Sparkle, the leading international service provider in Italy and a prominent player in the global telecommunications sector, has undertaken a strategic initiative to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into its Network Operation Center (NOC) through the Artificial Intelligence Sparkle Network Assurance (AISNA) project.
This initiative, developed in collaboration with Engineering, a leader in digital transformation solutions, aims to streamline network monitoring and management, reduce operational complexities, and enhance overall service quality.
Objectives and Strategy
The AISNA project was driven by two primary objectives:
Operational Efficiency: Reduce the time spent on routine tasks such as network alerts handling and customer reporting.
Service Quality Improvement: Enhance the responsiveness and accuracy of customer interactions by minimizing manual interventions in repetitive tasks.
Sparkle’s strategy involved leveraging AI to simplify access to critical information, automate routine tasks, and optimize data processing in its NOC operations. This approach aligns with the company’s broader vision of incorporating digital transformation to remain competitive and deliver superior customer service.
Implementation and Collaboration
Sparkle collaborated with Engineering to develop the AISNA system. The AI-powered solution was designed to address specific pain points in network management, such as alert handling, ticket processing, and massive network update campaigns. The implementation focused on integrating AI capabilities that could:
Automate the processing of network alerts, reducing the average handling time by 30 percent.
Analyze email content, summarize key information, and automatically update customer tickets, resulting in a time saving of approximately 3,000 hours annually.
Optimize Report for Outage (RFO) processes, cutting down the reporting time by 700 hours per year.
Outcomes and Benefits
The deployment of AISNA has led to significant operational and service-related improvements for Sparkle:
Efficiency Gains: The automated handling of alerts and massive network update campaigns reduced average execution time by up to 80 percent, allowing for quicker resolution of network issues.
Customer Experience Enhancement: By decreasing manual processing time, Sparkle’s NOC staff can focus more on direct customer interaction, improving the quality and transparency of communication.
Resource Optimization: The overall reduction in handling and reporting time has freed up resources to address more complex customer issues, fostering a more proactive service approach.
Strategic Insights and Future Outlook
According to Lorella Scalcione, CIO of Sparkle, the AISNA project is a pivotal component of Sparkle’s broader AI strategy. By automating repetitive tasks, the initiative not only improves operational efficiency but also enriches the customer experience.
Danilo Decaroli, Head of Operations, emphasized that the NOC’s enhanced capabilities enable faster and more accurate responses to customer queries, reflecting Sparkle’s commitment to leveraging AI for sustainable business growth.
Looking ahead, Sparkle plans to further expand its AI initiatives to cover additional network management functions and customer service processes, with the objective of deepening its market proposition and maintaining its leadership in the international telecommunications sector.
Baburajan Kizhakedath
