Is Telecom Dead?

Posted: 05/2002

Is Telecom Dead?

Even though a lot of us old-timers will be slow to give up the more familiar terminology, our industry already is embracing the strategies and concepts represented in
Segars’ evolved model.

Segars is a professor and director for the Institute for Technology and Strategic Change at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and he is recognized for his research into digital marketplaces and advanced commerce models. His studies and consulting work for telecom (there’s that word again) companies has enabled him to identify characteristics of successful players in the emerging connectivity industry.

One of these is selling solutions rather than products. While this may sound a familiar drumbeat, it is true many of you still are looking at your portfolio in discrete segments — local, long distance, wireless, data instead of as a business productivity package. Where I have seen some credible examples of solution selling is in high-speed data where the technology — T1, DSL, ISDN, dial-up — is less important than the application of connecting multilocation offices, banking in real-time, learning at a distance, teleworking, etc. In this issue, we have two articles that touch on this point including our
cover story about DSL’s rebound after a hellish 2001 and Tara Seals’
article regarding strategies for partners selling Internet access.

Another tenet of Segars’ world is simplifying business processes. Our OSS editor Peter Lambert explores advances in this area every month. On page 60 he writes about partner relationship management technologies that are streamlining workflows among carriers, resellers and agents.

Segars predicts partnering with other companies in communities or coalitions to spread risk and to add value will be critical to survival. He says three types of “cybermarketplaces” are being formed:

“Tomorrow’s marketplaces,” will be a combination of all three, he says, challenging: “Your business model must include initiatives in all three.”

Some companies are rising to the challenge of c-commerce, outsourcing many high-cost functions into a well-oiled web-based machine. To make the transition to such a collaborative strategy, Segars says it’s important to first change the business case and then the business model, moving fluidly from a transaction strategy to an information strategy, to an affiliate strategy to a collaborative strategy.

We will be examining these issues in greater detail in the coming months. If your company is employing or enabling these strategies, please drop me a line at
[email protected].

Khali Henderson
Editor in Chief