Telecoms
Transformation
The industry will continue to rapidly evolve driven by continued digital technology evolution, demand for ubiquitous high speed data availability and disruptive competitors. This transformation to Next-Gen Telecoms will embrace Digital-first Engagement, Next-gen Networks, Software-defined Infrastructure, Intelligent Operations, and Smart Digital Services.
Digital-first Engagement
Retaining the digital consumer
Customers and businesses expect a digital-first engagement, however future customer satisfaction and growth opportunities may depend on Telco operators’ established omnichannel distribution channels including owned stores, partner/vendor stores, e-commerce channels, or channels with major e-commerce players. Some operators in developed markets have more than 3,000 stores.
Today, even leading telcos are struggling to integrate data and analytics into every single one of their customer touchpoints to create a seamless and personalised experience
Drives cloud, artificial intelligence, analytics, security and digital workplace.
Next-gen Networks
5G & FTTP Rollouts & Open Networks
Both fixed and mobile networks are in the middle of an evolution to higher speed architectures; 5G for mobile and Fibre-to-the-premises, or FTTP for fixed networks.
Operators will also continue turning to network sharing (or infrastructure M&A) as a key lever to significantly reduce cost and improve deployment time or network coverage. Mobile network sharing is a common model for operators in Europe. Fibre sharing is increasingly being adopted across the globe, as investment returns are much less attractive because of fibre overbuild. In some cases, even governments are pushing the industry to network sharing. Operators can achieve 30 to 35% savings from doing active network sharing, including spectrum, on mobile.
Utilises networking, cloud and security.
Software-defined Infrastructure
Intelligent & Reliable
Greater agility, efficiency and innovation are being enabled by a shift to software defined infrastructure. McKinsey estimates gains up to 20% in total-cost-of-ownership savings.
Transformation is occuring at both the network infrastructure and network management/OSS layers. Network infrastructure softwarisation is enabled by three key technological shifts: network virtualisation (including network function virtualisation, or NFV, and virtualized radio access network, or vRAN), which decouples network functionalities from the underlying hardware. Network management is enabled by software-defined networks (SDN), which separate the control plane of a network from the user plane and centralise it with network interfaces and APIs.
Technology includes cloud, networking, security, automation and analytics.
Intelligent Operations
Resilient & Zero-touch
Telcos need to move towards a AI-driven autonomous operations that deliver an experience that is zero wait, zero touch and zero trouble. This starts with the customer interface and extends right through operations and engineering. Adopting automation can reduce customer complaints by 25%, reduce faults by 20% and increase availability by 25% according to the TMForum.
This includes IoT, cloud, networking, security, workplace, automation and analytics.
Smart Digital Services
Agile & Competitive
Delivering growth will require telcos to go beyond only offering connectivity and evolved to provide end users and customers (both B2C and B2B2x) with products and services built on a platform-based business model. Examples include delivering content to the consumer market or analytics and visual recognition systems to enterprises.
By playing a role in ecosystems telcos can unlock at least $700 billion in new revenues, mostly in industrial 5G and B2B2x opportunities. Telcos will need to invest much more in building product management functions and R&D, which equates to just 1.7% of revenues in 2019 versus 12.9% for software and cloud companies.
Requires the integration of networking, cloud, AI & analytics and security.