Engineering prowess. Network size. Number of vans. They’re not likely to be high on the average customer’s wish-list when they’re out shopping for a new Communications or Service Provider.
What businesses and consumers are much more interested in these days are the innovative applications, devices, ease of use, service levels and price deals that one supplier can offer against another.
This trend has seen of the rise of a new generation of corporate stars – Google, iTunes and Skype among them – who deliver must-have services and apps to millions but without the encumbrances of capital intensive assets, physical networks and large-scale manpower resources. And in the view of BT Wholesale CEO Sally Davis, there’s a lesson for other sectors in the IP world’s experience and success. It’s ‘do what you do best and partner for the rest’.
The differentiation advantages – and the cost advantages – to be gained by outsourcing were the theme of Sally’s keynote presentation at the recent Carriers World event in London. She told her audience: “Scale for a network operator is about ensuring it can achieve the right cost base to make market differentiation cost-in. It’s about recognising that differentiation only works when it’s relevant to your customers. And scale is about focusing on your strengths, about not duplicating someone else’s capital investments if all you’re really doing is building a parallel train set.”
Sally added: “As we continue our journey towards an all IP world, CPs are asking what the benefit is of building alternative infrastructure if they can buy it from somewhere else. Operators today are really interested in swapping the traditional up-front capital investment for a cost-base that’s more closely aligned to levels of customer demand. And as prices continue to erode – through regulatory intervention, market pressures or because next generation services are cheaper – operators need to minimise cost. The best and quickest way to cut costs is to share costs.”
But the benefits of outsourcing don’t stop at the bottom line. Handing the day-to-day running of a service to a supplier partner leaves you free to focus your energies on your core business – and on the creation of products and apps that capture the public’s imagination. The inherent flexibility of a pay-as-you-grow service also helps avoid the risks of ending up with too little capacity or too much. And as the 21st Century Network rolls out, you have the confidence of being primed, with technology upgrades being taken care of for you.
There’s also the prospect of being able to venture into new markets or to launch the unified communications services that businesses are increasingly hunting for. It’s a route that both Vodafone UK and O2 UK have taken recently by adding fixed-line phone services from BT Wholesale to their business services portfolios. You can read more about the White Label Managed Services (WLMS) solution chosen by O2 in this issue here.
If you want to move into data, our fully managed 21CN-ready broadband service – BT Plusnet Partner – could be the answer. This comes with no set up costs and no commitment to customer numbers to help you enter the market quickly without big upfront investments. And although you are outsourcing, you stay in complete control through an online portal where you can easily mass-migrate customers, place and track orders and monitor services at a glance.
Want to go to market with bundled services or unified comms solutions? Contact your BT Wholesale account management team to find out how you could gain from our WLMS solution.
Read more about our BT Plusnet Partner managed broadband here. Or talk to your account management team.
