Telcos Need to Reinvent their Processes for the Digital Age - Ajit Chitkara, Airtel Business

By Ajay Chitkara, Director & CEO – Airtel Business

The telecom industry has been a constant pillar of support in India’s growth story. The onset of COVID-19 set the world on course to a paradigm change resulting in telcos emerging as key enablers of the global remote work model.

As the world switched to radically new ways of functioning, certain trends indicating what the future holds appeared soon and have been shaping the business landscape. 5G is set to create a much bigger and broader landscape of business opportunities. Realizing the radical opportunities being created in the B2B space and 5G rollout calls for a strong vision. Monetizing the investments necessary to make that world, and especially 5G, a reality will largely come from scaling new business models and creating new opportunities in the B2B sphere.

Another key trend going forward will be the adoption of cloud based communication solutions by enterprises as they embrace digital platforms to deliver omni-channel experiences to customers.

With the Indian economy going digital, demand for services like content and social media, ecommerce, elearning, and more is going through the roof. Secure data centres will be the heart of managing this massive surge. And not just large data centres but also Edge data centres that will take applications and experiences closer to customers in small towns and villages. In the coming decade, the one-two punch of 5G’s faster speed and superior performance and the decentralized processing power of edge could produce a steady stream of business and consumer innovations.

Remote working and hybrid workplace models have transformed the way businesses operate and then there is automation. This has made online security one of the biggest requirements of businesses and is getting more and more attention from top managements. Secure networks and applications that ensure customer privacy and zero downtime will differentiate brands and services.

The COVID-19 pandemic has tested the resilience of companies that majorly depend on the physical presence of employees. However, the others who have smartly shifted to intelligent factories and connected IoT devices are well placed to sustain longer. Harnessing the internet of things (IoT), 2021 has laid the foundation of a future where telcos will depend on devices to interact and connect people, data and processes using the power of technologies like 5G.

Avenues of Opportunities

Seeing the glass as half-filled rather than half empty is the prerequisite to emerge not just as a survivor but a saviour during crises. The post-pandemic global village that we live in has gone through its SWOT analysis in the last year and a half, laying bare scopes of opportunities that are waiting to be tapped by enterprises that heed the writing on the wall. For telcos, emerging opportunities lie in software-defined network (SDN), moving beyond the pipe, and meeting the needs of the growing the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME) sector.

Virtualization and abstraction of the physical hardware layer promise to change the basis of future service differentiation by creating networks that will be self-aware, self-optimizing, self-healing and self-secure. The increased digitization also presents important opportunities to extend revenue streams beyond connectivity – through IoT, cloud, cybersecurity, edge computing, machine to machine (M2M), AR/VR and more – reimagining models of digital communication.

MSMEs are a big opportunity that will play out during the current decade as these small businesses embrace digital technologies to become more efficient.

Hurdles Along the Way

No change has ever come without its own set of formidable challenges. However, things that are hurdlesin a path, if put in the right place, can serve as stepping stones. To turn the tables over in this manner, in-depth understanding of the existing and potential challenges is crucial. That said, the telecom industry needs to primarily focus on striking a balance between the legacy and new business streams, making a portfolio mix based on customer segments, and rising customer expectations

Conquering the Hurdles

Where there’s will there’s a way. Telcos have proven their mettle by standing tall in the face of a crisis that does not have precedence in recent history. They have not only managed to surf the tides of change well but also enabled organisations across sectors to keep their lights on. The challenges stated above are, by any scale, not insurmountable.

Telcos must tap into every scope of enriching their portfolio with IT products and services, either organically or through acquisitions or partnerships. This will help them transition from being telecom providers to integrated ICT companies. They also need to create clean and centralized customer personas by integrating data sets collected from all touchpoints and apply real-time analytics to develop exhaustive understanding of customers and customer segments, thereby getting a 360-degree view of customers.

In terms of operations, telcos need to reinvent their processes for the digital age to substantially improve both customer and employee experience while reducing operating costs. To streamline the E2E digital operations, telcos need to have the right technology and data foundations in place.

Being Future-Ready

The remote work model is now a permanent phenomenon as many large, medium-sized and small enterprises have confirmed a hybrid approach. Therefore, the one-dimensional customer relationship approach is no longer going to be effective. Customer relationship in the new normal is about delivering 360-degree, omnichannel experience. It involves changing systems, processes, data policies, skills and culture throughout the organisation. In this regard, making customers self-reliant by providing self-service solutions will go a long way in earning accolades from them. The platforms supporting customers should support the development of both internal services and third-partyservices. This will facilitate the development of more comprehensive and relevant solutions, which, for telcos, is the key to being future-ready.