Predictions 2019 for Telecoms

Communications service providers (CSP's) will have to step up their game in 2019, because their main offering of managed connectivity is increasingly becoming a commodity - and no longer a differentiator.

The same holds true for the provision of network quality and coverage. Therefore CSP’s are looking for change now. They will move up in the value chain and help their customers to manage and store their own content - and do something meaningful with it. This will require new business models - with new communications and partner channels - helping them to gain new service revenues and compete with OTT players.

Here are my three predictions of what the telecommunications industry will see rushing towards them in 2019:

1.    IoTaaS

CSP’s will all soon provide IoT as a service (IoTaaS) platforms that can be tailored for specific customer segment or industry needs.

For example:

• Asset tracking in transportation
• Industrial machine monitoring in manufacturing
• New public services as part of a smart city.

Such a platform makes it possible to - in just days - monitor and control thousands of devices remotely and without any difficult installations.

2.     Open Platforms

CSP’s will evolve from a closed IT architecture, where they only deliver their own services to their own customers via their own networks, towards open platform architecture in a wider ecosystem, accessed through APIs. With that open platform business architecture, CSP’s will be able to welcome partners and to aggregate and commercialize their offerings – in turn boosting their own revenues.

With this evolution, CSP’s will rely heavily on API management and hybrid integration, to manage and interact with complex ecosystems.

3.    Battling for CX

While focusing on their above digital transformations, the battlefield around customer experience will only intensify. Enhancing the digital customer experience is paramount for customer satisfaction and a reduced customer churn. I predict there will be an increased need of capabilities such as customer journey analytics, M2M and AI, preferably all in a rich - but tightly integrated - platform.

Watch my video here to learn more about my 2019 predictions. And feel free to learn here what “good” really means in the telco industry.