A new operational model for the future is necessary for communications service providers (CSPs) to remain competitive.
A recently released Analysys Mason study in collaboration with Huawei entitled ‘Digitalization reshaping operations: a new digital operational model for the future' highlights how digitalisation is fundamentally reshaping the way businesses are being operated.
CSPs have already begun implementing digital transformation to increase service agility and operational efficiency through infrastructure evolution and operations transformation providing market opportunities for digitalisation service providers.
The study exemplifies how the success of CSPs operations transformation hinges on a new software-driven operations model that is driving the success of digital businesses across different industries.
The new operational model must support high levels of process automation to the point where predictive autonomous operations become a reality, enabling CSPs to automatically preempt and tackle service quality issues before they occur.
The study provides recommendations for vendors on developing solutions for software-driven operations, offering engagement models, and demonstrating a vision of software-driven operations.
Based on extensive research across diverse industries, the paper explains how the current operations model severely limits CSPs abilities to achieve the benefits of digital transformation and that to remain relevant in the digital era, the telecoms industry must adopt a software-driven operations approach that has been instrumental in the success of major digital companies such as Uber, Google and GE.
Analysys Mason principal analyst Anil Rao, says, “The telecommunications industry is at a major tipping point; as operators embark on important digital transformation initiatives, with NFV/SDN, IoT and 5G still to come.
“CSPs need a future-proof software-driven operations model that can not only support today's physical networks but also adapt as the infrastructure transitions to hybrid and virtual networks.
“The new operations model must be underpinned by highly automated operational processes, enabled by analytics powered operations software platform and supported by an operations workforce with the software skills to continuously enhance operational efficiency by developing automation as part of their daily duties.