By Joyeeta Mookherje
20th November, 2020
Over the last few years, the telecom industry has witnessed a heavy decline in revenue in core areas like voice and text messaging along with severe competition from Over-The-Top Service providers. Today the telecom industry is poised to undergo Digital Transformation due to the swift emergence of IoT and 5G. By making the services customer-centric, improving efficiency, and adding high-value margins, they can move away from traditional services. Just as cloud computing has changed the world of data, it is now changing the way the telecom industry operates. Many organizations have started adopting cloud-hosted solutions to streamline data delivery and utilize a single supplier for voice & data services.
Telecom is a people-intensive industry, with a seasoned workforce that includes teams in offices, on trucks, and in retail storefronts. Being forced to work from home due to the ongoing pandemic has impacted their productivity and increased security and infrastructure risks for customers. Technology has transformed almost every sector across the globe and the telecommunications industry is no exception to it.
Here are a few solutions that we feel can cause a dramatic change in the telecom industry:
There are billions of internet users around the globe and most of them prefer smartphones as their primary internet access point. With smartphones now helping users manage important tasks in their lives, consumers look for high capacity networks that promise faster access to applications and richer services. Telecom giants, with the help of various technologists, have already started rolling out their 5G to a multitude of industries such as healthcare, automobile, and education. This expansion of telecom into all sectors by automating processes for online customers is what can bring back the telecom industry to its true potential.
IoT enables telecom companies to acquire an enormous amount of data with the help of various sensors in mobile devices and apps. With the help of tech giants, companies can ensure that their network can move this data efficiently and continue to support new technologies. The data collected helps to generate crucial business insights and understand customer usage patterns which can ultimately be used to improve customer service and evaluate new products to optimize the network.
Most telecom providers rely on a large computing infrastructure to deliver a diverse set of applications, manage data, and bill services. Migrating to the cloud reduces internal computing resource needs as well as internal costs while increasing revenue streams. The pay-per-use service model helps telecoms to introduce new services, reduce the cost of the service, and work more effectively as per the market demands. By adopting cloud technology, telecom industries can switch important business functions to the cloud and benefit from its efficiency.
The telecom sector is one of the most vulnerable sectors when it comes to cybersecurity. With telecom companies having a large customer base, there are abundant opportunities for malicious attacks to gain unauthorized access to their data. The consequences of infrastructure under attack could potentially affect a whole country and its government agencies. Thus, by adopting a holistic approach, telecom providers are able to detect threats, take up prevention measures, and support resilience when attacked.
The telecom industry has one of the highest adoption rates for RPA technology. It offers high levels of scalability and agility as it takes over the repetitive and rule-based tasks or processes. This enables companies with the right tools to easily manage back-office work such as maintaining data integrity and security, employee salaries, marketing, and advertising, thus giving employees time to work on crucial tasks and develop deeper customer relationships.
As the telecom industry is now slowly based heavily on technological advances, many are already using AI technology such as virtual assistants, chatbots, and tools to improve customer experience and satisfaction. These solutions provide an unmatched ability to process and analyze an enormous amount of big data that provides valuable insights to improve the quality of service and increase revenue.
The telecommunications industry has been relaying messages between individuals and businesses for over 2 centuries – even during crises. Stress tested for resilience during the past 200 years, this industry is sure to evolve and emerge even more prepared for the decades ahead. There are a lot of new trends in this growing world of the telecom industry, but they all rely on the fundamentals of technology as a niche. By being able to provide reliable technology with a focus on the clients, one may be able to expand exponentially in the future.
