SEPTEMBER - 2021CIOAPPLICATIONSEUROPE.COM8JEFFREY HEDBERG, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICE, WIND TREhe Telco industry has made big strides since the dawn of mobile communication. Its evolution was beyond the technology aspect, bringing a rich communication experience that end users could have never imagined just two decades ago. It has kept removing barriers to adoption at all levels of the value chain allowing an exponential cycle of innovation, expanding constantly its ecosystem to new segments of users, suppliers, industries and partners. With greater collaboration, standardization, and disaggregation of technology in the network and IT space, it promoted openness and facilitated the emergence of new business models in its entire delivery chain which benefited first and foremost the end consumer, but also the global economy. We are still in the wake of a global pandemicand, in retrospect though, the impact of the Covid-19 emergency would have been much worse and unimaginable had we been limited to the same ability to work, learn, shop, communicate and even socialize as it used to be at the dawn of the last century.While the relevance of the industry is undeniable and more broadly acknowledged, it has been facing some structural and systemic challenges since the beginning of the last decade. With a much faster technology development cycle, more capable devices, faster networks and richer services, Moore's law in the computing and semiconductor space extended to Telcos, where bandwidth and throughputs are increasing many folds every couple of years, while consumer prices are constantly declining. This reality has caused an opposite trend in the traditional Telco supply chain where research and development, capital intensity and fierce competition led to much higher costs for a much shorter technology and investment lifecycle. In parallel, the application space witnessed a boom in the same period with the proliferation of apps in social media, digital entertainment, shared content, and online collaboration, to name a few. Furthermore, the accessibility of end users to global apps and services at their fingertips reduced their switching cost and blurred the boundaries of customer ownership.These dynamics created a sustainability challenge for the players in the Telco industry across its entire value chain. These players, vendors and operators alike, had to adapt their business model to fend off a decline in prices and margin TTHE EVER-EVOLVING TELCO INDUSTRYIN MYOPINION
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