• Executives from BT, Colt, DT and Verizon united around the importance of collaborative efforts in the emerging digital economy
• Joint efforts between CSPs and hyperscalers seen as key
• The ‘coopetition’ model is still very relevant
• Most important, though, is the collaboration that comes from customer engagement

WINDSOR, UK – DSP Leaders World Forum 2022 – Collaboration between different members of the digital communications ecosystem, and a greater understanding of customers’ needs, is crucial if industry players are to unlock new revenue opportunities and develop new business models and become digital service providers (DSPs), according to network operator speakers participating in the DSP Leaders World Forum 2022 here in Windsor.

Ahmed Hafez, VP of Network Convergence at Deutsche Telekom (pictured above), explained that telco companies need to always challenge themselves and change but to gain value from transformation, they need to collaborate.

“We need to transform how we produce things, how we deliver them, how we act. Together, we’re much stronger and we should be more collaborative, we should stay together on technology,” he noted.

Hafez pointed to mainstream standards as one of the most critical areas where telcos need to get together and push for change, as currently some parts of the standards are optional rather than mandatory, which means they aren’t always included in system vendor products.

Francesca Serravalle, Emerging Technology Director at Colt Technology, went one step further and emphasised the importance of an ‘ecosystem play’ but that the relationships between network operators and the major cloud platform players was still one based on “a culture of coopetition.”

But to really unlock the full potential afforded to network operators by the changing working practices and trends of the past couple of years, telcos need to work closely with, and listen to, their customers in order to understand their needs and be able to offer valuable products and services accordingly.

On that note, Mark Henry, Director of Technology and Business Strategy at BT, explained that telcos need to take an approach towards partnership in order to answer enterprise demand. He pointed to manufacturing as an example, noting that telcos know enough about IT but still lack skills when it comes to operational technology (OT).

“There’ll be no monetisation unless we create value” using the technology and platforms already in place, he noted. According to Henry, the challenge is for telco players to create this value in a domain in which they don’t currently have expertise, so they need OT partners and also need to convince enterprises the services they provide can unlock that value.

Verizon’s Associate Director of Global Products, Oliver Cantor, stressed the importance of working with the verticals and listen to what enterprise customers would like to do and invest in.

“We have an opportunity in that environment to actually ask for some money for being consultative, for providing technology, providing trials” and offering options to enhance security and scalability.

For more insights from this session, including a discussion on what telcos need to do next to boost their growth opportunities, check out the on-demand recording on the TelecomTV website during the next few days.

- Yanitsa Boyadzhieva, Deputy Editor, TelecomTV