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Mensuel : Edition de décembre 2010
Rubrique : Télécommunication/Informatique
Titre : Luxembourg Connected : What’s beyond connectivity for Luxembourg telecom operators ?
Article : Lured by the promise of an expanding market for enterprise services, telecom service providers are making increasingly large efforts to reposition themselves in the network and IT services value chain in a bid to differentiate their service offerings and create new revenue streams. The attraction is clear: the information and communications technology (ICT) market is expected to return to growth.

According to the study “Beyond Connectivity: can telecoms operators offer new services to business customers?” published by Ernst & Young, enterprises have mixed feelings about how far, if at all, their connectivity providers should go along the ICT services value chain.

A total of 365 senior procurement and IT executives worldwide from a broad range of industries took part in the online survey carried out in November 2009, and their comments indicate a certain ambivalence about using a network operator for services they have previously bought from IT providers, vendors and systems integrators.

An ongoing task for fixed, mobile and integrated telecoms operators (telcos), therefore, is to convince larger enterprises as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that they are the right people for the job. This is no easy task, since many respondents believe that telecom service providers should stick to their core services, namely connectivity. Even so, just over half of respondents see a blurring of the boundary between telecoms and IT firms, suggesting a broadening market opportunity for players across ICT.

To discuss the subject and get the views from local players, Ernst & Young, together with First Tuesday, organized on 20 October 2010 a Wireless Wednesday event with the participation of Mr Didier Rouma (CEO of TANGO), Mr Jérôme Grandidier (CEO of LUXEMBOURG TELECOM) and Mr Christophe Hendricks (CEO of ESCAUX). The exchange of opinions has been extremely valuable and discussions brought food for thought to the rest of the audience.

Although the trend already exists in our country, the method of implementation may vary from one company to another: some will have the strategy of partnership whilst others will go for organic growth or even vertical development on the ICT value chain. During the Wireless Wednesday event, Didier Rouma (TANGO) and Jérôme Grandidier (LUXEMBOURG TELECOM) explained how their respective companies moved successfully along the ICT value chain.

Good news is that telcos in Europe have made some progress in convincing enterprises that they are capable of delivering noncore services. In the survey, respondents particularly appeared to value telcos’ abilities to deliver real-time IP-based services such as video and audio-conferencing. Other non-connectivity services may also represent niches for revenue progress, like domain and web hosting, network security, data back-up, etc.

All players, whether from an IT or telecom background, share the same primary concern, ‘the corporate customer’, which is, at the end of the day, the key to success. Keeping the business of one’s clients is definitely the way to ensure visibility and revenue. To do so, telcos will need to have greater customer centricity approach and a better understanding of customer needs, providing differentiated propositions in order to stand out from the competition, moving towards better cash and margin management, and ensuring that a long-term strategic roadmap is in place.

For more information on the survey, please visit the following website: http://www.ey.com/LU/en/Industries/Telecommunications

By Olivier Lemaire, Partner, Telecommunication, Media and Technology (TMT) Leader at Ernst & Young, Luxembourg and Gael Denis, Senior Manager, Telecommunication, Media and Technology (TMT) at Ernst & Young, Luxembourg
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