IBM, on Wednesday, announced new innovations for telcos to derive more value from enhanced customer engagement. The new innovations will enable telcos to make technological, operational and business model transformation to effectively transition from being network connectivity providers to enabling a rich digital experience for consumers, laying the foundations of an everyone-to-everyone’ (E2E) economy characterized by new business ecosystems comprising organizations, individuals and others.
 
“With today’s uber-connected, empowered individuals demanding a 24/7 consumer experience and exerting greater influence by participating in more digital activities as they conduct their daily lives, Telecom operators should turn to the latest technologies and draw on their unique capabilities to capitalize on the emergence of the everyone-to-everyone economy,” said Vikas Sehgal, Director, Telecom Industry, IBM ISA.
  
According to IBM’s Digital Reinvention Study 2013, 63 percent of 1,100 executives surveyed expect consumers to gain even more power and influence over their businesses. Looking five years out, 58 percent of these business leaders expect new technologies to reduce barriers to entry and 69 percent expect more cross-industry competition.
 
“Most organizations have not fathomed the full implications of a radically different, digitally-charged future. Digital technologies will ultimately drive drastic changes in the economy: value chains will fragment, industries will converge and new ecosystems will emerge. We feel strongly that telcos will be pivotal in this new economy,” added Sehgal.
 
Technologies powered by cloud, analytics, mobile and social technologies are having a transformative impact on business models at an accelerating pace. Interactions between organizations and individuals are also expected to keep changing. IBM’s innovative solutions extend orchestrated, symbiotic, contextual and cognitive characteristics, typical of the E2E economy, and help telcos adapt to this ongoing transformation.
 
The increase in penetration and use of smartphones and tablet devices allows businesses to potentially derive data about how people move in a city. This data can be used by businesses and government organizations to strategically optimize operations and maximize revenues. Telcos can deliver such data and insight to businesses.
 
‘To return to the growth of previous years, telcos need to focus their strategic priorities on innovative solutions that not only extend customer insights but also continuously add value to customers and set them up for the E2E economy,” added Sehgal.