How CSPs can partner with their clients to enable better workplace experiences

Changes in knowledge work – and the new needs for the workforce that come with them – are one of the most exciting growth opportunities for Communication Service Providers (CSPs) right now.

In my last article, I talked about the need for CSPs to understand the mindsets of the new generation that is shaping expectations for workplace experience. Now, we are focusing on the companies that are already embarking on a significant transformation journey, radically rethinking physical and virtual workplaces.

Accenture has also published a study on how CHROs can work closely with the C-suite (e.g. CTO, CIO) to create virtually endless areas where network and greater use of data can impact workers and meet their emerging needs and productivity.?

Based on our comprehensive survey about workplace experiences conducted among more than 600 companies, we found 4 key areas that are experiencing the highest interest for investments:

Mobility and Access: With the increasing flexibility in work arrangements and the rising number of choices available to workers regarding when and where they perform their jobs, companies are recognizing the importance of providing easy and secure access to their applications and resources across various locations, networks, and devices.

Environment: Just as consumers enjoy personalized experiences in their homes, employees now expect a similar level of personalization within the workplace. Companies are leveraging data-powered and smart office solutions to intelligently design work environments to be highly customizable and sustainable, meeting the evolving preferences and needs of their workforce.

Ways of Working and Collaborating: Virtual meetings, online learning, Generative-AI co-workers, and talent digital marketplaces are gradually becoming the new normal in order to enhance innovation effectiveness, increase worker engagement and creativity, and ultimately accelerate business processes. These digital solutions are transforming how teams are designed, collaborate and work together, fostering a more agile and efficient work culture.

Worker Purpose and Human Experience: To align with the actual priorities of employees throughout different stages of their life, companies are introducing data-driven approaches to support and facilitate career development as well as monitor and enhance workers physical and mental health. By investing in these areas, companies aim to improve worker productivity, satisfaction, and retention.

CSPs have the chance to “power” connected workplace experiences with enhanced connectivity and serve as the orchestrators of data-powered applications.

But where does the journey begin?

Those CSPs that do it right will play a central role in this market by combining their core business of enhanced connectivity with new horizontal services offered together with third-party solutions.

Here are our recommendations and actions that CSPs must take in order to play a key role in powering future workplace platforms.

Best Practice 1: Enable work from everywhere

To facilitate true work-from-everywhere models, CSPs must give priority to establishing comprehensive, cloud-first network platforms that operate fully on software-defined functions.

This will be the foundation for delivering enhanced connectivity as-a-service, which will empower companies to boost scalability, mobility and the full visibility of people and devices across their enterprise networks, while still ensuring robust security.?

With such platforms, CSPs can grant access to hyper-personalized service level agreements (SLAs), enabling their customers to tailor their connectivity experiences to specific needs. For instance, customers will be able to integrate core connectivity services with horizontal edge and IT functionalities, such as cutting-edge security solutions and real-time data analytics.

Best Practice 2: Monetize workplace data

Also, CSPs can collect data around network infrastructure and service usage (e.g. geo location information, network performance, or work-life balance data, etc.) that is enriched with valuable insights on employee behaviors. This can be used to develop new horizontal services. These services, in turn, empower companies to hyper-personalize the experiences of their workforce and adapt to evolving needs and behaviors effectively.

To facilitate this, CSPs can establish a multi-sided open platform that enables seamless data exchange and real-time information sharing among third-party workplace solutions. By adding the power of AI technologies, this platform can foster collaboration and empower organizations to harness the full potential of their data to deliver enhanced workplace experiences.

Best Practice 3: Partner and Protect

To safeguard both their own platform and customers' workspaces, CSPs must fortify their offerings and data strategies with comprehensive end-to-end security capabilities. It is crucial to proactively address the evolving needs of future hybrid workplaces by preparing to meet stringent zero-trust requirements.

They must establish a solid foundation of data governance using cloud-based and AI-powered identity and device management systems.

CSPs can further enhance their security by partnering with providers that possess robust and automated security solutions, as well as deep expertise in security. By doing so, they can augment their managed security operations to encompass prevention, detection and response, and they can ensure a heightened level of protection for their B2B clients.

Best Practice 4: Create Digital Social Connection

CSPs can leverage their newly acquired capabilities to launch a future workplace platform and become an orchestrator for both physical and virtual workplaces.

This requires expanding their B2B portfolio by transitioning from a vendor/supplier mindset to becoming an orchestrator/open ecosystem. That will allow CSPs to extend their involvement in the value chain.

They must establish automated validation procedures that streamline the onboarding and integration of third-party solutions. Additionally, CSPs will need to define a robustly interoperable platform architecture facilitated by standardized APIs. The goal should be to enable seamless connections between network capabilities, ecosystem partners and enterprise customers so that they can create programs and processes that will foster ongoing, systematic and scalable collaboration.

A reinvention of strategy

Most CSPs are already in a strong position to succeed in workplace solutions. They already have trusted and close relationships with their B2B customers and often maintain strong regional or local presences in their markets.

Plus, most CSPs can start “stacking” cloud-native platforms, B2B services, and new partnership ecosystems on top of existing virtualized capabilities to create new services from fiber, 5G, Edge, or software-defined networks.

Together, the steps outlined here can represent a reinvention of strategy – for a reimagined workplace.

Done right, CSPs can set themselves up to orchestrate platforms that will help companies meet the needs of a new generation of knowledge workers.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below or feel free to reach out to me or my team directly. I look forward to connecting with you!

Stephan Schneider and co-writers Andrea Orlando, Thomas Petrig, MariaFrancesca Mecca and Hartmut Heinrich.

#digitalworkplace #businessopportunity #futureofwork #digitaltransformation

[ (1)This article cites Accenture research that is based on Accenture Chief Executives 2022 Survey: 690 Leaders have been surveyed in seven countries (Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland, United States, Australia, France, Japan) and 10 industries (Financial Services Media & Entertainment, Utilities, Retail, Travel & Transportation, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Life sciences, Government and Public services, Natural Resources), throughout September 2022. To learn more, message or email me.]

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