Challenges Telecommunications and IT

The expansion of the 5G network will continue to drive the convergence of IT and network technology. Numerous innovative solutions from the IT sector (such as the use of predictive maintenance solutions) or new working methods (such as agile organisational structures) will be of interest to network technology in order to achieve its goals. Although this knowledge is already available in the IT departments of large companies, it is often not utilised optimally due to separate ways of thinking. The challenge is to integrate these areas effectively.

The flexibilisation of the company's own offerings requires the increased use of cloud services and an even more agile way of working in IT. The necessary reorganisation of IT offers opportunities to replace the previous proprietary solutions with an overall concept. Although business and end customer business are so different in their working methods that a standardised IT solution for business processing is not entirely possible, considerable synergies are nevertheless possible.

In Intero Consulting's experience, a cautious approach has proven successful for the units supporting the transformation process: the newly emerging and discussed use cases (e.g. in target marketing) often face many hurdles, which should be accompanied by clever contract design and continuous usage tracking.

The switch to 5G opens up new growth opportunities in B2B business, particularly for industry and the green transformation. In order to realise the full potential, industry-specific solutions (such as Telekom Healthcare Solutions) are required to protect this market from competition from Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) providers. Due to the very different proportions of business customers among the major providers, it will also be exciting to see how the individual providers manage to shift market share weightings accordingly.

Provider management can play an important role here if it actively seeks out strategic alliances and creates the appropriate framework - possibly in direct dialogue with the CEO and the strategic department. At the same time, this means a significant expansion of IT competences in order to realistically assess the potential for cooperation.

Security, especially for critical infrastructure, has become a high priority. Increasing compliance requirements in the area of business continuity management and security are making the introduction of new IT solutions more difficult. The pragmatic integration of these requirements is becoming an increasingly difficult task. There could be potential relief in European data protection regulations if an agreement is reached at US and EU level to facilitate the use of Software as a Service (SaaS) and other solutions by (often dominant) US software providers. Confidential computing can also help to reduce security concerns when using the cloud.

In the short term, however, cost management dominates the above-mentioned effects. Although 5G networks are more energy-efficient than their predecessors, the increased data volume combined with higher energy and construction costs for the expansion of telephone masts requires strict cost management. Cost optimisation is therefore a priority for almost all major providers. The rapid technological development and the associated endeavours to achieve the targets set have resulted in inefficient cost structures. The measures that are now being taken are intended to bring about sustainable changes in structures and procedures in the short and long term.

As cloudisation brings new challenges and opportunities in cost management, FinOps will play an important role in flexible controlling in the near future. A more closely interlinked and interactive relationship between controlling and IT in real time requires a cultural change that should be supported by appropriate processes and tools.