Telco operators are facing declining profitability from a combination of stagnant or negative revenue growth resulting from competition and increasing CAPEX/OPEX caused by increasing user traffic. While operators have always run efficiency programs, traditional methods are no longer sufficient to meet current financial constraints and future market evolution. This Viewpoint explains how successfully managing costs requires a new, more granular, holistic approach.

Providing voice services is among the core functions of telcos. It may seem counterintuitive but outsourcing international voice services has the potential to create value and enhance service quality. In this Viewpoint, we summarize the options available for stand-alone telcos and small telco groups to manage the decline in international voice business and illuminate benefits they can gain from outsourcing international voice. We also highlight the outsourcing process and strategies to mitigate common challenges.

Improving productivity is a critical element of the journey telcos must take to become ambidextrous — and improving productivity is about going way beyond cost-cutting. In this Viewpoint, we discuss a transformative approach that we call the “Productivity RACE” (Radical, Accelerated, Continuous, and Effective). This framework sets out to improve and sustain business productivity, while addressing commonly observed challenges and barriers to successful execution of productivity measures.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a catalyst for digital economy development. With competition increasing as countries announce various FDI-attractive policies, policy makers must think strategically, not tactically. Nations should actively direct investments into targeted digital services with a focused approach. Investment policies, incentives, and the investor pitch must resonate with the country’s unique strengths – human capital, business ecosystem, or technological capabilities.

The international carrier industry has not brought much satisfaction over the past years. Traditional international carrier products are suffering low growth or are in structural decline, while service and asset innovators emerging in the adjacencies are making a mark in value creation. Telecom groups could have captured those trends through their international wholesale departments or subsidiaries, but their potential as trend hunters has been hindered by fragmentation or missing purpose.

Communications platform as a service (CPaaS) allows businesses to develop and manage communications features without needing to develop and maintain the infrastructure on the back end of the service. CPaaS makes it easier than ever for companies to create differentiating customer communication experiences while promising to reduce costs and speed up innovation.

Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are the backbone of the economy, accounting for well over 40 percent of GDP in most countries. While MSMEs have always needed government support, COVID-19 has dealt them a devastating blow from which many may not recover. Various governments have announced economic relief packages, but these do not always address the real challenges MSMEs face to reopen and grow their business in the post COVID-19 world, where they may need to operate in different ways and with disrupted supply chains and customer relationships.

With the onset of new technologies such as 5G, NFV and IoT, telecom executives are increasingly realizing that transformation of technology organization is imminent. The CTO office is at the center of this and needs to rethink its strategic roadmap and operating model. In this paper, we assess how a gradual transformation from traditional IT/network units to a more functional organization will address several of the legacy constraints in adopting new technologies.