CSPs Must Monetize 5G Business-to-Business (B2B) Solutions to Survive the Next Decade
CSPs will not remain viable in their current form beyond the coming decade unless they find new ways to monetize 5G B2B solutions. Global CSP revenues have remained static in the range of $1.7 trillion to $1.8 trillion for over a decade, with annual growth anticipated to be below 2% for the upcoming five years.
The consumer market seems to have exhausted its potential for growth, while enterprises and SMBs have the freedom to choose from a variety of suppliers, including independent software vendors (ISVs), system integrators (SIs), network equipment providers (NEPs) and hyperscalers.
CSPs cannot speculate on the emergence of a “killer app” – one or a small number of innovative solutions that will dominate the competition and give them near-exclusive access to customers. For more details, see Telco Republic’s white paper CSPs Must Launch Agile Ecosystems and Marketplaces to Monetize 5G B2B Opportunities.
5G Could be a Turning Point, but Current Operations and Monetization Tools May Not Suffice
5G could transform the industry landscape for CSPs, offering a constantly evolving range of products and services crucial for the digital transformation of enterprises and SMBs.
5G is poised to establish itself as the foundation for digitalization across most vertical industries. CSPs can unlock significant revenue potential by enabling businesses to connect with each other and their end-users (B2B2X).
With the advent of 5G, CSPs can no longer independently develop all the components required to support enterprises and SMBs. Extracting value from 5G-enabled intangible digital assets demands the capability to handle long-tail services by creating and managing digital ecosystems with agility, flexibility and speed.
Copying their existing operations and monetization approaches will not enable CSPs to succeed with enterprises and SMBs. This is because the opportunities created by 5G differ from those of previous generations. During the 3G and 4G era, CSPs functioned within almost closed environments, transforming physical assets into connectivity and value-added services. They complemented their offers with a limited number of partner solutions.
5G Changes the Nature of CSPs’ Business
5G is transforming the way of CSPs’ business including the creation, design and delivery of services to enterprises, SMBs and consumers.
To meet the requirements of 5G, CSPs must combine, reconfigure and manage a growing number of products and services, both digital and physical, from their own portfolio as well as third-party suppliers.
5G Changes CSPs’ Operations and Monetization
New Business Models
CSPs need to support new business models that demand extended bandwidth and coverage to allow low-latency and usage-based services. For instance, augmented reality technology can be used in the logistics industry.
Any Type of Network
New services will run on any type of network, whether it is public or private, 5G, edge computing, cloud or Wi-Fi.
Real-Time and On-Demand Services
Services will be accessible in real-time and on-demand through single touchpoints using a consumable delivery model.
Dynamic Charging and Pricing
5G services will require real-time, event-based charging for usage, service quality or location. Alternatively, charging for device-based services or network slices may also be required.
Ecosystem-Based Billing
CSPs will need to accommodate high-volume billable events with real-time interactions from automated operations, such as those originating from composite services spanning multiple value creators within digital ecosystems.
Multidimensional Bundles
5G-driven offerings will become more complex, supporting bundles of multidimensional products and services across various industries, digital value chains, and ecosystems.
Industry-Specific Monetization
Dynamically changing partner ecosystems will be a crucial aspect of complex composite 5G offerings such as connected cars, smart home devices and other vertical solutions.
CSPs Can Monetize Enterprise 5G Deployments
Undoubtedly, 5G has the potential to significantly accelerate revenue generation mechanisms in existing and future B2B2X ecosystems.
CSPs must take advantage of the fact that enterprises and SMBs anticipate 5G to enhance their efficiency through business automation and to improve customer interactions and experiences.
Operations Modernization is Critical to Successful Monetization
The evolution of 5G-driven, event-based services and digital business models will pose a challenge to the current management tools of CSPs. This challenge extends to tools used for operational management, business management, customer management, partner ecosystem management and monetization capabilities.
5G will facilitate low-latency, usage-based, high-bandwidth and massive machine-type communications connecting enterprises and SMBs. This fundamental shift in technology necessitates a reallocation of resources and the modernization of the entire telco infrastructure, beyond the backend network infrastructure.
To stay relevant, decision makers in the telecom industry must modernize their operations and monetization system environments in a timely manner to capitalize on their investments in 5G infrastructure.
Investments in digital business operations and monetization infrastructure enabled by 5G technology, such as those for catalog and configure price quote (CPQ)-driven lead-to-quote to order, will be instrumental in helping telcos to operationalize, monetize and scale opportunities in future digital value creation chains.
Kloudville offers a comprehensive solution portfolio to help CSPs monetize their 5G B2B solutions with Kloudville Telecom 360, Kloudville Marketplace 360, Kloudville EPC/PLM 360 and Kloudville CPQ 360.
Contact us at info@kloudville.com or sales@kloudville.com or call +1-905-405-5632 or 1-844-GO-KLOUD (465-5683) from the U.S. and Canada for a personalized consultation.