Amdocs, the global leader in the communication and media industry, has undergone a real transformation in recent years. In the past, Amdocs was known as a Billing company, but today, this is only one of dozens of the company’s areas of operation, and among its customers are global giants like Sprint, Vodafone, AT&T, and
T-Mobile.
“Our main target population remains telecom and media companies all over the globe, but we develop all the solutions they require - from new customer creation, customer relationship management, and handling of online purchases, to the activation and operation of their systems”, explains Avishai Sharlin, general manager of the Amdocs Technology division.
“This is how, for example, telecom companies deal today with a new challenge - users have a variety of end-devices from different kinds of smartphones, to tablets and computers. Interactions with end-users require a completely different kind of development, compared to that of the systems that work behind the scenes (backend). I’m happy to say that we stand at the forefront of the technology of modern-day user interface development.
We have divisions that handle complex development of ecommerce systems, advanced digital services, and online systems management. Our division has more than 100 employees, who today, deal with the development of user interfaces and process definition in the area of digital commerce and customer service, and not all of these employees are developers and software engineers. In order to decipher the user interface and the intuitive processes that, in the end, will bring our customers business results, we also employ psychologists and sociologists and work according to methods like DesignThinking, which was developed at Stanford University”, said Sharlin.
Since the very beginning, Amdocs has had to deal with a huge number of end-customers, which has only increased over the years. “We handle hundreds of millions, billions, and even tens of billions of transactions”, says Sharlin. “It’s important to understand that users are constantly interacting with their applications, and we want these interactions to be personalized. To this end, our systems combine analytics and learning engines, resulting in personalized care abilities on the one hand, and on the other hand, the need to deal with work in a much greater volume than in systems designed for thousands of users.”
“We travelled to Silicon Valley, where we sat in the labs of Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, to learn from companies that specialize in large-scale cloud development environments. Currently, we use methods and the most advanced tools, which has changed the nature of our work and of our employees. Today, close to 50% of our overall workforce - and in some divisions even more - are 26 or 27 years of age at most.”
In order to make innovation part of the company’s DNA, “we established innovation labs to cultivate ideas that are not necessarily commercial” Sharlin explains. “We present them to our customers and test them within the company to see whether they can work for us, from completely imaginary ideas to innovative algorithms that are developed in-house.”
“We are expected to provide a lot of flexibility to our customers, so that they can invent and modify innovative plans and ideas. It’s all based on our engines, which now have a response time of seconds, instead of days or weeks, as in the past. It’s all in real time now, even in the most complex systems.”
These days, Amdocs continues to recruit new employees and Sharlin emphasizes that “we’re looking for creativity and people who want to learn the most advanced tools in the industry and who want to be involved in the most groundbreaking projects. In many instances, we’re entering areas where no one has tread before us. We are global pioneers in 5G solutions, and we are running software solutions in these areas, very many of which are still only in the experimental stage. A lot of our employees come here to learn and develop themselves, and then continue their career in our development centers a round the world, like in Europe and the United States.
Areen Salman Mattar, team manager at Amdocs, has worked for the company for more than 14 years and has held a number of different roles. According to her, “Thanks to the fact that the company is very big and deals with so many things, throughout my career, I’ve found roles and domains that interested me, all in the areas of technology and development.”
“The work environment is results-oriented and therefore, there is flexibility and possibilities not only for parents who want to combine a career with family, but for those who want to maintain a healthy balance in their personal life. For instance, as a mother to two little girls, I don’t feel that I have to make compromises in my career or in my personal life. Also, being a mother has never kept me from advancing in my managerial or technical career, and it’s not for nothing that there are many others with a tenure similar to mine or greater and who develop over the years.”
According to Sharlin, “As a leading business company in our field, we have a significant role to play in dealing with the big social and environmental challenges in our world. This is true for the human resources we recruit to Amdocs, for the technologies we develop, and of course, for our extensive social and environmental endeavors around the world.”
“Our areas of responsibility are varied and include reducing the digital divide, driving future employment, encouraging innovative initiatives, supporting education, with the development of sustainable products and more, all while bolstering diversity and inclusion and protecting the environment. Take our employees in Mexico for example, who voluntarily developed a technological platform that connects between food surpluses and food-insecure populations and within a first year and a half of its launch, more than 400 000people had received food, thanks to the technology we developed. Another example is a technological interface we developed for one of our customers - a mobile service provider - which enables its customers to donate part of their data package to youth at risk. Furthermore, I’m very proud of the venture “Digital Friends” that Amdocs initiated during the period of COVID-19, enabling Amdocs employees to give digital support to senior citizens with the purpose of helping them use video and voice calling applications on their phones.”
For more information: www.amdocs.com
