Telecom Digital Transformation – Journey from (CSP to DSP) Communication to Digital service provider
What is a digital transformation and why is digital transformation necessary for Telecommunication Industry?
A digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to create new or improved processes, products, or services, add/transform more offerings, improve time to market, expand customer services and experience, vary marketing strategy, reduce CAPEX and OPEX, tap more sources of revenues by exploiting existing and new customer base and infrastructure presence.
We can refer article Importance of Digital Business to get insight as why digital transformation is important.
Specific to telecom industry, dying CSP needs to find new ways and restructure existing revenue sources to survive and flourish. So rather than just being data pipeline providers, it is time to reap existing Data and Customers reach. It is time for Telco’s to transform and become part of change rather than just support for change. So to bring digital journey in Telecom industry, following could be significant steps to follow by different Telecom CSPs in various areas to transform for success.
How to Achieve Digital Transformation for Telecom CSP
We have categorized telecom ecosystem in six strategic areas and suggested as how telecom CSP can achieve digital transformation and bring change. This table is a summary of what CSP should follow to survive and flourish.
| Focus areas for Digital Transformation | Steps of transformation | Transformation Benefit |
| Network and Core Infrastructure | Transform legacy network to SDN (Software Defined Network) and NFV (Network Function Virtualization), IES (Infrastructure enablement system) Bring 5G network slicing and dicing, MIMO and other standard technologies IoT, M2M dedicated channels support Offer Cell site Ecosystem for various Edge provides and become part edge computing | SDN, NFV, IES will bring network on cloud and can save CAPEX and OPEX cost significantly Bringing 5G and IoT together help Telco industry to become part of change for all industries Network sharing, Private dedicated network building |
| Data Center as Service (Become more than cloud provider) | Transform existing data centers for own Apps to other businesses Bring IAAS, PAAS, SAAS in addition to MBaaS Collaborate with other Cloud vendor to extend their services to your Business customer base | Leverage existing infrastructure Improve products, service offerings Serve customer base across globe Can compete and collaborate offer with XAAS giants (like GCP, AWS, Azure etc.) to maximize revenue |
| BSS – OSS (IT Application transformation) | Systems / Application transformation Move away from Monolithic application architecture and bring to Agile, Micro services based architecture Transform Middleware to Pub Sub Architecture Bring API Gateway and offer API as service Use TM Forum Standard compliant products to reduce integration / transformation cost Bring Open Source Application to move away from license cost Bring GIT HUB, CI-CD pipeline and Kubernetes, like an open-source system for continues and automating deployment, auto scaling, and auto management of containerized application Use cloud based application , where ever possible Use RPA types application to perform recurrent jobs Use chat / voice Bots | Reduce application and Licensing cost by moving to open source, micro service based architecture Faster time to market for products, codes due to CI-CD, micro services Plug and Play types – TM forum compliant systems Easy of auto scaling and upgrades Significant CAPEX and OPEX reduction |
| OSS area specific transform | All the above seven points, plus below points Integrate Proactive AI based customer proactive care, messaging Integrate complain management with Social media accounts to track, report, solve, proactive / reactive care Integrate network links with customer subscriptions to identify network failure impacts and provide proactive care | All above points plus Customer satisfaction and proactive care Improve network availability time |
| Customer centric, Digital channels based BSS transformation | Do away from traditional Sales Channels and bring DEP, DXP platform to bring persona based, continues customer experience across customer experience Self / Supporting channels Bring Enterprise product catalogue to launch and offer customized products in few minutes (rather than months) Bring Convergent charging for real time rating and charging for all Offer bundled OTT products to increase product valuation Bring zero touch ordering fulfilment systems. | Consistence customer experience across channels Single journey possible across channels Offer – Time to market reduce to few minutes Offer customized offers and reduce churn Revenue leakage reduce due to real time charging Faster service delivery and customer satisfaction Bring telco and non telco product bundles to add values to offers Ultimate great CAPEX and OPEX reduction |
| Data storage and retrieval | Bring and store OLTP, OLPA data across Stores, Marts, In-memory stores, Use data science based AI/ML technologies to improve the ways that data supports business goals, customer insight views, trends, predication, churns | Bring real customer needs, trends and help for organization in decision making Applications and Offer improvements Churn reduction |
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, digital transformation is among the flagship initiatives that businesses necessary to carry out for the purpose of remaining relevant and competitive. By following the steps charted in this article, we will be well on our way to effectively executing a digital transformation strategy within telecom CSP organization. Think of focusing on the needs of our customers, employees, plus additional stakeholders when planning and executing digital transformation; if we can do so, we will be sure to set our CSP telecom business up for success.
Shritej Prabhutendolkar
Author has experience of more than 19 years in Telecom BSS, OSS, SDN and NFV (Telecom Software and Network domains) across globe. He has delivered around SIX plus green filed implementation and digital transformations. His projects were awarded by TM forum’s ‘digital innovation of year’. His work also demonstrated success in recent global events like FIFA, Asian Games, and Global Summits.
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