Six takeaways for staying innovative in a changing market

The Next Cloud’s Rob Curver recently interviewed Iain Sinnott, Enreach for Service Providers’ Head of International Carrier Sales at SmartCom Summit. They covered a broad variety of topics, one of which is how the market has evolved so much in the past couple of years, and what that means to carriers and other service providers right now. Here is a quick summary of some of the points that the duo discussed. To listen to this part of the interview, please go to: https://youtu.be/JG4-K3yV20g and for the full interview, please visit: Interview Iain Sinnott - Rob Kurver 

They adopted vendor platforms, built solutions around those, integrated it all into their core networks, and created their own brands. Also, they helped grow cloud communications by encouraging customers to move away from on-premise equipment to cloud-based solutions. Plus, as Iain said in the interview, “Carriers were enabled to take great quality products and create services that they could deliver to customers, whether to corporates or SMBs….highly successful and well-priced product for the time. They were very strong and powerful in the telecoms space.” 

However, as Rob commented, “Innovation is going much faster than it used to go. There’s a challenge for many of these carriers and operators and mobile operators to stay ahead of the game.” Iain added, “The world has pivoted over two years, and there are now new entrants in the marketplace. So where do carriers go? What is their value?” 

One answer to these questions is to look at the fact that many of these service providers have massive, existing customer bases. According to Rob, they have “Customers that are loyal, trust them, and looking to their carriers for guidance.”  

Iain agreed: “Their value is that they have taken businesses through an age of great evolution in telecommunications. And they have worked hard to understand and work with their customer base to deliver great returns. So that's a good starting place. Now, it may feel that there is more pressure on their positioning now than there ever was, but they are ideally placed to now take their customers on a digital transformation journey.” 

“It may feel that there is more pressure on their positioning now than there ever was, but they are ideally placed to now take their customers on a digital transformation journey,” Iain continued. Carriers and service providers have experience with so many customers, so they appreciate their starting points and challenges. For instance, “They know about staffing pressures on small and large businesses. They know the workplace differences. They know that customer experience is now one of the critical battlegrounds in every industry.” 

So how do carriers and service providers take their experience forward while finding ways to remain innovative and relevant? Iain’s answer is finding the right partners to create a winning blend of technology and market experience. Plus, there is no one-size-fits-all: different partners in different countries will have their own requirements, and it is up to vendors to realise and address this fact.  

As Iain observed, “The danger is sitting back and not recognising that there's real work to do right now because the marketplace is changing.” However, based on conversations he is having across Europe, he is optimistic that service providers know that now is the time to put the work into changing,  make the most of existing achievements,  and partner with organisations like Enreach to stay competitive in this fast-paced marketplace.