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Global Trends in Telecommunications Industry

February 27, 2019
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Many industries are currently in the middle of a transformation, and the telecommunications industry is no exception. The rules of the game are changing rapidly and companies that fail to change with them risk being left behind by the competition. These changes come with their own challenges, of course. Businesses must prioritize solving for them if they hope to remain relevant. Here are 5 trends you can’t ignore if you work in the telecom industry.

Internet of Things (IoT) Connectivity

The Internet of Things has become a mainstay in many homes. A big part of this is thanks to the telecom companies who built the infrastructure for it. The opportunity for those companies reaches far beyond infrastructure, though; new services that take advantage of IoT integration and a significant amount of valuable, holistic user data bring with them the promise of new revenue streams and increased profits.

Some telecom companies are choosing to outsource elements of their IoT management and data mining to third-party companies specializing in such fields, which can be a smart strategy to mitigate resource drain on non-core activities.

Content Integration

AT&T bought DirecTV in 2014, Verizon now owns both AOL and Yahoo!, Comcast purchased NBC, and Time Warner now owns a 10% stake in its one-time competitor, Hulu.

With video continuously surging in the share of smartphone usage, companies are scrambling to get on board and reap their fair share of the advertising revenues associated with those mediums. While some companies manage the sale of advertising space in these channels internally, others choose to outsource this function to specialized third-party partners.

Over-The-Top Services

With 5G not far off on the horizon, 2019 is likely to see further efforts from telecom companies to partner with and become primary over-the-top solution providers in order to bolster revenues and offset downward price pressures from both traditional and non-traditional competitors.

These services include things like video streaming and video-on-demand. They will serve as an important point of expansion as major telecom companies continue to acquire or partner with the companies that offer them.

Increasing Involvement in Social Media

Given that communication is their wheelhouse, it’s somewhat surprising that this 2016 study found that many telecom companies have significant room for improvement in how they operate their social media channels.

While companies are generally good at responding to mentions and direct messages in social media, they appear to do very little authoring of their own content and messages. This reactive approach can leave something to be desired by customers and it represents a missed opportunity in terms of engaging prospects.

Companies can remedy this by outsourcing their social media management to partners that focus specifically on social media monitoring and proactive outreach, such as Swivelt.

Bundled Services

More and more, telecom companies are offering bundled services (such as landlines, mobile phones, cable and broadband) in an effort to increase customer loyalty and spending.

This behavior isn’t without risk though; the more companies attempt to bundle services, the more they invite increased scrutiny from regulators, who may mandate either the dissolution of such bundles or price ceilings on the services they contain.

Conclusion

The telecom industry is evolving at a pace more rapid than anything we’ve seen to date. Are the above trends the beginning of even more change to come? It’s hard to tell, but one thing is for sure: companies that ignore these trends do so at their own peril.

Swivelt offers expertise and outsourcing services in banking IT security and data analytics. With over 20 years of experience delivering services to Fortune 500 companies worldwide, we are experts in managing the full customer life cycle and optimizing business support functions (such as IT and analytics) to efficiently scale with your ever-changing business needs. Contact us to learn more about how our services can benefit your organization.


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