Business agility as a differentiator for service providers
In the era of disruptive business models and evolving technologies, service providers need to be able to adapt to the newer models and be relevant in the new value chain.
Business agility is ability of an organization to respond to change. With the advent of internet, mobility, and social networking the consumer expectations have increased and his power to contribute and influence the business models has increased manifold.
Telecom service providers have traditionally lagged behind other industries like retail in understanding and engaging with the consumers directly. The time to market for newer products has been very high with prohibitive costs sometimes. The market scenario requires service providers to develop a business model with partners and resellers quickly.
So how do the service providers become more agile ??
Essentially there are main areas to focus
1. Power of collaboration : Direct engagement with the consumers
2. Faster to market with new products, retire products faster, learn from failure
3. Ability to react to market changes quickly
There is a lot of learning to be acquired from other industries. Dell invites its customers to present ideas and have launched products as a result. Many of the manufacturing companies get ideas from the customers in designing new cars. The ability of the retail organizations to get the products to market and retire them faster is far ahead of the Telco's. Though the telecom products are slightly different, the core concepts can still be applied.
Power of collaboration : Direct engagement with the consumers
There is a need to interact with consumers directly to understand their behaviour, requirements and expectations. The engagement with the consumers should also be extended to ideation, development and testing of the products. Next step would be to utilize the power of social networking tools to develop new revenue lines.
Faster to market with new products, retire products faster, learn from failure
Service providers need to shorten their time to market (typically 12-18 months ) to 3-6 months. There is also a need to go to market with smaller scope of the product and not spend loads of effort in developing products which may or may not be very successfull. The concepts of agile IT processes can significantly reduce the time to market (limited scope) and improve ability to change scope.
Ability to react to market changes quickly
The business processes of the organization and the system estate needs to be very lean, nimble and flexible. This will also require flexible operating models so that it is easy to integrate with newer operators or entities faster.
Business agility will play an increasing role for the service providers to stay in the game and differentiate themselves
