Tag Archives: Telecom

Jan 09 2019
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Telecoms Future, TelecomTV, The Great Telco Debate Image

A taste of the Great Telco Debate 2018

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The dust has finally settled on the Great Telco Debate 2018. The months of planning for the interaction-packed debates and panels left us all reeling from the wealth of inputs, cross-questioning and new ideas on the future of the telecoms industry. This was our fifth event and feedback is that it was the best yet – so no pressure for 2019!

Watch the video and interview highlights here.

One of the main challenges for the Great Telco Debate is identifying the topics for debate throughout the year. The six debates summarised below reflect the diversity of opinion and variety of stakeholders at play. What was clear throughout, was that a more open approach to partnering with other ecosystem players is vital if telcos are to throw off the mantel of being the laggards of the digital economy.

Summary:

Debate 1: The role of the telco in the broader digital economy
Motion: Telcos should confine themselves to connectivity – DEFEATED

Input from Jean Yves Charlier former CEO of Veon, Akira Tada of Softbank, and Mike Blanche of Google left us in no doubt about the wealth of opportunities outside of connectivity. However, the telco’s role in providing high quality, ubiquitous connectivity across fixed and mobile has to be the focus for the industry.

Debate 2: Filling the fibre gap
Motion: The only way to get full fiberisation is to nationalise fixed telecoms infrastructure – DEFEATED

Clive Carter from Ofcom, Dana Tobak from Hyperoptic and Mike Magee from SSE Enterprise Telecom all emphasised the changing nature of the telecoms infrastructure build-out with funding coming from a wide range of sources. All are looking to get involved in the fibre and 5G build programmes. Despite the emphasis on mobile, the debate centred on fibre being critical to underpinning all connectivity activities, and how the open market, accompanied by regulation, is stimulating the shift to higher bandwidth services for all customers.

Debate 3: Progress in softwarising and virtualising the world’s telcos
Motion: Virtualisation is a poisoned chalice – DEFEATED

Dr Steffen Roehn, Senior Advisor to Reliance Jio, set the scene for the softwarised telco whilst Ian Massingham from AWS outlined how the web-scale giant is working on many different levels with the telco community, with Cloud becoming the de facto standard for developing applications. Sanjay Mewada from Netcracker, Martin Taylor from Metaswitch and Colin Kincaid from Cisco presented their diverse perspectives before we dove into a tetchy debate about the role of open source versus the traditional world of suppliers.

Debate 4: Analytics, Machine Learning and the Edge – DEFEATED
Motion: The first priority for AI deployment is in network optimisation.

Charlie Muirhead of CognitionX boiled down the enormous volume of activity around AI into a few key initial steps for the telecoms world, whilst Simon Aspinall from SWIM AI demonstrated how the start-up is building intelligence at the Edge to help real time analysis and Marisa Viveras from IBM talked about the shift to Watson and hyper intelligence in the telecoms industry.

Debate 5: Security is everywhere but which aspect can generate revenue?
Motion: Security can generate significant long-term income for telcos – DEFEATED

Nicolas Thomas from Fortinet and the Security Alliance opened up the security debate followed by Laurence Pitt from Juniper and Derek Roga from Equiis. The diversity of perspectives on security make it very difficult to pin down whether it’s a revenue or a cyber-defensive play. The one common view is that customers expect the telcos, with their conservative positioning, to provide secure, reliable service, whether this is connectivity, messaging or building on the Edge to deliver real time solutions.

Debate 6: 5G And IoT meet Industry 4.0 but where does it leave the Telcos?
Motion: 5G is revolutionary in enterprise terms but evolutionary in consumer terms – CARRIED

Phil Skipper Head of Business development for IOT at Vodafone showed how industry is benefiting from the potential of 5G. Ericsson through Hakan Duphama and Nokia via Phil Twist demonstrated how their telecoms expertise is being applied to the industry 4.0 revolution and Darrell Jordan Smith from Red Hat outlined how the open source uprising is demanding more and more from all partners in the emerging ecosystem.

We will return with the next Great Telco Debate on December 5th 2019 in London. In the meantime, we will also return with TelecomTV at the Digital Service Provider (DSP) Leaders Summit in May. This is part of the closer cooperation between the Great Telco Debate and TelecomTV – bringing a truly independent platform for debating the future of the telecoms and media industry to all.

The formal summary document will be available shortly. Please drop me a line chris@lewisinsight.com if you would like to receive a copy or if you would like to get involved in the formal proceedings for the DSP event or next December’s Great Telco Debate.

 

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Feb 22 2018
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Telecoms Future, The Great Telco Debate

A ‘brand’ view of the telecoms industry

Tim Pritchard, Kantar TNS at the Great Telco Debate

In the spirit of getting outside perspectives on the evolving telecoms market, Tim Pritchard from Kantar TNS, the WPP company which is the largest custom research business in the world, joined the Great Telco Debate on the role of telecoms in the digital economy. The brand perspective raised some very interesting and contradicting themes:

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  • The customer is changing. Traditional segmentation is no longer valid. ‘Generation CX’ (young, old, educated, working class – a slice of everyone) is the new reality and brands either listen and respond to customer feedback or risk becoming irrelevant.
  • It is widely accepted that customer loyalty drives profitable revenue growth. As such, customer experience (CX) is non-negotiable. But how does it fit in with today’s telecoms ‘product’ given the world of apps and over-the-top content consumption?
  • Corporate mission statements and brand values tend not to include the customer – you’ll be amazed how few companies, even those spending tens of millions each year on CX, have an agreed customer strategy. Get it written down and socialised across the business so that everyone from the janitor to the CEO knows it, and uses it to frame their work, their thinking, and their daily behaviour.
  • WPP’s 2017 Global BrandZ  shows that 8 of the world’s most valuable 50 brands are telcos. A further 15 are technology companies. You’ve had the power for a long time, but have you leveraged that power? I would say not.
  • Most Telcos have adopted NPS (Net Promoter System) yet their NPS scores are among the lowest of any industry. Virtual network providers often enter markets and quickly start to outperform the network owners, sometimes by as much as 20-30 NPS points. It shouldn’t be that easy – there is something clearly amiss among incumbent telcos to afford disruptor brands that opportunity to create true CX differentiation.
  • A focus on self-serve business models may help to save telcos money but, aside from the customer groups who actively prefer to self-serve, tend to harm rather than enhance brand building efforts.
  • The customer voice is vital, and capturing customer feedback on specific interactions (preferably in real-time) provides critical input for both tactical response and strategy development, as well as brand building

There are 3 basic rules:

  • Don’t let customer down, especially at critical times (i.e. the moments that really matter)
  • Deliver emotional and functional experiences that stimulate long-lasting feelings for the brand
  • Do things that reinforce brand choice and deliver services to customers in a personal, relevant, and needs-satisfying manner

In short, the role of brand is changing with the digital market. Telcos and tech companies benefit hugely from high brand valuations yet typically suffer from poor customer service, reflected in low NPS scores. Part of the challenge is identifying what role the telco plays in the lives of ‘Generation CX’. Identifying, enunciating and promoting a clear customer strategy is vital to re-positioning the telco for the coming generations.

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Feb 14 2018
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CIO, Telecoms Future, Telefonica, The Great Telco Debate

Learn to read the digital wind: A group CIO’s perspective of the state of the telecoms nation

Phil and ChrisOne of my highlights from the last Great Telco Debate was my informal interview with Phil Jordan, former Group CIO from Telefonica, about his 20 years in the telecoms industry. We talked about the highs and lows of the role, the relative role of the CIO, telco transformation and the state of the market. Here are some of the key topics and themes:

Highs and lows of a telco CIO

  • Phil believes the industry should be proud of being at the heart of building the digital economy and helping people run their digital lives
  • Almost every day for Phil had 4 highs and 5 lows: One of the lows is that telecoms is a much-maligned industry and ‘we’ do a great job of kicking the proverbial out of each other when we gather for an industry forum such as the Great Telco Debate. ‘We’ continually complain about how difficult it is and how poor ‘we’ are at servicing customer needs.
  • A low, especially recently, is how frustrating it can be getting the industry to shift gear. We are running out of time to remain relevant and at the centre of driving the digital revolution
  • The vast majority of time has been spent fighting internally with colleagues over the digital transformation of the organisation rather than fighting with competitors, dealing with regulators or building relationships with suppliers

The relative role of the CIO

  • Telcos were traditionally run by network people and IT was very much an afterthought, resulting in overly complex systems. According to Phil, very little architectural integrity exists in telcos. IT was a system of record but is now moving to be the differentiating factor with the network becoming the underlying product. The network is, of course, the biggest asset but it is not a source of differentiation. Phil suggest that the real differentiator is the leveraging of customer data. This is a huge transition for telcos to move from an engineering mentality to actually serving the customer. All this places huge technical, skills and leadership demands on the organisation.
  • It is still difficult to operate at a pace within the telcos but they are gradually realising the new innovation paradigm. From the CIO perspective, running the network with a handful of suppliers, looks easy. The IT side, on the other hand, has literally thousands of suppliers. And, the CTO is the one person in the telco who understands the network.  Everyone thinks they understand how IT works or should work!
  • The shift to ‘X as a service’, along with changing suppliers relationships, is indicative of the shift in balance between CTO and CIO.
  • There has been a degree of complacency with the telcos and their suppliers. There seems to have been a ‘hand break’ on virtualisation because it represents the end of an era for so many parties both in inside and outside of the telcos. “Virtualisation is turkeys voting for Christmas. Having said that, it isn’t a straight route. In sailing terms, it needs a bit of tacking and jibing across the direction of travel in order to get to the end destination – and we need to learn to read the wind!”
  • Telcos have been guilty of not understanding the innovation agenda and where it has been coming from.

Transforming the telco into a digital business

  • Transformation is difficult because it was easy running a telco when profits were high, competition low and everyone knew their place! The commercial and technical leadership used to “rock up and run the business”. All of a sudden there are new competitors, margins are shrinking and innovation is coming from other places. This requires a different kind of leadership.
  • It is noticeable how many telco executives come from management consultancy, finance or law whilst the hyper scale companies are led by tech entrepreneurs
  • According to Phil, the role of the CIO is very much one of being a story-teller and explaining how things work to the different LOBs, OPCOS and levels of management. The CIO, in many ways, has a better end-to-end understanding of the way the business runs. This is because the CIO can’t get away from everyone asking him how everything worked. So, in short, a major problem exists at the top of telcos not understanding the way the business runs and not really understanding the art of the possible when it comes to technology
  • Phil believes that transforming a major telco is 3-4-year job and “anyone who tells you it is less is lying or have never done it before”.

The state of the market

  • On the consumer side, the risk of being marginalised is real. The motion for the debate was that we will buy our broadband from Google and Amazon in the future. We probably won’t even buy broadband directly, but included in services from a variety of companies, including the OTTs.
  • On the business side, there are enormous possibilities as business models emerge that require connectivity. One of the problems is that telcos think they should be running Facebook. The problem is that the money is in B2B, IoT and AI.
  • We need to build offerings into the emerging digital business models. Wholesale was the poor relation because its margins were considerably lower that the highly profitable retail and business service. As those margins ‘head south’, wholesale may well look more attractive!
  • Telcos run the risk being relegated to mere utility bandwidth. Does this mean we will be part of a much smaller industry in the future? Phil believes there will be a consolidation around the connectivity market with the leveraging of data providing the new impetus, innovation, and support for the customer experience. If the telco can give control back to the customer regarding their data, there is potentially a different relationship. Having said that, there is still a major role for the telcos to play in the digital world, society, and lifestyle whatever the ecosystem and relative roles.

Phil is now launching his retail career at Sainsbury’s. He suspects that the wafer thin margins of the high street will have the focus most definitely on the usage of data and building a clearer understanding of the customer and their behaviour. Perhaps he will bring these lessons back into telco in the future!

You can watch the full interview  from the Great Telco Debate here

Thank you Phil for your insight, openness and humour. The industry will miss you.

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Feb 02 2018
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Telecoms Future, The Great Telco Debate

An Economist’s perspective on the future of telecoms

Getting external perspectives always adds to the richness of the Great Telco Debate.  Mark Gregory, Chief Economist at EY in London and I discussed the economic realities of telecoms and the digital economy going forward. Here are the key themes that emerged:

  • Measuring productivity in traditional economic terms has been challenged by the Gig economy and its processes: ubiquitous connectivity is destroying traditional value such as in the taxi, hotel or retail markets but is creating new value as different parties are brought together on the exploding number of platforms for consumer and business use
  • ‘Digital’ was formerly about hidden components such as semi-conductors, servers and 3D printing. It’s now all pervasive and, from an economist’s perspective, it’s about how all industries work, the potential impact of technology and where value is created
  • The potential ubiquity of ultra broadband diminishes the relative value of connectivity since scarcity tends to create value
  • Telecoms is in the group of General Purpose Technologies (GPT) as described by Robert Gordon in his assessment of the impact of IT on productivity. It may be a disproportionately important enabler in a more digital world, but it is nonetheless an enabler
  • Telecoms (broadband) should have a relatively bigger role going forward but that depends on how it evolves and how it allows other industries to evolve
  • Telecoms first of all has to deliver its role into the digital economy as an enabler. Moves into content delivery and other services have been only variously successful
  • Telecoms must think about how it can enable other value chains rather than dominate them by underpinning new processes and allowing new apps to flourish.
  • Politics is becoming extremely important for the future of telecoms. Regulators have to get out of the mindset of capping prices if they are going to allow the telecoms industry to evolve into its new digital economy support role. The telcos have to be able to benefit in terms of value capture if they are going to be incentivised to invest for the future.
  • 5G is what some of the financial community are most worried about in terms of another big chunk of investment being required.
  • Digital skills are important as automation shifts the focus for human roles in the digital economy
  • As we look at Brexit some sectors are clearly going to be impacted:
    • Financial services and Life Sciences because of the regulatory environment.
    • Automotive could be impacted but this is still not clear
    • Telecoms does not appear to be in the high impact category.
    • Data protection will be a major focus given European regulation.
    • The labour force is the one to keep an eye on – digital skills and a more flexible work force capable of coping with the the dynamics of a digital market will be vital.

Here is the full interview:

Keep November 29th 2018 free for the next Great Telco Debate. If you have topics you think are shaping the future of the industry and would like to contribute as an ‘expert witness’ please drop me a line.

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Mar 09 2017
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Telecoms Future, The Great Telco Debate

What did the Great Telco Debate learn from MWC?

The Great Telco Debate may not be on the scale of MWC, but it is a year long process of analysing the telecoms industry from every possible angle to shape the programme for the event. MWC was a great opportunity to reconsider the topics from 2016 and draw from market developments. Using last year’s debate titles, here are my take-aways from the Barcelona jamboree.

  • Telco’s role in the digital economy: The jury is still out on the extent to which telcos can exploit digital. There are plenty of autonomous car examples but little new revenue upside for telcos – emphasising the need for ‘ruthless’ simplification of the business (Cisco)
  • Customer experience: Telefonica’s 4th platform does look like a refreshingly new approach to acknowledging peoples’ data and giving something back to the customers as well as improving overall service levels
  • Softwarisation of the telco: This is probably the most important aspect of this wave of industry transformation and there was plenty of evidence from open source virtualisation and edge computingto cloud the picture (Amdocs, HPE, Huawei)
  • IOT: The industry is finally realising that massive connectivity revenues are not likely from IOT, but the real demand will come from supporting different industry ecosystems via platforms and overall integration (Ericsson, Cisco)
  • 5G: It was fascinating that most 5G initiated discussions dropped back to a more robust 4G delivery to support video as well as overall data needs (Ericsson, T-Mobile US ,Telstra)

There is no doubt that telcos are acknowledging the reality of innovation coming from ‘Interpreneurs’ and suppliers, as well as from apps developers driving the telco to be more open and accepting of ideas ‘not made here’ (Orange).

Ironically, given the endless pursuit of innovation, the re-launch of the classic Nokia 3310 drew a lot of attention. Harking back to simplicity, fewer messaging options (no apps) and longer battery life, certainly grabbed peoples’ attention. However, I wonder if those writing about the old classic were more represented by the older generation rather than the younger, smart-phone raised app enthusiasts!

In terms of discussion topics for the Great Telco Debate 2017, doubtless other themes will rise to the surface. Security is one obvious elephant in the room, as is the role of telco in industries such as automotive and healthcare. Also, Artificial Intelligence will worm its way into every aspect of the market and promises many changes in performance, behaviour and outcomes.

Whether you are from the telco, supplier or analyst side or indeed any other interested party, please get in touch if you have ideas you think should be incorporated into the Great Telco Debate on 30th November 2017. I look forward to seeing you there.

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Aug 19 2013
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Telecoms Future

Plotting the telecoms future

We are entering a major annual planning cycle for many players in the ICT industry. The challenge for the telecoms sector is that there are so many moving parts, some positive, some negative and all interacting with each other. And with the increasing digitisation of everything, factors from outside the telecoms market will seriously impact the future shape of telecoms. Indeed, one thought for the backburner is whether we will even think of telecoms services as a market in the future – but that’s for another day!

The basic equation for the telecoms market looks something like:

  • Demand from individuals, households and businesses and now ,‘Things’ (M2M) continues to grow as communications expands its horizons both in numerical and volume terms.
  • Total Revenues from traditional and new connectivity services are either in decline or about to go into decline – it is still a very big number overall, something like $1.4 trillion worldwide. The mix of legacy and new revenues varies by country but few doubt the gap left once the legacy services have washed through the system
  • New revenue streams such as TV/media, IT services, security, cloud, M2m all have attractive connectivity dependent components but they are also being addressed by other parts of the ICT industry and generally have lower margins than the connectivity services
  • Applications and content leveraging the telecoms networks are increasingly disconnected from the telecoms world and increasingly linked to the apps and links on our multiple screens through which we consume and execute
  • Maintaining a network infrastructure that can handle the explosion in traffic across all access methods and across the core, including in and out of data centres, needs major investment along with a rationalisation of the internal ICT infrastructure for most operators if margins are to be maintained, let alone grown

We need to recalibrate the expectations of the industry and its investors. Perhaps considering how many connections per household, individual, business and ‘thing’ require  and a fixed rate of revenue for each. This would define the worst case scenario, but still potentially very profitable. Add to this a percentage of the adjacent markets from ICT and Media and two-sided business models from pretty much every industry sector, and we have the potential future addressable market. However, remember that this new digital world means that the adjacent market incumbents can equally enter the telecoms space!.

There is fundamentally a lot of ‘spend’ at stake from all on the demand side. As everything digitises the demand side is increasingly likely to dictate through which channel the service (including connectivity) is consumed. So, a multi-channel strategy is needed along with major network and ICT rationalisation to bring the telco of the future into the new digital era.

Don’t get me wrong, Telecoms does have an underpinning role in the future scenario.  It may not necessarily be as the deliverer of the final service function or feature but there is a fundamental role at the heart of the new digital era for a trusted, reliable provider of the digital glue.

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