By embracing AI, agile, and bold new approaches, telecommunications companies can reinvent the customer experience and reinvigorate their business—while keeping costs in check.
For many telcos, the transformation in the world around them is happening faster than the transformation within. Tower companies—not telcos—are leading the way in shareholder returns. Digital giants—agile and global— are launching innovative services quickly and widely. New technologies, like software-defined networking and virtualization, are adding more vendors, more options, and more uncertainty to decisions on infrastructure investment. As the telecommunications industry undergoes major shifts, telcos must shift, too.
How best to do that? And how to do that in an environment where mobile traffic is burgeoning, revenue growth is tepid, and customer expectations are rapidly changing? An environment where 5G and fiber are high-priority but high-cost investments? And pressure is mounting to foster digital inclusion—access for all to better networks—as well as sustainability?
The answer doesn’t lie in outdated business or operating models but in bolder ideas, strategies, and execution. This means applying transformative enablers such as artificial intelligence and agile ways of working, embracing end-to-end digitization, and taking new—even daring—approaches to network excellence.
BCG helps telcos transform their business—and the services and experiences they provide—by focusing on eight imperatives.
Data-Driven Customer Centricity. Using analytics and personalization, operators can tailor products, promotions, and bundles to the specific needs and behaviors of telco customers, creating segment-of-one experiences and securing revenue growth.
Next-Generation B2B. Small and midsize businesses increasingly need help upgrading their infrastructure and managing a complex new landscape of cloud offerings, software-defined networks, and connectivity options. We work with operators to identify growth opportunities—and integrate these new services effectively into their B2B offerings.
Beyond-the-Core Opportunities. By leveraging M&A and home-grown innovation, telcos can build a portfolio of non-core offerings—in areas like security and smart home—and compensate for losses in traditional business lines. We help telecommunications companies pursue the plays that best fit their markets and customers, and build on the strengths of their assets.
Network Excellence. 5G and fiber networks are complex and expensive, and the most promising monetization opportunities are still down the road. We help telcos identify use cases, embed automation intelligence to balance network traffic and heal failures, and leverage advanced analytics to deploy targeted, cost-effective rollouts.
Simplification and Digitization. Telcos worldwide are racing to digitize to address evolving customer needs, increasing competition and external threats. By digitizing products and services, customer journeys, and processes, telecommunications companies can unlock significant value.
New Capabilities and Ways of Working. Telecom transformation requires new skills, streamlined processes, and a culture of collaboration, autonomy, and flexibility. We help telcos adopt agile at scale, so they can respond faster to change. And we develop the talent, coaching, and upskilling strategies to future-proof the organization.
Balance Sheet Optimization. One savvy—and increasingly compelling—way to boost profitability is to unlock the value of infrastructure assets. Telcos need to explore models such as network, data center, and tower sharing, or to take advantage of debt restructuring and M&A.
Closing the Digital Divide. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of connectivity in daily life. But it has also revealed the great challenge—and extent—of the digital divide. Billions of people, in developing and developed nations alike, lack high-speed internet access. So, too, do many small and midsize enterprises. We work with telcos and policy makers to identify—and pursue—actions that can bring underserved populations into the digital age.
To help telecommunications companies achieve these goals, we combine deep knowledge of the telecommunications industry with expertise in cutting-edge technologies and methodologies.
Our telecommunications consultants have partnered with operators across the globe to bring new technologies, new experiences, and new possibilities to telco customers. Examples include:
Accelerating Digital at Telstra
Australia’s largest telecommunications company, Telstra, engaged BCG as a strategic partner to oversee all aspects of design and implementation of its digital transformation program, including radical product simplification, customer migration strategy, end-to-end process automation, new technology stack, and the deployment of accelerator squads to drive faster, higher-quality outcomes.
Getting Back on the Growth Track
After our client, a large Asian conglomerate, acquired a struggling telco, it partnered with BCG to transform its new division. The process began with a 100-day plan centered on five pillars: cut costs and focus on topline growth (through new sales, marketing, and portfolio strategies); redesign human resources (to better identity next-generation management candidates and retain critical talent); manage change; monitor progress; and—crucially—make performance visible, identifying the goals each business unit was responsible for meeting. Within six months, the telco was profitable—and better positioned for growth.
Managing Director & Senior Partner
Denver
Patrick Forth, a managing director and senior partner, explains how you can successfully transform your organization.
To capture 5G's full benefits, operators must key their capex investments to how customers will actually use the network.
Operators have struggled to break free from the familiar constraints of regulation, legacy, and often-unfavorable competitive dynamics. Rather than bleed outdated business models dry, the future demands that they be bolder in strategy and execution.
Telcos can capitalize on broadening societal expectations to build new sources of revenue and business.
Making high-speed internet access available to those who lack it—in both developing and developed nations—is a critical task for the global community.
To survive, and thrive, in the new reality, telecom companies must put artificial intelligence at the heart of their digital transformations.
