How CSPs are Missing Opportunity to Monetise Digital Services for Enterprise

Comptel Corporation has released the results of a new study, conducted by ICT Intuition and Coleman Parkes Research, showing strong demand among enterprises for new connected digital services – but also a serious gap in operators’ ability to satisfy those demands.

The “Enterprise Multi-Client Study” surveyed more than 1,000 global business leaders to better understand what they want from their digital and communications service providers. The survey revealed that 81 percent of respondents are currently using connected digital services to improve productivity, generate revenue or reduce costs.

A further 71 percent are looking to bundle connected digital services into the products they sell – and 95 percent of those would like to partner with a digital or communications service provider to do so.

Yet, only 14 percent of enterprises are purchasing connected digital services primarily from operators. Businesses’ top concerns when considering buying digital services were security (61 percent), cost (58 percent), service quality (54 percent) and easily accessible support (39 percent). Nearly a third (29 percent) said ease of ordering and purchasing was a top decision-making factor.

Clearly, digital and communications service providers must up their game when it comes to the features, quality and ease of use of their connected digital services if they are to tap into enterprise demand and take a larger share of the market.

“If operators want to profit from enterprises’ current hunger for digital services, they must offer a better buying experience with simple platforms, through which business customers can get relevant recommendations and quickly search for and purchase services,” said Juhani Hintikka, president and CEO, Comptel. “This creates an experience similar to the app stores consumers already enjoy. Implementing cloud-generation, intelligent technological and automated operational capabilities is key to enabling this. We at Comptel focus on these to enable enterprise sales transformation.”

The report also sheds light on how businesses would like to purchase digital services. For example, the top two ways enterprises would like to implement connected devices, applications and M2M or IoT services is through a connected platform with application development help (39 percent) or with a turnkey service (27 percent). This contrasts with 23 percent who want to handle everything in-house. Enterprises are, therefore, seeking minimal upfront development and instead favouring managed and turnkey options.

A majority of enterprises can be characterized as “Cloud Generation” customers, showing interest in purchasing critical applications and functions “as a service” (aaS), including infrastructure (75 percent) and business insight and data analytics (73 percent). Only 2 percent of enterprises are NOT considering as-a-service (aaS) options. Cloud apps and services have found a permanent place in the enterprise shopping list.

The survey findings are included in Comptel’s new book, Operation Nexterday, in a chapter by Nancee Ruzicka, president, ICT Intuition.

Ruzicka noted, “Digital and communications service providers can help enterprises address operational challenges and create efficiency using connectivity. But offering a data centre and a network connection isn’t enough. To satisfy today’s enterprises, operators must offer a menu of managed and pre-integrated solution options that deliver real services, not just bandwidth.”