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DTW (Digital Transformation World)
Beyond expanding and enriching the consumer experience, service providers will also be well served to seize the opportunity to transform B2B engagements as a source of new and lucrative revenue streams.
How to prepare for the disruptive impact of 5G-enabled business services
Join the authors of this article at Digital Transformation World next week for their talk entitled "The disruptive impact of 5G-enabled enterprise services”. Karl Whitelock, Research VP, Communications Service Provider Operations & Monetization, IDC Jin Suk, Sr. Director, Product & Solution Marketing, Amdocs will be presenting. Suk will also be a part of the panel called "Creating value and revenue streams with 5G". With 24.5 million people expected to be subscribed to at least one 5G service by the end of 2021 and an astounding 1.1 billion by 2025, the promise of 5G is unprecedented. Compared to 4G, the impending technology offers ground-breaking performance improvements, such as: For service providers, this is why 5G will enable customer engagements to take place on an entirely new playing field – with previously unimagined innovation that promotes new digital experiences, such as those based on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies. Beyond expanding and enriching the consumer experience, service providers will also be well served to seize the opportunity to transform B2B engagements as a source of new and lucrative revenue streams. With quality and performance backed by service-level agreements, 5G networks have what it takes to support mission-critical enterprise communications. Even more so, the technology offers the ability to deliver unprecedented, differentiating, high-value services such as: It’s therefore not surprising that between now and 2020, service providers are expected to spend $1.7 trillion on equipment upgrades in preparation for 5G. Karl: Indeed, the 5G opportunity is tremendous in that it offers service providers the opportunity to satisfy a far wider range of enterprise needs than they do today. To find out more, we conducted an industry survey, sponsored by Amdocs, with the objective of gauging the expectations of 5G's potential to expand the scale and scope of the enterprise offering. It covered 105 service providers in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America. What we found is that on the one hand, service providers are optimistic about the potential of 5G. But on the other, it’s unlikely that the potential will be present right from the outset. This comes from the multiple hurdles service providers must conquer before they can be ready for the 5G enterprise opportunity. For example, while network slicing will enable operators to support quality-of-service guarantees for enterprise customers, only 9% of those we spoke with expect to have the technology in place when they first start offering 5G commercially. Jin: But it doesn’t end there. Karl: That’s right. Our research has also found that operators have a great deal of work to do in upgrading their operations and monetization systems if they are to deliver new 5G services securely, smoothly and at scale. For example, many of the distinctive new 5G services for enterprises depend on a network with end-to-end virtualization and computing resources distributed around the network edge. This means that operations and monetization systems, capable of addressing the new business needs of virtual networks, must be in place. However, we believe it will be some time after initial 5G rollouts before such enablement functions are widespread. Service providers should expect to face lengthy ROI timelines when making the business case for distinctive 5G enterprise services. It is important that the work to upgrade systems and operations processes begins now, so that when advanced 5G service capabilities become fully available, service providers can commercialize them effectively with no compromise from the limitations of their network and business management systems. Jin: Moreover, service providers should engage directly with their enterprise customers to ensure not only that they understand what 5G can do for them, but also when 5G will be operationally ready for them. It’s critical that service providers manage expectations regarding the timeframe in which capabilities will emerge, so they can avoid potential frustrations that often result from not meeting those expectations. No less important is the need to align systems for customer experience, partner management, billing and charging, and others to support the new business models, data management and analytics required to maximize the revenue potential from delivering 5G-enabled business services. Karl: Given the scope of the task, it would also be advisable for service providers to collaborate with trusted partners who can provide clear guidance about the optimal objectives for implementation, and who can provide support in satisfying 5G technology demands.
