Claudia Bacco, RCR Wireless Managing Director, EMEA recently had the opportunity to discuss with Chris Lewis, Managing Director, Chris Lewis Insight, some key topics facing the telco industry in today’s changing technology climate. With new players joining the competition, new technologies creating opportunities and challenges for the operators, and end users being faced with more choices then every before — things get complicated pretty fast. Seems like it’s the time for some debate on these topics.
RCR posed four questions to Chris about these topics.
Question: What are the key topics you believe the telcos are struggling with today?
Answer:
- Organizational transformation and realignment to support a digital agenda
- Shifting the model for customer experience management to incorporate APIs to allow partners to provide part of the experience support
- Reducing costs in line with a fundamentally limited market and marginal success in adjacent markets (varies by country)
- Portfolio rationalization in the light of emerging ecosystems
- Embedding the CIO organization into the broader lines of business to build agility into innovation and customer support
Question: Why is the time right for a Great Telco Debate platform?
Answer: The timing is ideal because many of the technical and market barriers that kept areas separate are now down. Convergence of many markets, fixed/mobile, voice/data, telecom/media/IT all contribute to a blurring of definitional and market lines. It’s all digital and it’s all out there in the cloud and in our hands! And, it opens up opportunities both to the customer, but perhaps more importantly, behind the scenes helping businesses and fellow service providers bring things to market.
Question: Who/what do you feel are the key disruptors in the telecom marketplace today and why should end users be excited or concerned?
Answer: End users should be excited, because for the first time in the history of the industry the convergence of technologies and services can combine to address actual user needs and not find an excuse to constrain them. In fact, the digital building blocks are there, linked by open APIs, that will allow any number of potential providers of services to the end customer, to step in and compete.
It is no longer a telecoms game but a much broader market. The balance of power oscillates between the broadband connectivity provider, device manufacturers and the applications developers and content world. Telecoms, and I don’t think we will even talk about fixed and mobile before too long, will disappear and become embedded parts of everything we do in our business and personal lives. So, telcos need to adjust to a new reality.
Question: What do you see is the most controversial topic to be discussed during the debate?
Answer: The nub of the matter is whether the telco should be delivering services directly to customers or, as the ‘service’ becomes more about the applications and content, whether true retailers should be the interface to the customer and the telco takes more of a back office role. After all, connectivity is an essential part of the value chain, but only a part.
The Great Telco Debate will take place in London on the 7th of November. To learn more you can follow this link to the main website.
