During the second half of this morning’s keynote session at Management World 2010 in Nice, the CEO of BT Wholesale, Sally Davis, looked at the need for the industry to make investments in order to grow revenue; to deliver exceptional customer experience; to cut costs and explore the new innovation and services of tomorrow.
“We all have to cut costs, but innovation has to be at the heart of what we do to make this industry and all of its customers realize the potential of what is there and seize all of the exciting opportunities,” Davis said.
She fully acknowledged the current industry mantra of “doing more with less,” declining ARPU, saturated markets and more. But she added there are more challenges to come. For example, there’s the explosion of bandwidth due to the increased use of video. “About 80 percent of Internet traffic will probably be video, so most telcos are quadrupling capacity and some mobile providers are increasing capacity 17 to 20 times,” she said.
Davis also pointed to the consolidation and partnerships that are becoming rampant among providers who historically would have competed against each other. She specifically mentioned Vodafone and O2 as well as T-Mobile and 3 joining forces on various projects.
With all of these trends being seen in the industry today, Davis said that for wholesale providers like BT Wholesale, there are big opportunities if they choose to grab them. “Thirty years ago when liberalization started, most telcos were reluctant wholesalers who were dragged in by regulators,” she said. “Those days are now long gone, with companies realizing that there are enormous opportunities to partner.” She added that it’s no longer vital for everyone to own every piece of fiber. “Customers just want a service that works; they don’t care who runs the fiber or the cell site.”
Davis closed by saying that her organization has totally overhauled its business and has gone from having 10 percent of its revenues under long-term contract to over 40 percent. “I am now able to deepen our relationship with key customers and work out how my array of products and services can be tuned into their business model,” she said. “Next-generation wholesalers have a fun role to play in transforming the networks of the future.”
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