Partnering for prosperity – a digital value fabric

Introduction

“If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together,” is an African proverb. It is as applicable to the telecom world today as it is to individuals as a philosophical perspective. The telecom world has grown to where it is from the world of “What God hath wrought” – the official first Morse code message transmitted in 1844, to officially open the first telegraph line. 180 years from then we are able to – in an instant – have global video conferences, remote printing of designs to be printed on 3D printers and more. This growth has been made possible through continuous improvement of the network and its ability to create value for its users through speed and capacity. This power deeply embedded the consciousness of going alone and going fast – but high pace can be sustained only for so long before a change is called for. The change was signaled by the rise of the OTT providers first through content aggregation and later though the dominance of the hyperscale’s. The hyperscale’s moved away from traditional definitions of value chains to value fabrics or value webs – ecosystems of smaller propositions which their customers and subscribers found to be of value. Individually not amounting to much but cumulatively creating a strong fort and moat around their businesses. CSPs are certainly changing the pace so they can go far but the culture of domination still shows in any relationship of partnering. Partnering is an art once it is refined, but it begins with basic scientific steps of value creation resulting in growth, competitive advantage, brand equity and social impact.

Essentials of a good partnership

There are three fundamental ingredients which create partnerships of trust: Value Exchange, Execution Excellence and Sustainable Revenue Models.

Value Exchange

In a modern context value exchange has progressed towards hyper-personalization for the higher affordability customer segments and a more generalized version for the customers outside that segment. Embedding connectivity in the brand experience (e.g. travel SIMs by airlines or credit card issuing banks) for consumer segments and in the core business service for enterprise segments is a good representation of value flow both upstream and downstream. CSP customers get a unified digital experience, and downstream providers derive value from two sources: consumption of their offering and the associated revenue. Identifying and prioritizing value precisely is the first step in creating a good partnership.

Execution Excellence

This concerns itself exclusively with the mechanism of ensuring the flow of value – product / service consumption readiness, market availability, ordering, provisioning, performance, security, and the associated revenue management.

A critical aspect of execution excellence is the Operating Model of the CSP – whether MNO, MVNO, FNO, ISP or any service provider flavor. In a vertically integrated CSP (the old world), the Operating Model was built around internal departments – external engagement was undertaken through a complex sourcing exercise. This was time consuming, expensive and laborious, adding to the burdens imposed by technical debt. In a digital world, technology offers very attractive alternatives – componentized systems, open APIs to ease integration, microservices and more. Business value can be translated in technology architecture in far less complex ways than before, facilitating the emergence of the extended enterprise. Figure 1 below illustrates the flow of value in execution excellence in an ecosystem context.

Figure 1 – Digital Ecosystem and the Extended Enterprise

Sustainable Revenue Models

In a partner ecosystem, harmonizing the different incoming pricing from partners to one which is compatible with the CSP’s business and acceptable to target customers requires substantial planning but as shown in Figure 1, achievable. There are four attributes of sustainable revenue models – diversified revenue streams, precise value proposition, cost management and effective pricing. Dynamic pricing, tiered pricing, hybrid pricing are different levers which can be used to create market traction. It is in the management of this ecosystem that the use of suitable platforms (described in the next section) ensures the building of sustainable revenue models.

Partner Ecosystem Enablers

There are multiple enablers of an effective partner ecosystem – operating model of the CSP, culture, strategy and more. This article focuses on the platform enabler consisting of the following components:

1. Partner onboarding
2. Centralized / Enterprise Product Catalogue
3. Digital Marketplace
4. API Management

In a traditional telco environment, partner management was a lengthy process based on whether the partner is a reseller or supplier. In the case of the latter, there was no concept of partnership, only vendor management. In the digital world, the availability of a platform for partner self-onboarding assisted by a combination of AI agents for process and a partner manager for human engagement, greatly reduces the friction in the onboarding process.

An Enterprise Product Catalogue brings the ability to ingest partner offerings and synthesis these into a harmonious set of product / service combinations to be published for market consumption. The ability to rationalize pricing, create tariff plans and subscriptions (or other models suitable for the market) substantially reduces the friction in the time to market process.

The Digital Marketplace is the capability for customers (or channel partners) to engage and order products and services suitable for their purposes. Self-service capabilities for the fulfilment, assurance and billing processes to be engaged by a customer or partner, with the option to escalate any fallout for human intervention make it easier to do business with the CSP and create a positive digital experience. All of these contribute to execution excellence, brand perception and eventually, brand equity.

Lastly, API Management is vital to the zero-touch partnering capability. For network / technology facing environments, CAMARA, Open Gateway, TM Forum Open APIs all offer the capabilities to partner with larger operators for wholesale or niche capabilities, including vertical industry sector platforms. Open APIs also facilitate all-round integration across financial systems, telco BSS/OSS, external / third-party systems, creating a consistent experience for customers and partners alike.

Conclusion

The days of the vertically integrated CSP have gone, and the age of specialized service providers is here. CSPs of all flavors need to operate as value clusters which sustain customers, partners, employees in a self-contained galaxy while remaining open and flexible for exits of existing members and entry of new ones. As another African saying goes, “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” – “I am because we are.”