With increasing competition and declining regulatory support, we are looking at new ways to improve operational efficiencies. How can we leverage managed services most effectively and still retain loyal employees?

Within the Tier 2 and Tier 3 market we see several business drives for achieving operational efficiencies through managed services: scalability, expertise, tools, and reduced risk. Almost everyone agrees that the fundamental keys to effectively leveraging managed services are a good relationship between partners and sound service-level contracts. Unfortunately, the biggest misconception is that managed services displace existing staff. Truth be told, oftentimes these loyal and trusted employees are hired by the managed-services partner to ensure that on-site support and intellectual property are retained; in essence it allows for employees to keep their seniority with the managed-services partner without forgoing items like pay, vacation and benefits. Additionally, CSPs need to look at leveraging their partner to deliver white-labeled managed services to their customer base, generating new revenue streams while allowing CSPs to become the expert in managed services in the eyes of their customers.

Preparing for the quest

It is an exciting time to operate in the telecommunications industry. Changes are afoot that will impact the course of humanity over the next few decades, and the potential business opportunities are enormous. Undoubtedly, so are the risks. CSPs are in the process of redefining themselves to take advantage of these trends, but not all paths lead to success.

CSPs must craft an infrastructure and support-systems strategy that enables future service models, meets rapidly changing regulatory standards and anticipates the future. They must find new ways to create operational efficiencies and partner with managed-services providers at the appropriate level to offload select processes without undermining employee loyalty. The successful CSP of the future will leverage CEM to the fullest, extracting new value from an operational necessity — customer support — that has traditionally been a cost center. Service providers that progress to sell white-labeled cloud solutions and managed services through their partner networks stand to profit from the meteoric growth of IT virtualization.

As 2012 has taught us, there is no such thing as business as usual. In telecommunications the playbook of the past is out of pages, and the entire nature of a CSP is evolving. Those who move to embrace the dramatic changes and take their destiny into their own hands will succeed.