Telcos & Their Managed Services Transformation

Telcos have unique strengths and challenges when it comes to delivering managed services. With managed services projected to grow very fast over the next few years, many telcos are exploring ways on how to leverage on their strengths and footprint to effectively transform their portfolios beyond just managed connectivity services. And, naturally, many technology players want to leverage on the same to expand their routes to market for their own products and services. Needless to say, it has been a hot pursuit and there’s a higher chance its not going to cool down any time soon.

So what can telcos and technology companies expect? It would be good to take a look at some strengths and challenges that telcos may face in delivering managed services.

Strengths:

1. Network expertise: Telcos have extensive experience and expertise in managing large-scale networks, which can be beneficial when delivering managed services.
2. Infrastructure: Telcos have significant infrastructure in place, including data centers, network infrastructure, and support staff, which can be leveraged to provide managed services.
3. Service level agreements: Telcos are accustomed to providing service level agreements (SLAs) to their customers, which can be extended to managed services customers to provide guarantees around uptime and performance.
4. Scalability: Telcos have the ability to scale their services quickly and efficiently to meet the needs of their managed services customers.
5. Security: Telcos have experience and expertise in managing and securing their own networks, which can be applied to managing the networks and systems of managed services customers.

Challenges:

1. Competing priorities: Telcos may have competing priorities between their core telecommunications services and managed services, which can lead to challenges in delivering high-quality managed services.
2. Complex offerings: Managed services offerings can be complex and require specialized expertise, which may not be readily available within a telco organization.
3. Changing technology landscape: The technology landscape is constantly evolving, which can make it challenging for telcos to keep up with the latest trends and technologies in the managed services space.
4. Customer expectations: Customers may have high expectations around the quality of service and support they receive from a telco, which can be challenging to meet consistently across a wide range of managed services offerings.
5. Cost: Managed services can be expensive to provide, and telcos may struggle to balance the cost of providing these services with the revenue generated from them.

With consideration of their strengths and the challenges they have to manage, here are some critical steps telcos need to take in delivering managed services:

1. Understand customers’ needs: Telcos need to understand their customers’ business objectives, pain points, and IT and telecommunications requirements. This can be achieved through a consultation process, which helps telcos design and deliver customized managed services that meet customers’ needs.
2. Define service level agreements (SLAs): Telcos should define SLAs that clearly define the scope of services, response times, and expected performance levels. SLAs should be communicated to customers upfront to manage their expectations and ensure accountability.
3. Develop service offerings: Telcos need to develop a range of managed service offerings (NOT just bundles – a very pre-2010 model) that provide end-to-end management of customers’ IT and telecommunications infrastructure, across different customers needs. These services can include network management, security management, cloud services, and IT infrastructure management.
4. Build a robust infrastructure: Telcos need to build a robust infrastructure to support their managed services offerings. This includes investing in the latest technology, tools, and processes to ensure seamless delivery of services.
5. Hire and train skilled professionals: Telcos need to hire and train skilled professionals who can manage and deliver their managed services offerings. This includes pre-sales engineers, network engineers, security analysts, cloud architects, and project managers.
6. Implement monitoring and reporting tools: Telcos need to implement monitoring and reporting tools that provide real-time visibility into the performance of their managed services. This enables them to proactively identify and resolve issues before they impact customers’ business operations.
7. Ensure compliance: Telcos need to ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS. This helps them protect their customers’ data and build trust in their managed services offerings. They also need to do the same with policies and procedures put in place to enhance their managed services practices.
8. Provide excellent customer support: Telcos need to provide excellent customer support to their managed services customers. This includes a dedicated support team that is available 24/7 to address customer issues and queries.

It is also critical that telcos thread carefully when selecting technology companies to work with in developing and delivering managed services. Some factors to consider include:

1. Technical expertise: The technology company should have a proven track record of technical expertise in the specific areas that the telco requires. The technology company should have experience in delivering similar managed services to other telcos and have a deep understanding of the telco’s technology stack.
2. Industry knowledge: The technology company should have a good understanding of the telco’s industry and the challenges it faces. This understanding will enable the technology company to design and deliver solutions that are tailored to the telco’s specific needs.
3. Scalability: The technology company should be able to deliver solutions that can scale with the telco’s business requirements. This includes having the ability to rapidly scale up or down as demand changes.
4. Flexibility: The technology company should be able to provide a flexible service that can adapt to the telco’s changing needs. The technology company should be willing to work collaboratively (from product development all the way to service assurance) with the telco and adapt to its unique requirements.
5. Reliability: The technology company should have a proven track record of delivering reliable services. This includes having robust disaster recovery plans and redundancy measures in place to ensure that services remain available in the event of an outage.
6. Security: The technology company should have strong security measures in place to protect the telco’s data and network infrastructure. This includes having a comprehensive security policy, regular security audits, and up-to-date security protocols.
7. Cost-effectiveness: The technology company should provide cost-effective solutions that are aligned with the telco’s budget and business model. This includes providing transparent pricing and a clear understanding of the total cost of ownership of the solution.

There is no denying that telcos will want to go farther with managed services as their core services continue to be further commoditized. To successfully deliver high-quality managed services to their customers in ways that improve their operational efficiency, reduce costs, and achieve their business objectives, not only should they take the critical steps do so, but also carefully evaluate potential technology partners that stack up well against these selection factors.