The future of telecommunications companies depends on assertive strategies considering a scenario of new technologies, regulatory uncertainty and risk of recession. These are new challenges to traditional business models, with the intensification of consumer expectations and an unprecedented growth in hyper-competitiveness. The sector is also being impacted by the need to contemplate the ESG agenda and increasing regulatory pressure, a scenario that will directly impact the future of these companies. These are some of the conclusions of the publication “Future of Telco”, conducted by KPMG with more than 300 leading executives in telecommunications organizations in different countries.
The content also highlighted that, in this challenging scenario, there is no lack of opportunities for growth. To survive and grow in this new reality, telecommunications companies must prioritize 4 main strategies:
1- Network duplication: it is essential that telecommunications companies expand investments and approaches in connectivity and network infrastructure. The focus should be on providing connectivity at scale, speed and high availability.
2- Focus on front end digital: It is a strategic imperative for them to focus on sales and front end marketing, leaving connectivity and most services to others players. success in front end digital can require a significant ecosystem of partnerships and alliances, more focus on product innovation and customer experience.
3- Improvement of managed services: this path is very promising, which basically consists of moving up the value chain by offering a complete set of solutions to customers. The possibility of adding value is vast. At the business to business telecom companies already offer solutions such as security and network service management (NaaS). To remain relevant, they need to create services, develop increasingly better ecosystems and bet on strategies based on insights.
4- Do the jump telco-to-techco: the pun means something like “to evolve from telecommunication to technological telecommunication”. Many telcos are trying to reinvent themselves as tech companies. However, this is not simple and, in order to achieve this goal, in addition to a lot of strategic planning, they need to invest more in partnerships.
“In addition to the four strategies mentioned above and transversally, given the global expansion of 5G networks, connectivity through APIS (Application Programming Interfaces) will provide great opportunities for the development of new business models and ways of monetizing the network based on of data usage. Personalizing the consumer journey and connecting brands will improve the customer experience in real time and in a truly contextualized way using technologies such as edge computing”, says Márcio Kanamaru, partner-leader of Technology, Media and Telecommunications at KPMG in Brazil and South America.
