Five essential principles to navigate disruption
There’s a very famous legend about the inventor of the game of chess. One version of the story goes that one of the wise men in the court of the ruler of India invented the game, and the ruler fell in the love with the game. He called the wise man to his palace and told him he could name his reward. The man responded: “Oh emperor, my wishes are simple. I only wish for this - give me one grain of rice for the first square of the chessboard, two grains for the next square, four for the next, eight for the next and so on for all 64 squares, with each square having double the number of grains as the square before.”
The emperor agreed, amazed that the man had asked for such a small reward. But after a week, his treasurer came back and informed him that the reward is far greater than all the rice in the kingdom, in fact those of you who remember your high school math the number of grains in the last square is 2 to the power of 63. To give you a sense of how outrageously huge this number really is - placed end to end, these grains of rice would reach farther than from the Earth, across space to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, which is about four light years away, and back to Earth again!
I was reminded of this story as I was thinking about the telecommunications industry, today.
It sometimes feels like we are somewhere on this chessboard of doubling rice grains, when we look at the every-growing number of OTT & hyperscalers which are disrupting the traditional ways of doing business and new disruptive tech which redefines efficiency, scalability and security.
“The digital revolution is not about technology,
it’s about consumer behavior and business opportunities.” Gartner
Welcome to the era of disruption
Image credit: 2020 Satmetrix consumer report
The telecommunications industry is being rapidly and radically redefined.
The days of creating value from an expanding subscriber base are gone. Traditional definitions of work, education and leisure are being disrupted at an unprecedented pace and digital-first players are attacking existing telco’s profit pools.
In addition, both private and business customers have zero tolerance for sub-optimal service, as they will be even more informed about the reality of service, have far higher expectations, be empowered by social sharing, and be more willing and able to shift supplier.
But disruption is both a threat and an opportunity. With a growing reliance on connectivity and accessibility of new technologies such as 5G, automation, AI and Machine Learning, and cloud, CSPs can win the new battleground, create entirely new business models for themselves, and reclaim their leadership position.
A blueprint to navigate disruption
To seize this opportunity, to turn the tables and become the disruptor in their markets, CSPs need to re-imagine their business model by focusing on these elements:
- Innovate beyond connectivity via eco systems
- Transforming data into windows
- Achieve business agility via 5G and cloud-native architecture
- A progressive and flexible path to full automation
- Intrinsic and monetizable network security
Innovate beyond connectivity
The CSP business is no longer a vertically integrated B2C service based on voice communications. They now need a far more open and capable toolkit that allows them to forge alliances across a broad spectrum of partners, third parties, and even competitors, to take advantage of new markets as they emerge.
Success will be related to the availability of integrated verticalized solutions, to generate new revenue streams such as supporting enterprises in their digital transformation efforts through network democratization and flexible monetization.
Transforming data into actionable insight
CSP’s have a wealth of data about their customers, network, operations, efficiency, costs and even profitability. The value in this data is huge and the power in connecting the value into actionable automation is transformative to the performance of the business top to bottom – if they can release the data from their isolated prison cells.
Success will be related to bringing data together across domains to make better faster decisions.
Achieve business agility via 5G and cloud-native architecture
CSPs need network infrastructure that closely matches their needs, operations environment, and business model. They also need the latest technology. And if they proceed with a minor new service or a major business transformation, they need their infrastructure to be able to adapt to whatever change is necessary.
Success will be related to maturation to open infrastructure such as cloud-native enables a CSP’s competitiveness. It cuts across everything, not just the network. It enables agility, scale and openness, which CSPs need in 5G’s dynamic marketplace.
Network flexibility in every dimension
Closed loop automation connects the network, operations and business layers, handling massive amounts of data, and via the use of cognitive technologies, deriving insights automating actions and continuously learning for better faster decisions.
Intrinsic and monetizable network security
Today, connectivity is a human necessity, like air or water. This creates an opportunity for CSPs to improve their customer experiences by ensuring security and privacy from the device to the network, across the entirety of every service. It also offers the potential to drive business growth by offering new innovative security services.
Nokia is helping customers harness disruption
We help customers harness disruption by creating secure, engaging and human-like digital interactions and outcomes.
Our cutting-edge technology harnesses the latest advances in Cloud Engineering, Artificial Intelligences, and Machine Learning technologies from Bell-labs to rebalance equation for efficiency + cost + quality.
And last, our talented professional’s in-depth knowledge and expertise in networks, customer experience and cloud-technologies provide the knowledge, tools and best practices to maximize business results.
To learn more about our solutions and offering check out our website.
