Dec 12, 2017

Telephone companies (Telcos) are amongst the mature technological organisation, they looking to change of their image from traditionally fixed-line infrastructure providers to the core offering of their businesses to technology-based digital innovations that retailers would eventually turn to when looking for innovative approaches to customer experience, operational efficiency, and analytics-driven solutions.

The market size and growth spending of IoT device is in increasing trend valued at $1.1 billion by 2020. Strong growth predicted during the forecast period for IoT compared to the other Telco clients service, the many retailers are already telcos clients for some services, they also tend to work with major system integrators such as Accenture, Wipro, and Capgemini along with leading technology vendors including Oracle, Cisco, and IBM. These companies usually win business through a consultancy-based approach that provides some flexibility for the choice of technology within their wide partner and alliance network that includes various hardware and software players, including telcos for some services.

Telcos look to expand their role in these alliances and partnerships in order to become credible leaders and influencers, but they will still rely on the other partners’ capabilities since they are unlikely to build out in-house expertise for all niche areas.

Some telcos such as BT, Telefonica, and Telstra are already actively showcasing their retail capabilities that include IoT and various mobile, analytics and security solutions. They have generated a lot of interest from major retailers, especially since they published high-profile usage cases that are important for gaining credibility. While some retailers are open to extending their engagements with their existing telco, others are rather skeptical and question the telco’s independence and expertise when it comes to recommending technology solutions. While a few major telcos are on the right path to leadership and have established truly innovative retail divisions that help them to shake off their rusty telco image, others are still stuck at the network stage and try to upsell other solutions while remaining primarily a fixed line and broadband vendor.