After almost 30 years of working for the telecoms & networking research community in the shape of many of the leading research and advisory houses I am now venturing out on my own. Although, is anyone truly on their own any more if you consider the network of people from both the vendor side and the analyst community hovering in cyber space and on every social platform as well as the pseudo old school reunions at the main vendor events? Many thanks to all of my colleagues across the industry for their kind words and positive reaction to this new venture for me. Doubtless we will have many interactions, debates, disagreements as we all try to navigate through this fascinating next phase of the telecoms industry’s development.
Having covered all aspects of the telecoms and many related industries during my various tenures, the challenge is now not around what I have covered but where to focus the effort. This is certainly the issue for the research industry and indeed the telecoms industry itself. The tendency is to want to look to the new sexy stuff – mobility, cloud, security & M2M/Big Data. However, the health and prosperity of the telecoms industry needs to be built upon a recalibrated basis of high quality pervasive connectivity. Removing the legacy networks and services from the marketplace needs to be surpassed by a new flexibility in both network build and service roll out, as well as a radical improvement in the customer interaction at all levels. That good old trusted telco brand has been tarnished by poor customer service and a lack of appropriate partnering with fellow hopefuls from the broader ICT and media communities.
No doubt the whole supply, value chain (and dare I say it, the Eco system) is shifting to reflect the new reality for telecoms:
- Sourcing the right mix of services and technology to build the new telco platform is resetting the relationship between the telco community and its suppliers of network equipment, software and indeed underlying IT infrastructure
- Organising the telco into an appropriate structure for the delivery of competitive services across telecoms and adjacent markets such as IT services and media
- Aligning the services portfolio offered to address the convergence of connectivity, processing, storage and applications/content needed for today’s customers
- Understanding the role that telco plays in the emerging consumption model of today’s and tomorrow’s consumers of individual, household and business services to support new life styles
- Embracing the ‘Omni channel’ approach to retailing services to customers.
As an analyst industry, we need to continue to build market models to provide the basis of decision making and we need to maintain our view of emerging technologies and services. Perhaps most importantly, we need to interpret the interplay between:
- the technology and services on the networking side
- the overlap with adjacent IT and media industries
- and, most importantly, the different vertical markets through which much of the technology is delivered.
How can I help? By drawing on my long experience of interaction with all players in the ICT spectrum both to help people outside of telecoms to understand the telco angle and simultaneously to help the telco community strengthen its position in the emerging digital landscape. I will, of course, leverage the social platforms but prefer, perhaps because of my lack of eye sight, my particular strength in interaction on a personal level (don’t write off voice!) with industry executives, workshops of strategy developers, sales teams and product development people to build a brighter and more prosperous future for the industry.
In summary, my aim is to leverage my network of contacts in the industry and work with many of my former colleagues across the globe to build the right mix of skills to address clients’ needs at whichever link of the emerging value chain.
Let the conversations begin! +44 7824 360747 chris@lewisinsight.com @chr1slew1s