Tech Is Giving Telcos a Winning Edge

As telcos expand beyond their traditional network businesses, the most successful tech-enabled companies are focusing on seven winning IT themes:

1. Modern technology operating model. They’re implementing an agile technology operating model that’s aligned with the company’s strategy, enables products to reach the market quickly, and allows for rapid iterations with customers.
2. Agentic and generative AI foundations. They have well-defined data management and architecture protocols that support implementation and scaling of artificial intelligence applications, including generative and agentic AI.
3. Autonomous network operations (ANO). They’re investing in AI and automation to manage, optimize, and troubleshoot networks with minimal human intervention. When used to its full potential, ANO is expected to enable real-time decision making, predictive maintenance, and self-healing networks, which can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance the customer experience.
4. Modern dynamic enterprise architecture. They’re investing in open digital architecture that’s modular, flexible, and supports telcos’ delayering push. Telcos that embrace this modern architecture typically achieve better business outcomes.
5. Sovereign cloud strategy. They develop a clear understanding of the technological sovereignty requirements in the markets where they operate, for both their own data and technology infrastructure and those of their customers. Leading telcos also define a strategy for where along the sovereign cloud value chain they’re best positioned to provide services.
6. Cyber resilience. They design their systems to be resilient, with a cybersecurity approach that’s proactive, automated where possible, and continuously evolving. This has become imperative to meet increasingly diverse threats, ranging from private to nation-state actors.
7. Competitive technology costs. They work to make their technology spending (across both operating expenditures and total expenditures) competitive and transparent, while delivering a high return on investment. The leading vendors have competitive pricing and align their incentives with those of customers.