According to a recent report, 75% of telco CEOs believe legacy IT systems hinder rapid innovation
The telecommunications industry is undergoing significant change. Connectivity is increasingly commoditized, 5G is broadly deployed, and 6G is on the horizon. Yet revenue growth remains stagnant. While most operators recognize the need to evolve, many now have the opportunity to take a smarter, more effective approach to transformation.
However, for legacy technology stacks, massive internal rebuilds and multivendor patchworks leave operators with systems that are rigid, slow and costly to maintain. A recent report found that 75% of telco CEOs believe legacy IT systems hinder rapid innovation. In contrast, digital-native competitors and agile MVNOs and OTT operators are experimenting, learning, and scaling at a faster rate than ever.
To compete, telcos need agility. Cloud-native, no-code platforms help operators innovate quickly, reduce costs and deliver the digital experiences customers expect.
Legacy downfalls
Traditionally, telecom infrastructure has been built layer by layer, hampered by legacy IT stacks, multi-vendor patchworks and bureaucratic processes. Each new service, vendor and integration adds another level of complexity. Combined, these factors result in operational challenges that slow everything down, from launching new services to interacting with customers.
Operators have invested billions in modernizing their operations, yet industry results show that 70% of digital transformations still fail. They rely too heavily on outdated, resource-heavy internal processes, which slow them down and raise costs.
Legacy IT systems also struggle to keep pace with the evolving customer experience. When marketing and product teams create new offers, the IT pipeline often stalls execution. Slow launches, disconnected data and internal bottlenecks frustrate customers. The average telco NPS sits around -1, while digital-native brands routinely achieve a score of +60.
Market influences
The telecom industry has reached an inflection point. Connectivity revenue grows less than 1% annually, while network maintenance and upgrade costs climb. But while connectivity growth slows, new opportunities emerge across digital services, partnerships and ecosystems. Operators who adapt quickly can move up the value chain and capture new revenue beyond traditional connectivity. Investors already reward companies that combine network strength with digital agility. Techcos command valuations of 5-15x revenue, while most telcos remain between 0.5 and 1.5x, highlighting significant upside for those who evolve.
The customer gap is widening, too. Digital-native users, including Gen Z and Millennials, who comprise 75% of the workforce, have high expectations. Their service should be fast, personalized and frictionless. Seldom do they compare their experience to that of other carriers; more often, they compare it to digital powerhouses like Spotify, Amazon or Apple.
For telcos, this creates an opportunity to close the gap, reimagine their value and deliver experiences that earn loyalty and unlock new growth.
The agile edge
True transformation lies in the ability to innovate continuously and to accommodate changing customer needs and behaviors. Achieving this, and driving the next phase of telecom growth, depends on agility and the chance to ideate, launch, measure and iterate at speed.
Modern, cloud-native, composable platforms provide these capabilities. They allow telcos to experiment without incurring traditional IT rebuild costs or complexity. Telcos can also integrate and scale new partner-driven services seamlessly, whether conventional telecom offerings, gaming or other revenue-generating applications. Operators can launch IoT-enabled connectivity, monetize gaming or leverage edge computing for ultra-low latency use cases without facing the usual barriers to innovation.
By automating key processes such as partner onboarding, service provisioning and revenue sharing, these platforms eliminate friction and lower overhead. Telcos can experiment with new partnerships, identify what resonates with specific customer segments and bring new services to market in weeks instead of months.
Why agile wins
Agile, cloud-native platforms outperform traditional rebuilds across every meaningful metric:
- Speed to market – New offers can launch in as little as 16 weeks.
- Cost efficiency – Up to 40-50% lower total cost of ownership compared to multi-vendor setups.
- Lean IT operations – No need for massive teams to maintain integrations.
- Reduced risk – Parallels migrations and modular adoptions reduce disruption.
- Continuous innovation – Rapid testing and iteration cycles keep operators aligned with customer needs.
Instead of enduring a yearslong rebuild, agile platforms allow telcos to modernize with an outside-in approach, starting with the customer experience and then scaling innovation. This also supports a clean-slate, greenfield stack, enabling telcos to build modern, flexible systems free from legacy constraints.
The ideal telco
Agile platforms enable telcos to embrace the service-strengthening qualities of techcos: lean, customer-centric and ecosystem-driven. The ideal techco model rests on three pillars:
- Connect – Frictionless onboarding, flexible plans and self-service apps
- Delight – Digital lifestyle services, seamless partnerships and superior customer experiences
- Beyond – Ecosystem play, open APIs, rapid product launches and AI-driven personalization
To put these pillars into practice, some operators are adopting a parallel brand approach, launching new digital brands on clean, agile stacks. This tactic lets them test new ideas and experiences in-market before migrating their broader operations. Others use phased migration models that allow transformation to happen iteratively with lower risk.
Adopting a techco mindset
Transformation involves more than technology. Leadership must drive it as a top-down effort, building institutional logic into the culture and execution. To increase agility, telcos should break down silos, empower cross-functional teams and align around the customer. The right platforms enable telcos to redirect resources from maintenance to innovation, allowing them to experiment with new partnerships, services and experiences. Telcos can turn data into action, personalize in real-time and move faster than internal legacy systems have ever been able to do. The techco mindset — customer-obsessed, data-driven and open to collaboration — opens doors for telcos.
Agile platforms represent a new way of operating: faster, smarter and more adaptable to what customers and partners want next. For telcos ready to move beyond legacy systems, the opportunity is enormous: higher efficiency, faster innovation and entirely new revenue streams. By failing fast, fixing fast and scaling fast, operators can close the gap with techcos and lead the next era of telecom transformation.
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