Advancing telcos to the digital frontier

~ How telcos can digitalise their services to meet the consumer demands of today, and tomorrow ~

Retail giants Amazon, Aldi and Tesco are trialling checkout-free stores in the UK, where customers can conveniently grab their shopping and leave the store without visiting a cashier. It’s clear that consumers today expect intuitive digital services as standard — and supermarkets aren’t the only ones who should listen. Here Hamish White, CEO of telecommunications software provider Mobilise, shares insight into how telcos can effectively digitalise their services to succeed in a digitally transformed world.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalisation of our entire society, and digital strategies are no longer optional for companies who want to stay on top. The telecoms industry isn’t exempt from this. Revamping telecoms services is particularly critical, with a survey by Kantar finding that just 14 per cent of network provider customers were delighted with their last interaction ― the lowest satisfaction rate out of all industries evaluated.

However, while the importance of digital transformation is evident, the journey towards it is not always so clear. In fact, according to research by McKinsey, around 70 per cent of companies fail at their digitalisation goals.

Architecture and personalisation

A fundamental area telcos should concentrate on in their digital transformation is their architecture. Telcos should transition to a microservices architecture, where the telecoms network becomes a central component of a wider ecosystem of products and services. Such services are accessed through open application programming interfaces (APIs), which drives incremental revenue opportunities for the provider.

The microservices architecture offers greater enterprise agility, making it easier to adapt and develop new applications to meet changing consumer demands, as well as integrate third-party applications. This is opposed to a monolithic development approach, which is a single-tiered software application.

Telcos should also turn their attention to the rising demand for personalisation, where consumers are preferring services and products that are tailored specifically to them. In fact, a 2021 report by customer data platform provider Segment found that 45 per cent of consumers would take their business elsewhere if a brand didn’t offer a personalised experience.

However, it’s common in telecommunications for customer data to be trapped in silos, where data held by one group is not easily accessed by others within the same organisation. To overcome this, telcos must invest in customer data management platforms that use advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to better understand user behaviour.

eSIMs and inspiring innovation

A gamechanger in digital telco products is the eSIM, which allows the customer to activate a mobile data plan from their network provider without having to use a physical SIM card. Set to disrupt the market, the number of mobile operators worldwide supporting eSIMs skyrocketed from 15 in 2018, to 108 in 2020.

Despite the demand for consumer eSIMs growing, telcos have thus far been slow to adopt the technology. This could be due to a reluctance to adopt a new process, lengthy implementation timelines or the constraints of existing legacy technology. Regardless, the support for consumer eSIM is growing rapidly, as all major device brands now include eSIM as standard in all new device models.

Additionally, the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) has recently launched a regulatory initiative that requires all EU member states to devise strategies to use eSIM over-the-air (OTA) as a way to facilitate easier porting between operators. This initiative would mean all operators in European countries would be required to support eSIM for mobile number portability (MNP). As a result, it’s important that service providers offer eSIMs to their customers as soon as possible. That’s why Mobilise launched eSIM as a service, which enables service providers to quickly offer eSIM capabilities to customers.

As well as adopting a microservices architecture, unlocking the power of customer data and transitioning to eSIMs, a change in culture and overall business approach is crucial in a digital transformation journey. For instance, telcos should conduct product development from a user-centric design approach, with every decision revolving entirely around the customer and their experience. This approach has a greater guarantee of success than designing a product internally and then releasing it into the market in a sink or swim scenario.

The world is becoming more digital, and the telecommunications industry needs to follow suit to succeed in the market. To effectively digitalise, telcos must prioritise transformation projects and ensure consumer demands are at the heart of every product decision.