Telco 2030: New purpose, strategy and business models for the Coordination Age

How telecoms industry CEOs can reignite growth, align investors, employees, customers and governments, and reinvigorate the industry for the next decade.

New age, new needs, new approaches

As the calendar turns to the second decade of the 21^st century we outline a new purpose, strategy and business models for the telecoms industry. We first described ‘The Coordination Age’, our vision of the market context, in our report The Coordination Age: A third age of telecoms in 2018.

The Coordination Age arises from the convergence of:

• Global and near universal demands from businesses, governments and consumers for greater resource efficiency, availability and conservation, and
• Technological advances that will allow near their real-time management.

Figure 1: Needs for efficient use of resources are driving economic and digital transformation

Source: STL Partners

A new purpose for a new age

This new report outlines how telcos can succeed in the Coordination Age, including what their new purpose should be, the strategies, business models and investment approaches needed to deliver it.

It argues that faster networks which can connect tens of billions of sensors coupled with advances in analytics and process digitisation and automation means that there are opportunities for telecoms players to offer more than connectivity.

It also shows how a successful telecoms operator in the Coordination Age will profitably contribute to improving society by enabling governments, enterprises and consumers to collaborate in such a way that precious resources – labour, knowledge, energy, power, products, housing, and so forth – are managed and allocated more efficiently and effectively than ever before. This should have major positive economic and social benefits.

Moreover, we believe that the new purpose and strategies will help all stakeholders, including investors and employees, realign to deliver a motivating and rewarding new model. This is a critical role – and challenge – for all leaders in telecoms, on which the CEO and C-suite must align.

To do this, telecoms operators will need to move beyond providing core communications services. If they don’t choose this path, they are likely to be left fighting for a share of a shrinking ‘telecoms pie’.

A little history 2.0

Back in 2006, STL Partners came up with a first bold new vision for the telecoms industry to use its communications, connectivity, and other capabilities (such as billing, identity, authentication, security, analytics) to build a two-sided platform that enables enterprises to interact with each other and consumers more effectively.

We dubbed this Telco 2.0 and the last version of the Telco 2.0 manifesto we published can be found here – we feel it was prescient and that many of the points we made still resonate today. Indeed, many telecoms operators have embraced the Telco 2.0 two-sided business model over the last ten years.

This latest report builds on much of what we have learned in the previous fourteen years. We hope it will help carry the industry forwards into the next decade with renewed energy and success.

Other recent reports on the Coordination Age:

• Curtailing carbon emissions – Can 5Ghelp?
• The IoTis dead: Long live the I4T – the Internet for Things
• New age, new control points?
• How the Coordination Age changes the game
• Digital twins: A catalyst of disruption in the Coordination Age

Table of contents

• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Industry context: End of the last cycle
  • The telecoms industry is seeking growth
  • Society is facing some major social and economic challenges
  • Addressing society’s (and the telecoms industry’s) challenges
• The Coordination Age
  • Right here, right now
  • How would the Coordination Age work in healthcare, for example?
• New opportunities for telcos?
  • The telecoms industry’s new role in the Coordination Age
  • Telcos need an updated purpose
  • This will help to realign stakeholders
  • A new purpose can be the foundation of new strategy too
  • Investment priorities need to reflect the purpose
  • New operational models will also follow
• Conclusions: What will Telco 2030 look like?

---