Sustainability: Why it’s good for business

Introduction

In the last year, businesses all around the world underwent unprecedented changes and had to adapt to the most challenging of circumstances. Priorities shifted for all stakeholders with telcos operating in an increasingly complex world and having to rethink how they do business.

The world is connected digitally now more than ever. With office closures and working from home, Zoom calls with loved ones having been the only way to socialise and to carry out online schooling, telecoms and technology have become even more relied upon industries in the last 18 months.

The idea that a strong corporate social responsibility and sustainability strategy is good for business has been around for decades. This report outlines how telcos can evolve their purpose beyond just being profit driven by aligning core strategy with sustainability initiatives and a sustainability policy, and in doing so benefit their business and add ‘society’ or ‘the world’ to their stakeholders.

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Scope of Research

The modern concept of ‘sustainability’ is composed of three components: economic, environmental and social. This is also sometimes called the ‘triple bottom line’ of business – stating that businesses should commit to measuring social and environmental impact, as well as financial performance, rather than focusing solely on profit. The ‘triple bottom line’ theory states that businesses should focus on the “three Ps”: people, profit and planet.

The three components of sustainability

three-components-to-sustainability-stl-partners

Source: STL Partners

Modern discussions of ‘sustainability’ refer to the economic, environmental and social effect an organisation has on the societies or markets in which it operates. It is an umbrella term that covers issues such as diversity and inclusion, energy usage, human rights and supply chain management.

Through this research we sought to understand if there is a business value to incorporating sustainability into a telecoms operator’s purpose and strategy. Speaking to seven operators across the world, some of whom are named in this report (Telstra, Globe and Orange), we wanted to know how telcos are thinking about sustainability, and to learn more about the following:

  • Telcos’ perception of the impact of sustainability initiatives in wider stakeholder groups e.g. employees, customers, shareholders, society
  • Which sustainability issues telcos are focusing on
  • The business benefits of sustainability initiatives
  • Case studies of companies that have incorporated sustainability into their company strategy
  • The effect the markets in which a telco operates in has on its sustainability initiatives (e.g. developed vs developing)

To gain an idea of how sustainability affects all aspects of the business, we interviewed employees in telcos’ sustainability and CSR teams, as well as in corporate strategy and product management.

All interviewees were asked largely the same questions, covering topics including: the initial motivations for engaging with sustainability; the effect of sustainability on multiple stakeholders (including customers and employees); if being sustainable puts telcos at a competitive advantage; important sustainability issues and solutions; successes and challenges of different sustainability initiatives; adapting sustainability strategies in different regions and the selection of their term for what we are calling ‘sustainability’.

Notably, some of the telcos we reached out to were not willing to participate in interviews because they were in the process of revising, changing, or updating their position on sustainability. In itself, this tells us that sustainability is an important and topical issue that many are still figuring out how to “get right” and how to incorporate it into their company strategy.

Sustainability is a cornerstone of the Coordination Age

As we outlined in The Coordination Age: A third age of telecoms, we believe that the telecoms and the wider digital economy is in its third age, ‘The Coordination Age’, which builds on ‘The Communications Age’ and ‘The Information Age’.

The three ages of telecoms

coordination-age-basic-stl-partners

 

Source: STL Partners

The Coordination Age is a result of the changing needs and demands of the world’s people, businesses, and governments, evolving technological solutions and possibilities, and the need to preserve the most habitable possible future environment for the world’s population.

To create major growth and advance as a telco, operators need to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems. We believe some of those major problems are:

  • A desire for greater business efficiency and productivity
  • The distribution and availability of human resources and services such as healthcare, education, employment, and entertainment
  • Mitigating climate change and minimising its effects
  • Reducing the amount of waste and harmful by-products polluting the environment
  • Concerns over employment due to automation and global economic changes

These major problems can and are starting to be addressed through sustainability initiatives set out by companies in their agendas and policies.

In addition, telcos have important and unique assets, as well as specific resources and capabilities, such as access to data, technology and their prevalence in the everyday lives of their customers, that can enable them to contribute to tackling some of the world’s problems and ‘help make our world run better’. A specific common problem is to help companies and people coordinate their resources in or near to real-time.

For example, a major problem in delivering sustainable energy is ensuring that the variable demand of populations is coordinated with supply. Wind turbines and solar panels cannot be relied on to produce at peak capacity at exactly half-time in sporting events, when the audience goes to make a cup of tea by boiling their electric kettles. As such, supply needs to be very flexibly managed in relation to demand.

This means sharing information about those resources and demands effectively, which in turn takes modern communications in some shape or form (although connections may not always need to run through a telco network, for example Bluetooth, WiFi, etc.) Given his common need, telcos are well-equipped to help enable sustainability.

The motivating value of a compelling purpose

Protecting the future of the planet and society is a compelling purpose, and one which is progressively becoming part of our daily lives.

Our research on sustainability found that that there are a number of benefits for different stakeholders when telcos incorporate sustainability into company strategy, including increasing employee engagement. Sharing a mutual goal or purpose unites a team and creates value, which is important for business performance, and thus a business benefit of sustainability.

How a unifying purpose helps create value

unifying-purpose-CSR-stl-partners

Source: STL Partners

A clear unifying purpose applied successfully creates a virtuous cycle:

1. Clarity of direction: A clear purpose can provide direction for people at all levels. E.g. incorporating the UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as Goal 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy, into company strategy and developing processes around it that involve employeesat all levels.

2. Energising work: Most people work for money, to a greater or lesser extent, and a range of other drivers: status, socialcontact, etc. However, work with a clear purpose is much more energising, especially if (like sustainability) it has some broader merit or meaning. It can make work ‘worth getting up for’. All the telcos we spoke to said that their employees are motivated by the sustainability work their company does.

3. Switched on people: If a telco is full of people that care about what they are doing, and know what they are trying to do, it will be a much more enjoyable and attractive place to work for everyone. Telcos we spoke to also said that sustainabilityis beneficial for talent attraction and retention, as employees want to work for a company that they feel is making a positive impact on the world

4. and 5 – Compelling offer and support, and attracts and satisfies customers: The combination of engaged people in the company and a compelling offer will be attractive to customers. Telcos we spoke to also referenced the need to be attractive to and satisfy different types of customers through their sustainabilitywork, such as the socially conscious Generation Z, and the older generation who can be engaged through digital inclusion

6. Feeds the business: The combination of internal clarity and alignment, motivation, and external attractiveness creates a virtuous circle that benefits telcos and drive business growth.

We think that engaging with sustainability and incorporating it into company strategy is a crucial part of operating in the context of the Coordination Age, and fundamental to operating in this way successfully. To support our hypothesis that having a clear and motivating purpose (in this case sustainability) can help to enhance currant performance, engage its employees, and find and nurture new areas of growth, we interviewed telcos to better understand how they define and measure the benefits of sustainability for their business. The research conducted for this report further validates our belief that commitment to sustainability is crucial to telcos’ success and growth in the Coordination Age.

Table of Contents

  • Executive Summary
    • Context
    • Key findings from research
    • Recommendations
    • Next steps for research
  • Introduction
    • Scope of research
    • Sustainability is a cornerstone of the Coordination Age
    • The motivating value of a compelling purpose
  • Defining and contextualising sustainability
    • ‘Corporate social responsibility’ vs. ‘sustainability’
    • The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
    • Where are telcos focusing their efforts?
  • What are the business benefits of sustainability?
    • Employee benefits
    • Customers and government
    • Shareholder benefits
    • Challenges of sustainability
  • Conclusion
    • To what degree are telcos taking a holistic approach to CSR and sustainability?

STL Partners’ telecom sustainability hub:

Related Research:

AI is starting to pay: Time to scale adoption

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AI adoption yields positive results

Over the last five years, telcos have made measurable progress in AI adoption and it is starting to pay off.  When compared to all industries, telcos have become adept at handling large data sets and implementing automation. Over the last several years the telecoms industry has gone from not knowing where or how to implement AI, to having developed and implemented hundreds of AI and automation applications for network operations, fraud prevention, customer channel management, and sales and marketing. We have discussed these use cases and operator strategies and opportunities in detail in previous reports.

For the more advanced telcos, the challenge is no longer setting up data management platforms and systems and identifying promising use cases for AI and automation, but overcoming the organisational and cultural barriers to becoming truly data-centric in mindset, processes and operations. A significant part of this challenge includes disseminating AI adoption and expertise of these technologies and associated skills to the wider organisation, beyond a centralised AI team.The benchmark for success here is not other telcos, or companies in other industries with large legacy and physical assets, but digital- and cloud-native companies that have been established with a data-centric mindset and practices from the start. This includes global technology companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon, who increasingly see telecoms operators as customers, or perhaps even competitors one day, as well as greenfield players such as Rakuten, Jio and DISH, which as well as more modern networks have fewer ingrained legacy processes and cultural practices to overcome.

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Telecoms has a high AI adoption rate compared with other industries

AI pays off

Source: McKinsey

In this report, we assess several telcos’ approach to AI and the results they have achieved so far, and draw some lessons on what kind of strategy and ambition leads to better results. In the second section of the report, we explore in more detail the concrete steps telcos can take to help accelerate and scale the use of AI and automation across the organisation, in the hopes of becoming more data-driven businesses.

While not all telcos have an ambition to drive new revenue growth through development of their own IP in AI, to form the basis of new enterprise or consumer services, all operators will need AI to permeate their internal processes to compete effectively in the long term. Therefore, whatever the level ambition, disseminating fundamental AI and data skills across the organisation is crucial to long term success. STL Partners believes that the sooner telcos can master these skills, the higher their chances of successfully applying them to drive innovation both in core connectivity and new services higher up the value chain.

Contents

  • Executive Summary
  • Introduction
  • Developing an AI strategy: What is it for?
    • Telefónica: From AURA and LUCA to Telefónica Tech
    • Vodafone: An efficiency focused strategy
    • Elisa: A vertical application approach
    • Takeaways: Comparing three approaches
  • AI maturity progression
    • Adopt big data analytics: The basic building blocks
    • Creating a centralised AI unit
    • Creating a new business unit
    • Disseminating AI across the organisation
  • Using partnerships to accelerate and scale AI
    • O2 and Cardinality
    • AT&T Acumos
  • Conclusion and recommendations
  • Index

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AccorHotels: From hotelier to digital marketplace

Introduction

Why are we doing non-telco case studies?

Digital transformation is a phenomenon that is affecting every sector. Many industries have been through a transformation process far more severe than we have seen in telecoms, while others began the process much earlier in time. We believe that there are valuable lessons telcos can learn from these sectors, so we have decided to find and examine the most interesting/useful case studies.

In this report, we look at French hotel chain AccorHotels, which has undertaken an ambition transformation from hotel owner and operator into a digital platform for independent hotels. While our previous case study, publisher Axel Springer, has completed its transformation, AccorHotels has achieved significant changes but remains some years away from reaching its longer-term ambitions. However, because hotel groups and telcos share many similarities, such as being in the service industry, owning physical infrastructure and having highly distributed assets, we can draw many useful lessons from AccorHotels’ experience.

Like in previous transformation case studies, the key takeaways from our analysis of AccorHotels’ strategy will be the lessons for telcos to help them make their own transformation process run more smoothly.

General outline of STL Partners’ case study transformation index

We intend to complete more case studies in the future from other industry verticals, with the goal of creating a ‘case study transformation index’, illustrating how selected companies have overcome the challenge of digital disruption. In these case studies we are examining five key areas of transformation, identifying which have been the most challenging, which have generated the most innovative solutions, and which can be considered successes or failures. These five areas are:

  • Market
  • Proposition
  • Value Network
  • Technology
  • Finances

For each section, supporting evidence of good or bad practice will be graded as a positive (tick), a negative (cross) or a work in progress (dash). These ticks, crosses and dashes will then be evaluated to create a “traffic light” rating for each section, which will then be tallied to provide an overall transformation rating for each case study.

We anticipate that some of these five sections will overlap, and some will be more pertinent to certain case studies than others. But central to the case studies will be analysis of how the transformation process is relevant to the telco industry and the lessons that can be learned to help operators on the path to change.

Contents:

  • Executive Summary
  • AccorHotels’ transformation experience – a summary of key lessons
  • The AccorHotels story in brief
  • AccorHotels in STL Partners’ transformation index
  • Introduction
  • Why are we doing non-telco case studies?
  • General outline of STL Partners’ case study transformation index
  • Drawing the parallels between hotels and telecoms
  • What does a hotel business look like?
  • How the Internet changed the hotel industry
  • Accor in context of leading global hotel chains
  • A successful transformation, so far
  • AccorHotels’ transformation strategy
  • Part 1: Separating property and services into distinct business lines
  • Part 2: From digital platform to marketplace
  • Part 3: Cultural transformation
  • Part 4: Invest in innovation
  • Conclusion
  • AccorHotels in STL Partners’ transformation index

Figures:

  • Figure 1: OTAs cut into hotels’ share of the hospitality industry
  • Figure 2: Comparison of leading global hotel chains
  • Figure 3: AccorHotels revenues and profitability are ticking up
  • Figure 4: Accor outperforms on growth of average revenue per room
  • Figure 5: AccorHotels property investments
  • Figure 6: Solid growth in profitability
  • Figure 7: AccorHotels eight digital hospitality programmes
  • Figure 8: Steady growth in loyalty programme subscribers
  • Figure 9: Accor acquires software expertise and reach to challenge OTAs
  • Figure 10: AccorHotels is gaining traction with digital services
  • Figure 11: AccorHotels still has some digital distance to go
  • Figure 12: AccorHotels digital services investment plan
  • Figure 13: AccorHotels acquisitions fuel business innovation
  • Figure 14: Digital M&A investment as a % of service revenue, 2012 – H1 2017
  • Figure 15: AccorHotels scores ‘Green’ on STL Partners’ transformation index