Idea ropes in Adobe to get digital solutions

American tech major Adobe today signed a long-term deal to provide digital solutions to the merger-bound Idea Cellular, which will help the third biggest telco save on operational costs. The partnership will augment the Birla group company’s growth strategy through “enhanced customer retention as well revenue generation”, its managing director Himanshu Kapania said in a statement.

The statement, however, did not mention the deal size and was also silent on Idea’s proposed merger with its bigger rival Vodafone India. The tech major will be deploying its experience cloud solutions to deliver personalised customer experiences, it said, adding the analytics cloud, advertising cloud and marketing cloud will also used.

All these will help the telco automate customer care and benefit from a potential increase in sales and savings on operational costs, it claimed.

On the customer care front, automation and self- service options will help reduce the call centre traffic, it explained.

“The fiercely competitive domestic telecom industry has been among the first to acknowledge the role digital marketing can play in furthering business goals,” Adobe South Asia managing director for Kulmeet Bawa said.

He exuded confidence that the partnership will help the telco online increase revenues from online channels, reduce customer acquisition costs, improve cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

Idea and Vodafone had on March 20 announced a plan to merge to create the country’s largest telco with an enterprise valuation of $23 billion which can compete better with the challenges posed by deep-pocketed new entrant Reliance Jio.

The all-share deal will take up to two years to fructify and Idea will hold only 26 per cent in the merged entity initially.

IDEA Cellular Limited