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Radwan Moussalli is Senior Vice President for Middle East, Central Asia and Africa at Tata Communications. challenge and help these digital explorers accelerate their journey towards greater digitisation. Only through becoming real partners for these organisations, can service providers ensure that they will not get relegated to the role of a traditional A-to-B connectivity provider in an increasingly commoditised market. They need to bridge the gap between their old priorities and what their local enterprise customers want and need.
In a global survey commissioned by Tata Communications, we found that African service providers and enterprises do not always see eye-to-eye in terms of priorities. Around 40 % of enterprises say that cloud is their major area of focus at present, while only 10 % of service providers rank developing their own cloud services at the top of their list of priorities. More than a quarter 29 %, of enterprises say that managing multiple service providers is a significant challenge, yet only 10 % of service providers recognise this.
On the other hand, 40 % of service providers are focusing on enhancing their offering through solutions such as software defined networking and network functions virtualisation. But, just a quarter 23 % of African enterprises see these technologies as a current priority.
To ensure that the solutions that service providers offer are better aligned with their customers’ requirements, they need to look again at their strategy, and become more flexible and agile. For example, enterprises want to manage fewer service provider relationships. That means service providers need to extend their reach and expand their service portfolios.
Enterprises want cloud services spanning storage, compute, unified communication, and cloud connectivity. They need a service provider that can take a consultative approach to enable them to capitalise on the many opportunities that the cloud can bring.
Crucially, enterprises want transformation to happen quickly. But, the breakneck speed of technology innovation means that the latest technology advancements represent uncharted territory for not only many enterprises, but many service providers too.
That is why I believe that, in order for service providers to be able to shape the future of their enterprise customers through digital transformation, they should look for strategic partnerships. Partnering with other likeminded service providers enables them to bridge the gap between their current offering and emerging demands of enterprises.
The right partnerships will enable service providers in Africa and beyond to embrace the role of a guide for digital explorers, and drive their growth in today’ s rapidly evolving telecoms market.
Service providers need to offer partner led solutions, Tata Communications survey
A global study commissioned by Tata Communications reveals that the solutions that network service providers offer do not always meet the expectations of enterprises, who rank security 52 %, cloud 43 % and mobility 32 % as their top technology priorities. Conducted by IDC amongst enterprises and service providers across 32 countries in Africa, Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and Middle East and North Africa, the research also shows that enterprises see partnerships as key in their decision making process, indicating that by finding the right partners, service providers could win more business from this market segment.
The global study shows that enterprises consider service providers best equipped to increasing their network capacity or reach 73 %, or delivering hybrid networking 66 % services, while around half 48 % of enterprises feel that their network service provider is best suited to address their cloud needs. Approximately a third 31 % of enterprises feel that having access to cloud services developed by their service provider would help support them better on their cloud journey.
Around three-quarters 76 % of service providers think that supporting employee mobility is key for enterprise unified communication and collaboration strategy, yet only a quarter 26 % of enterprises rank this as a top priority. While more than a quarter 27 % of enterprises cite lack of employee readiness as a barrier for unified communication and collaboration adoption, the service providers surveyed do not see this as an issue for their customers.
The research suggests that close to a half 41 % of service providers do not have a definite stance on partnering. In contrast, more than half 57 % of enterprises say that when choosing a service provider, it is important that they find the right partners to fill gaps in their offering or extend their reach. Additionally, service providers overestimate the importance of reputation in enterprise decision making by a third 30 %.
Despite the rapid growth in enterprise demand for cloud based services and ecosystems globally, service providers are putting less priority on cloud and hybrid networking than enterprises are. 43 % of enterprises put cloud services in their top 3 technology initiatives but only 24 % of service providers put cloud services in their top 3 portfolio priorities.
Service providers are underestimating their role in the cloud ecosystem as well as demand from their customer base, especially when cloud demand is spread evenly around the world. The Americas, Europe, MENA, Africa and APAC all rank cloud as a top three priority.
There is an opportunity for service providers to pivot towards serving an increasing number of cloud needs of their enterprise customers and position themselves as key players in cloud enablement. The challenge for service providers is to find an efficient way to grow their presence in the market and deliver reliable services both locally and globally. www. intelligentcio. com INTELLIGENTCIO
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