Telecom Industry ... Opportunities and Threats

1.0 Introduction

With the rise of technology companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, Oracle and Microsoft, telecommunication companies have witnessed a major transformation to their industry and the way they operate in the local and global markets

Per the article published by international Finance Corporation (Natasha Veligura, 2020) COVID-19 has impacted the telecommunication industry to decline by 1% globally in 2020.?

Despite the increasing demand on connectivity services, the decline in global economy increased the pressure to reduce the price and develop support packages to support the struggling COVID negative industries ?

2.0 Telecommunication Industry Shifts – Four Major Themes

Four major themes have influenced the telecom industry globally

1.????Customer Experience

2.????Competing with Over-The-Top (OTT) business

3.????Survival and Differentiation

4.????Preparing to Capture the Market Opportunity

Diagram 1. Telecommunication Industry Shifts – Four Major?????

Next, we are going to discuss each theme and layout the foundations for establishing a better market trend which will be a major input for CSPs to develop a plan to survive and grow

2.1????Customer Experience

Customer experience is one of the major themes that affected all the industries in general and telecommunication industry in specific

The increased social media usage has driven a huge shift to consumer behavior and the way telecom operators should provide the services to them

Below diagram describes the different trends that are contributing to shifting telecom operators service model ?

Diagram 2. Customer experience drivers

2.2????Competing with the OTT Business

Per Telestream website (Telestream, 2021) OTT (over-the-top) refers to providing customized content over the internet to consumers that fit their individual needs

The main carrier for OTT services is the telecom operator, below diagram describes how the OTT business is shifting the telecom industry

???????????????????????????????????Diagram 2. OTT business shifts to telecom industry

2.3????Survival and Differentiation

With the increased pressure on economies, costs optimization without impacting the services quality became a major contributor to the industry shift.?Below diagram describes the major factors under this theme

???????????????????????Diagram 3 – Survival and Differentiation Factors

1.4????Capture New Market Opportunities

Wherever there is a threat, there is an opportunity, telecom operators have several market opportunities that they can capture.?Below diagram describe those opportunities

Diagram 4 – Capture the new market opportunity

3.0 Disruptive Technologies Driving The Change

Telecom products are influenced by the major digital transformation shifts in the industry. ?Example of those are explained below

1.????5G Cellular Networks

With extreme low latency and super speed, it will open the door for new services like remote surgery, self-driving cars, drones, VR, remotely operated machinery and IoT of all kind services

2.????Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI allows business to automate process associated with human intelligence

and uncover unseen patterns in human, Operations and system activities

3.????Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT provide things with Sensing Control and Communication capabilities.?The related solutions use Machine Leaning to analyze the IoT data and connect with the right applications to act upon it

4.????SDN and NFV

Software defined network and network functions virtualization, this will create a more flexible network architecture so that the network can rapidly adapt evolving business needs and offering

5.????Cloud Services

Cloud Services that include SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services allow companies to understand customers insights and telco to monetize the data and offload business from IT infrastructure management?

6.????Blockchain

A new advancement that will revolutionize transaction speed and will eliminate the need to third party transaction processing

In conclusion, telecom operators have a golden opportunity to drive the market and take the driver seat rather than just becoming a dump pipe and watch a continuous shrink for their traditional services and revenue streams