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Survey finds telcos lag behind in digital transformation

An IDC survey commissioned by Amdocs finds telecom providers lagging in digital transformation

BARCELONA, Spain – Service providers are not transforming fast enough to meet demands of today’s digital era. This was the main conclusion of a global survey conducted for Amdocs by research firm IDC.

The survey showed that despite strong technology capabilities, service providers are concerned whether they can implement digital transformation fast enough. Globally, 69% of executives believe the communications industry has strong technology capabilities, but will find it difficult to complete digital transformation projects quickly enough and 64% believe this transition could be outpaced by other industries.

The survey also noted business and IT leaders see things differently when it comes to a clear digital transformation strategy. The lack of a clear strategy is one of the biggest obstacles that could slow down or completely derail these efforts. Other concerns identified by the survey are low adoption rates of digital channels; multi-vendor system environments; too many manual processes; and legacy platforms holding back progress.

At this week’s Mobile World Congress event, RCR Wireless News interviewed Manuel Briseño, marketing director for Caribbean and Latin America at Amdocs, about the regional perspectives of digital transformation for LatAm carriers. Briseño also talked about Amdocs’ news from the MWC event, which include the unveiling of its latest CES 10 customer experience system said to now include a digital services portfolio designed to support and accelerate the transition to digital business models.

According to the IDC survey, 50% of C-level and other senior decision makers interviewed predicted it will take their companies more than five years to complete their digital journey. In North America, 35% of executives shared this prediction, while 68% in the Caribbean and Latin America predicted the journey would take at least five years.

Business agility, new digital skills and omnichannel customer experiences are seen as the most critical capabilities to survive in the digital age, according to the executives interviewed. According to the survey, the main drivers to enable the creation and implementation of digital transformation strategies are availability of the right skills to create the digital strategy; availability of the right skills to design and implement the required changes; and use of customer experience as a design principle for product and service development.

As for business priorities, respondents noted the need for business agility to increase revenue from existing services and products, and to provide an omnichannel experience across services and customer touch points and to improve customer experience.

Editor’s Note: Travel costs to Mobile World Congress were provided by Samsung.

ABOUT AUTHOR

Roberta Prescott
Roberta Prescott
Editor, Americasrprescott@rcrwireless.com Roberta Prescott is responsible for Latin America reporting news and analysis, interviewing key stakeholders. Roberta has worked as an IT and telecommunication journalist since March 2005, when she started as a reporter with InformationWeek Brasil magazine and its website IT Web. In July 2006, Prescott was promoted to be the editor-in-chief, and, beyond the magazine and website, was in charge for all ICT products, such as IT events and CIO awards. In mid-2010, she was promoted to the position of executive editor, with responsibility for all the editorial products and content of IT Mídia. Prescott has worked as a journalist since 1998 and has three journalism prizes. In 2009, she won, along with InformationWeek Brasil team, the press prize 11th Prêmio Imprensa Embratel. In 2008, she won the 7th Unisys Journalism Prize and in 2006 was the editor-in-chief when InformationWeek Brasil won the 20th media award Prêmio Veículos de Comunicação. She graduated in Journalism by the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas, has done specialization in journalism at the Universidad de Navarra (Spain, 2003) and Master in Journalism at IICS – Universidad de Navarra (Brazil, 2010) and MBA – Executive Education at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.