• We polled our in-person and online attendees during the recent DSP Leaders World Forum 2022 event
• We asked what might prevent telcos from building on the progress made over the pandemic years
• Cloud strategies and hyperscaler competition were identified as key challenges

Telcos will need to find a way to better compete with the hyperscalers in the enterprise services sector and fine-tune their cloud and services strategies if they are to build on the momentum of the past couple of years, according to the results of a poll that ran during the recent DSP Leaders World Forum 2022 event.

The industry has received well-deserved praise over the past couple of years for ‘keeping the lights on’ and providing the critical connectivity and communications services that enabled working practices to change overnight and allow many workforces to become highly distributed. But with the worst of the pandemic behind us (we hope), service providers need to find a way to capitalise on the goodwill and strong relationships built since early-2020.

So as part of the Forum session Telecoms as the Engine Room of the Digital Economy, our in-person and online attendees were asked: What will prevent telcos from building on the progress they’ve made over the past two years?

Respondents could select as many of the options they deemed appropriate, and it was clear that strategies related to the cloud, and the impact of the hyperscaler giants that dominate the cloud service sector, are at the forefront of delegates’ minds.

A significant 44% of respondents believe that an inability to compete with the major cloud firms in the enterprise services sector could hold telcos back from capitalising on their current position, while 43% cited an ill-defined services or cloud strategy as a ball-and-chain for the telcos.

Almost a third of respondents cited a lack of urgency and lack of investment as factors that could prevent telcos from capitalising on the recent progress made, while 25% believe an inability to develop and work with a partner ecosystem will hamper telcos’ progress. It is arguable that this figure would have been much higher prior to the pandemic and there is evidence that telcos are now being much more proactive in striking essential partnerships that can help them with their future services and networking strategies. Ironically, many of those key partnerships are with the hyperscalers such as AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, the very companies identified as key rivals in the important enterprise services sector.

It's also worth noting that only 15% of respondents cited poor marketing as a factor in slowing the telcos’ progress – which can only be seen as a, perhaps surprising, vote of confidence in the ability of telco marketing teams.

So, how well have the telcos performed over the past couple of years? Are they now better placed to capitalise on the growing realisation that reliable and secure connectivity is essential for the health of the digital economy and the successful execution of pretty much all enterprise strategies? See what the Forum session expert speakers had to say by watching the Telecoms as the Engine Room of the Digital Economy session on demand.

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV