Why 2016 is the Year of the Perfect Digital Company

Posted: January 19th, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: News | Comments Off on Why 2016 is the Year of the Perfect Digital Company

In 2015, Comptel encouraged operators to embark on their own Operation Nexterday and re-imagine their sales, marketing and service playbooks in reaction to new digital opportunities. This year, we’re asking operators to take the next step and work on designing the perfect digital company.

What does such a company look like? Broadly speaking, it’s a business that is built not only to serve customers’ unique needs, but one that seeks input from those customers to inform its decisions. In other words, the prefect digital company is built for and with its customers.

Digitalisation makes this possible. Generation Cloud demands highly personalised and instantly available services from operators, and they want more say in how these products actually serve them. That means customers want to be able to set service terms and avoid hard-and-fast tiered packaging that, for a long time, has defined the telco industry and limited service disruption.

Customers are also increasingly surrounding themselves with a variety of apps and digital content that address their needs. This digital service ecosystem includes products from traditional telcos and non-industry players like Google and Amazon, and it’s always evolving as customers add new apps or drop services that no longer excite or intrigue them.

The devices on which these services exist also play a role. The emergence of connected devices, from smartwatches to smart cars, adds a new layer – and a new level of complexity – to the digital ecosystem.

Ultimately, operators must determine how they fit into all of this. Digitalisation introduces a bevy of new consumer and network technologies for operators to leverage, and it also allows telcos to think creatively about how they can serve their customers. In a bid to become the perfect digital company, operators need to open their minds to new ways of thinking and address key growth factors in various areas of their business.

In a predictions piece for The Fast Mode, “Telco in 2016: Build the Perfect Digital Company For, and With, Your Customers,” we outlined four focus areas operators will need to address if they hope to achieve the dream of becoming a perfect digital company.

Deliver Real-Time Decisions and Automated Customer Actions

The speed at which consumers evaluate and buy digital services is faster than ever, meaning operators need to keep pace. In 2016, operators must leverage the customer behavioural data they already have, plus customer action automation technology, to create better customer experiences. The Four Cs will define these experiences: by applying the right Context, the most appropriate Content can be delivered to the right Customer through the best possible Channels.

Accelerate Product Delivery to Enable a Digital Service Ecosystem

Speed is also a critical factor when it comes to product delivery, and in 2016 operators will need to learn how to configure, test and launch services faster so that customers can build their personal digital ecosystem at a pace that works for them. To achieve this pace, operators will need to eliminate friction in the service lifecycle process, invest in tools that recognize demand quickly and embrace creative monetisation models.

Understand the Purpose of Open Network Integration

Network functions virtualisation (NFV) already forces operators to re-imagine how the network is built to serve new market realities, but it’s about more than flashy new technology. This year, operators need to recognise that the true potential of a flexible, agile network infrastructure is its ability to deliver a frictionless, dynamic and elastic service delivery experience for customers. As always, technology is supposed to serve human interests.

Embrace Data to Enable Smarter Living

Finally, operators this year must consider how the Smart Living movement will affect the development of personal digital service ecosystems. Connected devices are introducing new use cases for technology that telco may have previously lost sight of: the benefits of real-time data in improving education, the environment, personal health or global security. Operators have an important role to play in the development of these services, because they can offer the immediate data insights that power a smarter world – if they are ready to step to the plate.

To date, operators have wondered how they could leverage the industry’s megatrends to benefit their own bottom line. In 2016, many will realise that the real goal should be on working for and with their customers to improve their daily lives. In taking this fresh outlook, operators will not only better serve consumers, but they’ll also unlock routes to new revenue-driving service opportunities that will shore up their relevance in the rapidly evolving digital world.


The Most Compelling Conversations on the Comptel Blog in 2015

Posted: January 7th, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Industry Insights | Tags: | Comments Off on The Most Compelling Conversations on the Comptel Blog in 2015

In 2015, Comptel challenged operators to embark on their own “Operation Nexterday” – a mission to redefine their sales, marketing, technology and service approach to better suit the demands of the tech-savvy digital natives that make up Generation Cloud. Our challenge manifested in several ways – we published a book explaining the challenge and outlining steps to achieve it, launched an event to introduce new ideas and insights, and encouraged new conversations with operators who were ready to take the jump into Nexterday.operation nexterday

The Comptel blog was also busy covering various aspects of the Nexterday mission. Here, we look back on the five most popular blogs we published in 2015.

Slush 2015 and Nexterday North: A One-Two Punch for Innovation

Our vision for Nexterday culminated in our first ever major anti-seminar. Nexterday North took place in the two days immediately preceding Slush – the largest startup conference in Europe – giving visitors to Helsinki a full week’s worth of fresh ideas, big announcements and new visions for the future of telco, digitalisation and business. Our most popular blog of the year got attendees excited for both events.

How a Push for NFV Standardisation Brought Comptel to ETSI

Network functions virtualisation (NFV) continued to be a hot topic in 2015, and many operators have discussed their desire to see better standardisation around the implementation of this emerging technology. In this blog, Comptel Director of Business Architecture Stephen Lacey explained how we lend our voice to the NFV standards discussion as a member of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

Mobile World Congress Recap: 3 Key Takeaways on the Future of Mobile Communications

Last year’s Mobile World Congress was an exciting one for Comptel – that’s where we launched Operation Nexterday, our guide to how operators can rewrite their sales, marketing and service playbooks for Nexterday. The event also offered a great look into the trends that are affecting the telco industry, and in this blog post I recapped the top three takeaways I drew from the show.

Comptel, STC Partner to Train Saudi Arabia’s Future IT Leaders

One of Comptel’s most exciting stories of the year involved our work with Saudi Arabian operator STC. As a long-time customer, STC reached out to Comptel for support launching a brand-new employee training initiative. Through the four-month program, we helped train the next generation of Saudi telecommunications professionals with courses in Riyadh, Helsinki and Kuala Lumpur. We’re proud to play a role in youth IT education – read more in this blog from Comptel Senior Vice President, MEA, Mika Korpinen.

Bye Bye, Big Data – Hello Intelligent Fast Data

Big Data is a big disappointment – at least, that’s how some IT executives view it after prior data investments and initiatives felt short of lofty promises. In this blog, Comptel CTO Mikko Jarva argued that the failures of Big Data are a reflection of poor execution, and that to truly make the most of their customer data for greater business opportunities and revenue, operators need to account for every new raw data source and turn that data into real-time contextual decisions and actions. In short, it’s a push toward Intelligent Fast Data.

Learn more about our challenge to operators to evolve their sales, marketing and service playbooks for a new generation of buyer. Download and read “Operation Nexterday.”