full mobile virtual network operator model and achieving network sharing commercialization. He managed to enable Plintron’s MVNA based on the radio coverage sharing in multiple countries from the leading mobile network service providers worldwide and also deployed the required local MNP technologies for each market.
Some of his key achievements are:
- Global Indian of the year 2020-2021 awarded by Asia One
- Admitted to Forbes Business Council and Member since 2019
- Leading Plintron to win the Asian Telecom Awards 2022 and MVNE of the Year 2022 award by the MVNOs World Congress.
In the Words of Mohan Kumar Sundaram
His Advice to budding entrepreneurs-
“Develop an idea, research it before venturing into commercialization, and build a sound business plan around it. Above all, be open to feedback. Also, plan and utilize your time wisely and prioritize tasks according to relevance and importance. Planning should be short and long terms and also have alternative plans ready.
Above all, always believe in your team and the value they add to your company and the revenue will follow. Entrepreneurial Leaders need to motivate their team and the right leadership determines the success of any business.”
