Sean McManus, TelecomTV (00:06):
Hi, I am Sean McManus from Telecom tv. I'm here at MWC this week and I'm joined now by Sanjay Kaul, who is the Chief Revenue Officer at Circles. Sanjay, thank you very much for joining us.

Sanjay Kaul, Circles (00:17):
Thank you. Thank you, Sean.

Sean McManus, TelecomTV (00:19):
Let me ask you, first of all, can you tell us about the origin of circles and what you sell today?

Sanjay Kaul, Circles (00:24):
See Circles was founded about 11 years ago. We were the first digital mobile operator in Singapore, and subsequently we opened our D OS in Australia, Taiwan and Indonesia. So that was the first five years of our journey. But what was unique about our company is that we stitched the whole BSS, MarTech and CRM from scratch. So it was digitally conceived with AI built, everybody talks about ai, but we built it from day one with those ethos. So that was really our first five years of journey and why we came into existence was really to transform the customer experience in telco industry.

Sean McManus, TelecomTV (01:13):
Brilliant. Tell us a bit more about your value proposition and how it sets you apart from the competition.

Sanjay Kaul, Circles (01:18):
See, our value proposition is very simple. Of course, in our SaaS stack, we have every jig that you need in A-B-S-S-C-R-M and MarTech. But the true IP is staying on the abstraction layer, which is built around the stack. For example, if you have to take a new offer to the market, instead of going and making customization at every element of B-S-S-C-R-M stack, we put it in a template at the abstraction layer, and then using Agent ai, we automatically update all the system. So which means if you compare it with traditional way of doing it, a new offer you want to launch to the market, you can conceive that in minutes rather than in months. So that improves service velocity, that improves customer satisfaction and really creates a motivation for the new revenues

Sean McManus, TelecomTV (02:16):
As your customer's needs evolve. Tell us about how you continue to align your value proposition with that.

Sanjay Kaul, Circles (02:22):
See today, if you look at the world, 70% of our consumer base is digital natives. You have to engage with them in a very different way. So in our case, you have a SaaS stack, which is fully integrated and embedded with AI analytics. But on top we have a front end, which is like a super app, which goes from connectivity to delight to gamification, to shop ation. And then we'll also take it beyond, when I say beyond, you could create an SDK and place it in any OTT, for example, TikTok. And now when you're consuming TikTok and you're running out of data, a popup for the telco will come up. You click, you bought the data. So we make it really seamless, customer friendly and instant. I think that's where we really, really differentiate from the market.

Sean McManus, TelecomTV (03:21):
And tell us about your successful partnerships and customers.

Sanjay Kaul, Circles (03:23):
See, as I said, the B2B SaaS stack journey started about five years ago, and our first client was KDDI of Japan, a very, very complex and number two operator in the country with about 40 million customers. So they wanted to change the face of the telco and created a new digital brand called PO O2 0.0. So as we launched this, it was 2021 covid and we had zero feet on ground that we launched a telco that can give you a bit of an imagination of what flexibility our stack offers. And first year they connected a million sub and that journey continues. So they've gone beyond giving customers one instant gratification and the second delight, but they're also gamifying the experience, which means you don't have a reason to go out of that app. Everything you can done can be done really in a, what do you call a super app, is what Povo 3.0 is.

(04:31):
And now, as I already told you, now they're creating these embedded connectivity into anything that will benefit from a connection. As a result, if they connect to an O-T-T-O-T-T becomes your point of sales. They've recently acquired a retail business called Lawson, which is like seven elevens now. They're connected even the physical store with this technology and it is pretty seamless. So that was number one at the group was second. Obviously the first opco we've launched is called on in Pakistan. We, we've done with at and t in Mexico. It's already launched. The telco is called wim. And the journey continues. Right now we are busy with transforming telecom cell a brand exactly swapping the existing vendors with our stack. So it's looking great and we see so much demand. I think obviously MWC, every CEO and CCOI talk about, they're excited to hear what it is. And we're very, very excited to see our future will look for us.

Sean McManus, TelecomTV (05:41):
Now, tell us how you ensure that customer experience remains at the heart of your business.

Sanjay Kaul, Circles (05:46):
We will build with that ethos. Honestly, rest of the things were stitched around that because we were imagining when a Gen Z or a Gen Elva is connecting a telco, how do you keep him continuously motivated and engaged and the whole stack was conceived and crafted with that in mind. So our whole purpose in life is to give power back to consumers and give power back to the business so he's not stuck in it layers. If you want to launch a new offer, you can go do it yourself. You don't have to be a technical geek to do it because we have made it so simple.

Sean McManus, TelecomTV (06:25):
Sanjay, thank you very much.

Sanjay Kaul, Circles (06:27):
Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it.