The Telecom Italia Group (a US $83 billion company) is the world's fourth largest telecomms group in terms of turnover. The group's core businesses include Telecom Italia (operating parent company, offering fixed telephony products), Telecom Italia Mobile (mobility telephony services), Telespazio (satellite telecommunications), Stet International (international finance company), and Telemedia International or TMI (multinational provider of added value Internet services). A host of other Telecom Italia Group companies delivers such services as cable, satellite pay-per-view digital television, IT services, networking and installation, frontier technologies and transmission networks. Telecom Italia also is a stakeholder in a number of international telecommunications companies, such as Telecom Argentina and Tele Centro Sul.

Italians like to stay in touch. Colourful public telephones juxtapose ancient landmarks. Cellphones accessorize communicators of all ages. Pagers deliver signals day and night, and Internet connections are now as plentiful as Renaissance art.

To keep pace with this continually evolving telecommunications environment, Telecom Italia needed to understand its customers' behaviours. Today, thanks to a new IBM business intelligence solution, the company's marketing, sales and customer service departments have the actionable information needed to address age-old industry problems such as customer loyalty and competition. The bottom line? The decision to implement the new technology is proving to be a good call