Embedded SIMs or eSIMs represent a tremendous opportunity for mobile network operators. According to Counterpoint, six billion eSIM gadgets might be shipped between 2021 and 2025 – 5 billion more than the only billion eSIM devices shipped among 2014 and 2020.
By the quit of 2027, the worldwide eSIM market is projected to be worth USD 19.3 billion. One of the key marketplace drivers of this boom is the ever-developing recognition of digital business variations. More and more agencies are making use of machine-to-gadget communications and the commercial net of factors to streamline and automate enterprise procedures.
An eSIM cloud or onsite management system is crucial to MNOs that want to take advantage of eSIM technology to grow their consumer eSIM market as well as to venture into the IoT and M2M verticals.
The Barrier to IoT/M2M Expansion
MNOs usually employ multi-vendor or multi-entity procurement and partnership strategies. Such an approach helps MNOs extract greater value from their supply chains, mainly by enhancing their competitive advantage in their markets.
Of course, multiple entities, clients, vendors, partners, verticals, and channels often mean various platforms and operating systems. However, the telecom industry’s technologies are mature enough to handle the MNOs’ complex and often multi-faceted requirements.
It is a different story for eSIM technology. When eSIMs first became viable to MNOs, they had to manage their eSIM subscriptions through closed, single-platform systems.
Traditional eSIM management platforms are expensive but severely restrictive. They are often locked for use with a single vendor. Thus, when an MNO signs a deal with another vendor, it has to duplicate its existing eSIM management platform onto another platform then lock the newly procured platform to the new vendor.
Likewise, traditional eSIM management platforms are also locked to a single vertical. To accommodate an M2M client, an MNO first needs to procure an eSIM provisioning system configured explicitly for M2M eSIM lifecycle management. Then it has to lock it for use with the new client.
However, since the platform is closed and locked to a single client, when the MNO adds another M2M client, the MNO must again duplicate its existing M2M eSIM management platform onto a new one and lock the newly procured platform to its newly acquired client.
Can you imagine how quickly an MNO’s eSIM lifecycle management system becomes convoluted and unwieldy? To gain full visibility on their eSIM operations — their subscriber count, customer lifetime values, billing, and other vital metrics — MNOs have to log into every one of their single-tenant eSIM management platforms, generate reports from each one, and then aggregate these different pieces of data.
It’s a tedious and laborious process. Even if an MNO has enterprise resource planning and robotic process automation systems in place, it would still have to go the extra step of creating or procuring software that would access all of its single-tenant platforms individually, read the data from each one, and combine them so that company management will have a bird’s eye, aggregate view of how the MNO’s eSIM business is doing.
It is quite expensive, too, to maintain a separate platform for every vendor, client, vertical, entity, and location. An MNO might need a dedicated team (including IT staff) to manage every eSIM management platform. That means considerable human resource costs. Then, of course, there’s also the cost of procuring every additional platform.
The Case for Hybrid eSIM management
Things started looking up for the MNOs, however, when Workz, the world’s largest manufacturer of telecom cards and a world-leading mobile IoT solutions provider, launched the first-ever open eSIM platform.
The revolutionary eSIM management solution is called Multi-eSIM Hub or MeSH. What differentiates it from traditional eSIM management platforms is its unified, multi-platform and multi-tenant approach to eSIM lifecycle management, which puts a premium on interoperability.
This open eSIM management system lets MNOs manage multiple vendors, clients, entities, locations, and verticals using a single, unified interface. Adding another client? There is no need to duplicate an existing platform onto a newly procured platform dedicated to the new client. How about a new vendor? No problem. The MNO can add new vendors to its existing eSIM management system.
The multi-eSIM hub also allows multi-platform integrations. Thus, MNOs on a multi-eSIM hub can manage all their eSIM subscriptions from a single place. It won’t matter if these subscriptions are for mobile phones, smartwatches, smart appliances, asset tracking devices, and other eSIM devices.
This multi-tenant hybrid eSIM management system merges an MNO’s consumer and IoT/M2M solutions, letting it manage all of its eSIM business using a single, unified interface. They can provision eSIMs, bill clients, and generate comprehensive and multi-tenant reports from a single dashboard.
Open eSIM Management: The Way Forward
The open eSIM management system makes it easier for MNOs to capitalize on eSIM technology to increase their market shares or activate additional revenue streams.
The hybrid eSIM management system drastically reduces the capital investment MNOs need to make when venturing out of the consumer market and into the IoT/M2M space or when adding vendors, clients, entities, and locations. Additionally, when an MNO can readily add vendors, clients, entities, locations, and vertical specialists to their existing eSIM infrastructure, they can ensure business continuity, guarantee geo-redundancy, and improve their competitive advantage in their market.
