Telecoms to step up IT investments next year

Global telecom service providers will spend on IT in 2015 to enable new mobile services, launch in new markets, lower cost and reduce churn and customer acquisition costs.

The Ovum report does not say the quantum of IT investment by telecom operators.

Growth drivers

# brighter economic outlook

# demand for high-quality content and services on smart devices

# urge to improve quality of customer experience

IT tends to watch in 2015

# Ovum said omni-channel engagements will influence telecom operators’ capital investment in CRM strategies for sales, marketing, and operations.

# Relevance and content of services, packages, and customer care will be a differentiator.

# Outsourcing engagements between telcos and IT service providers will intensify.

Peter Dykes, senior analyst for Telco IT and author of the report at Ovum, said: “Telecoms industry is witnessing a long-term shift in spend towards customer-oriented systems and processes to improve customer satisfaction.”

LTE reaches 200 million user base

The Ovum report says investment will be geared towards telecoms infrastructure (cloud platforms and BSS/OSS systems to support LTE implementations) and online channels to support the move towards digital lifestyles.

Ovum suggests that telecoms need to develop a long term roadmap to become a customer-adaptive enterprise. Telecoms need to embed customer perspective in every product and service in order to prosper. Global telecom operators need to adapt organizational structure and business processes to encompass customer needs.

Telecom network vendors, which need to play the role of collaborative partners, will be in demand for offering innovate solutions to address future problems.

“The switch to IP as the main bearer technology will have ramifications throughout the industry, and only those that are able to adapt will survive,” said Dykes.

Baburajan K
[email protected]