From Telco to Techco: Part-V – How CSPs Can Regain Control of Their Operations
Part 5: New Operating Models for Innovation Leadership
Communications service providers (CSPs) are at a pivotal moment. The industry is shifting from traditional, vertically integrated operations to flexible, open business models. This transformation requires that CSPs transform into “techcos” by becoming true innovation leaders. To succeed, they must reimagine their operating models, build dynamic partner ecosystems and embrace automation and platform thinking.
The Case for Flexible Operations
Legacy CSP operations are often siloed, with rigid front-office and back-office structures that stifle agility and impede innovation. In today’s market, this approach is no longer sustainable. Customers expect seamless, personalized experiences.
Companies in customer-focused industries have raised customer expectations with agile, customer-centric services. They embed customer needs and preferences into every aspect of their business, from product development to post-sale support, developing a proactive understanding of customer needs, seamless and convenient experiences, hyper-personalization, empowered employees and strong feedback loops.
To be successful and innovative leaders, techcos must:
- Build a diverse partner ecosystem to co-innovate by pooling resources and expertise.
- Modernize operations and business support systems (OSS and BSS) to enable real-time, data-driven decision-making and service delivery.
- Integrate operations across the organization for fully autonomous operations by breaking down internal silos.
- Create internal incentives to innovate.
Building Differentiated Products with Ecosystem Partners
Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. Industry leaders build differentiated products by collaborating with a diverse ecosystem of partners, ranging from technology vendors and startups to content and cloud providers.
This ecosystem approach offers several advantages:
- Accelerated innovation: By pooling resources and expertise, techcos can bring new products and services to market faster.
- Expanded offerings: Partnerships enable techcos to deliver comprehensive solutions, such as integrated IoT, 5G and cloud-based services.
- Cost-effective growth: Ecosystems drive efficiency and help techcos remain competitive in a fast-changing landscape.
Co-Innovation With Zero-Touch Partnering
Co-innovation with partners is a hallmark of the new techco operating model. Zero-touch partnering, where partners and their services can be seamlessly onboarded and integrated without complex IT projects, is becoming a reality thanks to open APIs and new platform architectures.
This approach enables:
- Rapid onboarding of new partners and services.
- Dynamic bundling and delivery of innovative offerings.
- Operational efficiency and scalability.
Adopting user-centric, data-driven open platforms allows techcos to onboard ecosystem partners and services quickly and efficiently. These platforms support:
- Real-time analytics and personalization.
- Open APIs for seamless integration.
- Flexible service creation and delivery.
The Imperative for OSS/BSS Modernization
Modernizing OSS and BSS is essential for agility and innovation. Today’s OSS/BSS platforms must be cloud-native, open and highly integrated, supporting everything from real-time service orchestration to hyper-personalized customer experiences.
Benefits of modernization include:
- Lower operational costs and reduced technical debt.
- Faster time-to-market for new services.
- Simplified integration of partners and third-party services, enabling plug-and-play innovation.
Achieving Fully Autonomous Operations
To rapidly innovate, techcos are breaking down internal silos integrating operations across the organization, reducing the complexity of modern networks and services. They are moving away from hardwired, vertical integration in favor of platform-based, open architectures. By doing so, they are embracing rigorous automation, moving from islands of automation to fully autonomous operations. Autonomous networks leverage AI and closed-loop systems to:
- Optimize resource allocation and service assurance in real time.
- Reduce operational costs and human intervention.
- Deliver superior customer experiences with minimal errors and downtime.
Creating Internal Incentives to Innovate
Fostering a company-wide cultural shift toward innovation is crucial for long team leadership.
Techcos must invest in change management, upskilling and cultural transformation to succeed. Leading techcos will foster a spirit of innovation and adopt new ways of working by:
- Encouraging experimentation and rewarding creative problem-solving.
- Upskilling teams to work with new technologies and agile methodologies.
- Breaking down barriers to internal collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Transitioning to new operating models requires a structured approach to managing people, processes and technology. This includes clear communication, training and leadership commitment to drive adoption and minimize disruption.
The Road Ahead: Beyond Zero-Touch
Within the next five years, techcos will innovate even further, moving beyond zero-touch operations to new modes of service creation, deployment and management. Principles like continuous integration, continuous testing and continuous delivery (CI/CT/CD) and DevSecOps will become standard across the techco enterprise, enabling rapid, secure and reliable innovation.
Closed-loop operating models will enable techcos to monetize new operational KPIs, directly linking network performance to customer experience and business outcomes.
CSPs that embrace flexible, open operating models, powered by modern OSS/BSS, dynamic partner ecosystems, automation and a culture of innovation, will be the ones to lead the next wave of industry transformation. The time to act is now.