To be truly digital, service providers need to go way beyond just being able to tap into the hearts and minds of the new millennial demographic. Instead, they must immerse themselves and become the hearts and minds of a digital business. Not only must new services be digital, but to launch, or even be able to conceive of those new services, the structure of the business needs to be digital.

In fact, communications service providers need to transform their whole business so that they become digital service providers or DSPs.

Agility Ability

One of the most important aspects of being a digital business, a DSP, is the ability to be agile. Agility confers many important benefits, not least the fact that new services can be launched quickly.  In a report commissioned by MDS, Telesperience has found that the average service provider takes nine months to launch a new service, yet the most agile can do it less than a month.

While agility may be measured at the end of the process, the speed that new services are launched to customers, it is these processes and systems that lie much deeper into the organisation that really creates the ability to be agile.

For traditional communications service providers, their legacy systems, especially the BSS and OSS systems are often unable to provide the agility that is required to become a DSP. It is almost always the legacy systems that slow down new service launches - by up to eight months compared to fast moving competitors, as highlighted above.

New players aren’t encumbered by legacy systems. By their very nature they are more agile. But as traditional players move into new markets, they must do so in much more agile ways to match these new players.

New service types can be introduced with a VNO (Virtual Network Operator) mentality. Service providers can create new services with outsourced back-office infrastructure using cloud technologies, which will allow them to concentrate on their core differentiators, yet also allow them to get to market in a timely fashion. This approach also provides service providers with additional control on costs, which is critical when assessing the value of these new services.

Communications service providers that evolve into digital service providers will need to start to think and act like retailers. No longer can the legacy systems define them. Instead they will be defined by the products and services they offer. In this way, as retailers do, they can try new products quickly and easily - launching them with minimal back-office upheaval and keep cost in-line at the same time being flexible enough to remove them and move forward in a different direction if required.

Thinking big, Acting small

For most service providers the adventure they would like to choose is one of growth: more services, more customers and increased profits. Bigger is almost certainly better.

Yet the path to growth no longer needs to be about being big: big expenditure, big hassles, or long time-frames.

The digital mentality that we have already outlined, as well as the agility that needs to be developed, both come from acting small, or perhaps more accurately, being lean.

Being lean means doing what is necessary to achieve your goals, but not carrying any excess "fat". To think big you need to have state-of-the art solutions, yet to act small you need to be able to access these solutions quickly and with affordable prices.

The growth of the cloud and the rise of cloud-based delivery of back and front office capabilities mean that these two requirements are no longer mutually exclusive. The best is now affordable and all CSPs can choose to be lean. On a great adventure, it is best to travel light.

Choose your travel companions wisely

For any adventure, the quality of your travel companions is what makes or breaks it. Choose the wrong companion and you may not even come back alive, yet alone enjoy the journey. But with the right travel partner the journey, while challenging and full of excitement, is also rewarding and enjoyable.

This is exactly the situation faced by many CSPs as they look to choose their adventure into the digital world. Partners must be found and they must be trusted. Because, with the right partner, this will truly be a great adventure.