Whether and how communications service providers (CSPs) can transition “from telco to tech-co,” grow revenue in categories beyond connectivity, and increase the value offered to business customers is up for debate, but several CSP executive leaders have offered the DTWS 2021 audience some tips on how to get there.
DTWS: CSP executives share view of path from telco to tech-co
Whether and how communications service providers (CSPs) can transition “from telco to tech-co,” grow revenue in categories beyond connectivity, and increase the value offered to business customers is up for debate, but several CSP senior leaders have offered the DTWS 2021 audience some tips on how to get there.
For example, building digital skills deliberately has paid benefits for some large CSPs. “We have 1000 people focused on digital skills and it has brought down cost to serve tremendously,” said Anthony Rodrigo, Group Chief Information Officer - Axiata Group, during the DTWS roundtable White Paper Spotlight: The tech-driven Telco: unlocking growth beyond connectivity through an open digital architecture. In turn, Rodrigo explained, this helps open new markets, like small and medium enterprise (SME), where “if you bring down the cost to serve and partner to $0, you get SMEs on board much more easily.” Vodafone Spain CEO Colman Deegan says customer experience of course plays a critical role, but the level of control CSPs can now gain over their customer experiences (CXs) and journeys was not feasible a decade ago. “Omnichannel, personalized, contextualized customer experiences exist today with AI and machine learning improving contacts with customers,” Deegan told the DTWS 2021 audience, noting that the telco industry is general ahead of other industries in this way. The challenge for CSPs, Deegan says, is to balance what a CSP builds in-house against any dependencies on partners it creates. Deegan explains that IT outsourcing “constrained future flexibility, particularly coming into a digital age” and implores other CSPs to consider, for similar reasons, how many different partners they want to depend on, and what for, as their IT landscapes rapidly change. Change is a constant to which most CSPs have been forced to adapt already. But for that change to be positive, it needs to be understood on multiple levels. Mathangi Sandliya, Managing Director, Communications and Media, Accenture, explains that change spans “mindset shift, operating model change, technology reinvention” and identifying “the right business model.” Disruptive change, therefore, is not limited to technology. Jonathan Abrahamson, Senior Vice President, Product and Digital, Deutsche Telekom says the realization of real organizational change often comes through workshops that put cross-functional leaders in the same room to collaborate on issues where technology, business and other disciplines intersect. Abrahamson quips that when the CTIO is talking about customer journeys, the CMO is talking about IT architecture, and “we have technology and commercial colleagues finishing each other’s sentences, that’s ultimately where we want to end up.” Download the white paper The Tech-driven telco: Unlocking growth beyond connectivity through an open digital architecture.
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