In the rapidly evolving telecommunications landscape, Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are under constant pressure to innovate, scale, and remain competitive. Traditional telecommunications business models often fall short of addressing the dynamic needs of the market, such as a higher demand for new technology. This has prompted a paradigm shift towards platform-based business models. With a digital business platform model, CSPs can evolve from selling simple services and instead focus on providing outcome-based solutions, becoming trusted partners and ensuring customer satisfaction and growth.
What is the telco-to-techco transformation? If a CSP wants to sell more than just connectivity to grow revenue, they should work with an ecosystem of partners to get closer to customers and drive a more trusted relationship with them, providing full solutions to their problems, not just one part. By transforming from a straight telco model (selling and reselling products) to a partner-centric digital business platform model, CSPs can unlock new avenues for growth, enhance operational efficiency, and drive sustained innovation. Let’s look into the benefits of transforming to a digital business platform model, looking at key considerations for CSPs, and strategies to maximize ecosystem collaboration.
Making the telco-to-techco transformation into a platform business fosters open innovation, allowing CSPs to leverage a global network of partners and give themselves a competitive advantage. This collaborative approach accelerates the co-creation of new solutions, enhances service offerings, and facilitates entry into new markets.
CSPs can stay at the edge of innovation and meet the growing needs of customers who want to leverage new technology such as 5G, Edge, IoT and AI. Our digital business platform, which helps CSPs orchestrate and monetize a diverse array of services and products, can serve as the foundation for this kind of digital transformation. A SaaS-based AI-powered platform, it is ideal for businesses looking to rapidly increase revenue by leveraging cutting-edge technologies. The platform facilitates the co-creation and co-selling with partner ecosystems to better address customer digital demands. The platform enables the monetization and management of partner relationships within an ecosystem, encompassing channel partners, solution partners, marketplaces, and a B2B2X model.
Putting the customer or a specific vertical problem at the center of the ecosystem is crucial for success. This approach ensures that all efforts within the ecosystem are aligned towards solving real-world challenges and delivering value to customers. By focusing on customer-centric solutions, CSPs can enhance their competitive edge and build stronger, more meaningful relationships with their clients.
Let’s look at a real-world case study. Through the utilization of Beyond Now’s Infonova Digital Business Platform, Telia’s Division X exemplifies the transformative potential of platform business models. The customer needed to generate new avenues for revenue growth. The platform empowered Division X to monetize and orchestrate its offerings across local markets and partner ecosystems. This capability provided the agility and speed needed to respond to dynamic business needs, experiment with new business models, rapidly develop and monetize new IoT offerings and grow. The platform also enabled Telia to manage offerings centrally while localizing solutions for different markets, addressing local partners, languages, currencies, and taxes.
Businesses that adopt the digital business platform model thrive on network effects, where the value of the platform increases with the number of participants. For CSPs, this translates to enhanced efficiency and growth as more partners and customers join the ecosystem. Each additional participant contributes to a richer, more diverse marketplace, fostering continuous innovation and expanding the reach of the platform. CSPs can harness these network effects to enhance their competitive edge, expand their market reach, and deliver superior value to their customers and partners.
Collaboration is at the heart of a successful platform business. CSPs should engage with the entire end-to-end (E2E) ecosystem, including solutions partners, go-to-market channel partners, resellers and CSPs, to co-create solutions and expand into new markets and industries. By collaborating with channel partners, technology providers, and vertical experts, CSPs can extend their service offerings, reach new customer segments, and drive growth in new markets.
To get started with the telco-to-techco transformation, CSPs should take stock of their current situation and consider what they have. CSPs possess a wealth of assets, including network infrastructure, customer data, and technological expertise. To develop a platform for innovation and revenue growth, it's essential to identify these assets and determine how to best utilize and expose them. Leveraging these assets can drive the creation of new services and solutions, enhance customer experiences, and open up new revenue streams.
Transforming into a platform business enables CSPs to achieve significant economies of scale by streamlining operations and eliminating internal and geographical silos. This optimization leads to improved efficiency, reduced SG&A costs, and enhanced operational performance, providing a solid foundation for sustained growth and profitability.
To gauge the success of their platform business transformation, CSPs should focus on key performance indicators such as year-over-year revenue growth, the number of partners onboarded, operational cost reductions, and speed to market for new offerings. For instance, achieving 20% year-over-year revenue growth, onboarding unlimited partners on a single platform, reducing operational expenses by 50%, and launching new offerings in days are indicative of a successful platform strategy.
Adopting a digital business platform model allows CSPs to achieve economies of scale and improve efficiency across geographies and locations. A unified platform can streamline operations, reduce redundancies, and optimize resource utilization, leading to significant cost savings and improved operational performance.
Advanced automation is a key enabler of a successful platform business. By leveraging tools such as Beyond Now’s Wave AI Suite, CSPs can increase automation and precision across their operations, driving efficiency and cost savings. This optimization enables CSPs to focus on strategic initiatives and deliver superior value to their customers and partners.
An open IT platform is also essential for streamlining and monetizing a multi-partner environment. CSPs need a flexible and scalable platform that can integrate with various systems and support diverse business models. This capability is crucial for orchestrating a wide range of services and ensuring seamless collaboration among partners.
Our digital business platform, with fast and frictionless creation, integration, and self-onboarding, enables CSPs to offer a DIY approach for partners and customers, empowering them to create, consume, and monetize services fast. This agility is crucial in a fast-paced market where speed to market can be a significant competitive advantage. By providing tools and resources for self-service and collaboration, CSPs can drive greater engagement and innovation within their ecosystems.
As industry solution orchestrators, CSPs can leverage a digital business platform approach to integrate and manage a wide range of industry-specific solutions. This role positions CSPs as central hubs within their ecosystems, coordinating efforts among various stakeholders to deliver comprehensive solutions that address specific industry challenges. A partner orchestration capability is pivotal for driving innovation and expanding service portfolios.
We encourage CSPs to launch and manage their own digital marketplace, which can orchestrate any end-to-end solution and bring in the ecosystem of partners. The IDC identified the digital marketplace as a crucial key differentiator, enabling the CSP to step into an ‘orchestrator of value’ role rather than thinking they have to deliver every single product or service themselves.
Our unique digital marketplace, enhanced by AI, is designed for organizations aiming to create and deploy solutions that facilitate their customers' digital transformation. It enables rapid development of solutions within a partner ecosystem, allowing for seamless onboarding and sales through digital channels. The digital marketplace makes it incredibly simple for customers to purchase and utilize diverse services to meet their needs, and automates orchestration and monetization for CSPs, across multiple partners.
With our digital marketplace, platform businesses are also well-positioned to support enterprise customers with comprehensive B2B2X solutions. Adopting B2B2X models allows CSPs to extend their value chain and deliver services to a broader audience. The simple orchestration capability provided by our digital marketplace and partner orchestration means that CSPs can collaborate with vertical experts and technology players, and develop tailored solutions that address specific industry needs and drive value across the entire ecosystem. This approach also enables CSPs to support their enterprise customers with comprehensive B2B2X solutions, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Transforming into a ‘techco’ or platform business is a strategic imperative for CSPs looking to thrive in today’s dynamic market. By adopting a digital business platform, leveraging the power of network effects, and fostering a collaborative ecosystem, CSPs can unlock new growth opportunities, enhance operational efficiency, and deliver exceptional value to their customers and partners.
CSPs can also unlock the value of their technology investments with the digital business platform model. By leveraging digital business platforms, CSPs can orchestrate and monetize a wide range of services, drive innovation, and achieve significant economies of scale. Beyond Now’s Digital Business Platform, provides the tools and capabilities needed to manage complex ecosystems and deliver value across the entire value chain.
To embark on this transformation journey, CSPs should:
By following these steps and leveraging the insights and tools provided in this guide, CSPs can successfully transform their business into a platform business, driving sustained growth, innovation, and competitive advantage in the ever-evolving telecommunications landscape.
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