Page 61 - SAMENA Trends - September 2021

ARTICLE SAMENA TRENDS

ARTICLE

Business Excellence in Telecom

Hyperscalers have made a massive dent in telco fortunes. The
traditional voice revenue has also been dwindling, and data
monetisation remains a challenge for most telcos.

Digital native companies have disrupted the traditional telco
New entrants have leveraged next-gener-
ation technologies like Software Defined
Network (SDN) and Network Function Vir-
tualisation (NFV) to dramatically transform
their business and operating models and

make them highly cost-competitive.

customer engagement model by setting new seamless online
customer experience standards. Digital technologies like AI
(Artificial Intelligence), Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud/
edge have accelerated business model disruptions - e.g. SaaS
(Software-as-a-Service) model. New entrants have leveraged
next-generation technologies like Software Defined Network
(SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) to dramatically
transform their business and operating models and make them
highly cost-competitive.

How are Telcos addressing the Challenge?
Telcos withstood the 2020 pandemic well. They enabled remote
working for businesses, connected people online to education, Dr. Shekhar Tankhiwale
family, and healthcare. However, the pandemic also accelerated Vice President, & Head Communication, Media,
some of the prevailing trends, making it imperative for the telcos Entertainment (CME) Consulting
to urgently undertake rapid transformation to attain all-around Tech Mahindra Ltd, India
business excellence in revenue generation, cost optimisation and
customer experience superiority.

We have identified eight critical focus areas for telcos (Figure 1) to
attain business excellence through digital transformation.

These include strategic direction and transformation vision/
blueprint, visionary leadership, employee engagement and
participation in decision making as well as change management,
partner ecosystem, innovative business model, innovative digital
products, operational excellence (across process, systems,
data and people) using lean operations principles and seamless
customer experience across omni-channels.

61 SEPTEMBER 2021