The early days of telecommunications were characterized by a Network Effect where the value of communications to the participants was dependent on reaching a critical mass of connected devices. It helped to have other people to call.
Today communications are characterized by what Microsoft sees as a New Network Effect. Billions of connections occur everywhere around the world; connections that are increasingly comprised of the dynamic interaction of people, services and machines, all requiring connectivity. Many forecasts suggest that during the decade 2010-2020 these connections will surge from 6-7 billion to well over 50 billion as machine to machine and people/service/machine permutations take hold. This New Network Effect is driven by a host of fundamentals, including:
- Anytime, anywhere, always on communications.
- Rise of emerging markets around the world.
- Unprecedented content and services variety and availability.
- Consumerization. The Customer is king and expects personalized devices and experiences on demand.
- Social Media increasingly impacting customer loyalty and becoming the arbiter of what’s good, how audiences judge quality.
In combination, the scale of these trends and the velocity with which they occur in the New Network Effect have significant implications for Telecommunications companies that impact customer retention, infrastructure agility and business insight and decision support. These implications include:
- Increasing network demand for spectrum, capacity and speed.
- IT and Network infrastructure flexibility to scale quickly.
- End-to-end service and network lifecycle management.
- Unified developer ecosystem to rapidly on-board new services and capabilities
- A new approach to customer relations that emphasizes customer intimacy and service/Network Operator brand loyalty through insightful implementation of Business Analytics and social media based marketing.
The hallmark of this New Network Effect will be the adoption of agile new technologies (cheaper, easier to learn, faster to implement) to replace or augment legacy systems or support newer offerings. These new technologies will be driven by a next generation partner ecosystem with deep telecommunications expertise and focused solutions that can tailor and deliver those solutions in a fraction of the previous interval. To this end, Microsoft has created specific partner-led Solutions Areas designed to drive focused solutions-based conversations. They include:
- Business Intelligence to drive business insight and decision support across the enterprise.
- Digital Marketing and Experiences to support the marketing organization in targeting, attracting and engaging customers.
- Telco Sales and Support to drive customer relationship management across multiple channels.
- Business and Operational Support Systems to speed service delivery and end-to-end service and network management.