MWC 2016: IoT & Enterprise
What was hot at MWC? We round up the action around enterprise IT and the Internet of Things.
Executive Briefing Service
Problem: Telecoms technology inhibits operator business model change (Part 1)
The last few years have seen attempts by many leading telecoms operators to refresh their business model and generate new sources of growth and value. Now many digital initiatives are being scaled back. Telefonica and Telenor, two companies in the vanguard of the ‘drive to digital’ have both disbanded their digital organisations. In the first of two reports, STL Partners explores why efforts to yoke platform and product innovation businesses to a traditional infrastructure business have proved so difficult. The financial and operational constraints associated with traditional telecoms – particularly the need for long investment cycles in ‘one-function’ infrastructure – have made achieving the switch to ‘agile digital innovation’ all but impossible. But all that may be about to change and the future could be a little brighter.
Building Digital Trust: A Model for Telcos to Succeed in Commerce
Digital commerce continues to be held back by the lack of straightforward and consistent mechanisms for consumers to authenticate and identify themselves, share information and complete transactions with merchants. Telcos could address this fragmentation by creating a single framework through which individuals could interact with merchants, content companies and other service providers. Such a move would shore up telcos’ relevance and could ultimately increase their revenues. We show how, and review case studies from Deutsche Telekom (DTAG), Vodafone and KDDI.
Lag Kills! How App Latency Wrecks Customer Experience
Customer experience is fast becoming the new mantra for operators across the globe. But while improvements are being made in broadband speeds, customer experience and so forth, app latency and errors have largely gone ignored. This is despite the fact that both are important drivers of customer experience and of app developer profitability. Find out the relationship between latency and app errors and our analysis of those operators that are performing well and those that are ‘lagging’ behind.
The Open Source Telco: Taking Control of Destiny
Widespread use of open source software is an important enabler of agility and innovation in many of the world’s leading internet and IT players. Yet while many telcos say they crave agility, only a minority use open source to best effect. We examine the barriers and drivers, and outline six steps for telcos to safely embrace this key enabler of transformation and innovation.
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Netflix: Whose digital content is king?
Online entertainment is increasingly dominated by 5 big platforms but 6 forces are likely to shape the market going forward and could have profound effects on the dominant platforms. We analyse the relative strengths and weaknesses of each player and explore the potential opportunities for telcos to compete and collaborate.