The Greying of the Telecom Industry and Its Effect on Customers – Nine Years Later
The Greying of the Telecom Industry and Its Effect on Customers – Nine Years Later by Roberta J. Fox
In 2004 we authored an article on the aging of the telecom/technology industry and the effects on its customers. We commented that we had observed the number of jobs being cut across Canada (10-12,000 people from our analysis, and over 40,000 in the U.S. in a three-year period). When we combine this with our discussions with senior leaders of the telecom industry, and the growth of migration to an IP infrastructure, we wondered what this would mean to the organizations that depend on telecommunications to run their businesses.
Who will provide the carrier support for the day-to-day legacy voice and data technology that many organizations still depend on? How will the new technology be effectively designed and installed while also helping customers migrate their networks to the "Next-Generation" IP-based technology?
We decided to take a creative approach to this question, and asked a few of our clients what they thought now, nine years later. It appears, from the feedback that we received, to be a novel concept...ask the customer!
Three Main Questions
We asked the clients surveyed three main questions:
1. What are you worried about in supporting your current carrier-provided technologies?
The most common response (nine years ago) was that the customers really didn't have a clear picture of how long their providers would support their voice & data equipment that they currently had in place, and in addition, did not have an "end of life" timeframe as a reference point. Same answer in 2013.
2. What are you worried about in moving to the next-generation IP-based networks?
The most common response (nine years ago) was that the customers did not have enough information about the skills and IT/Data/Voice organization that they would require in the future to move to, and support their future next-generation IP networks. Many of the large enterprise customers did have a preliminary architecture for the Next-generation IP network.
They even had a preliminary migration plan of how their technology would evolve to this next generation IP-based network, but they did not feel totally comfortable with the lack of specific detailed information on the migration approach or the detailed plan required. Clients came back with the same answer in 2013.
3. What are you worried about in managing your internal future voice and data networks?
The most common concern (nine years ago) was the effect on current service level agreements (from a legal and financial perspective), and how they would not only change for the future, but how much time and effort it would take internally, to work with their service providers to re-negotiate these new service level agreements.
This question linked into the human factors of convergence because the next-generation networks link together voice and data teams as well as video and mobile technology.
The voice staff is familiar with working with telecom providers in managing procurement/contract issues, while many clients commented that their data staff generally had left this area to purchasing or legal staff. These staff commented that they didn't understand the next generation IP networks, from a legal perspective, well enough to validate future service level agreements.
In our 2013 responses, we also talked to data and IT technology professionals. They too struggled with how to now manage multiple vendors include VARs and systems integrators in trying to put together unified communications solutions.
Some IT and business analysis type folks commented that their experience in early adopter unified communications projects were even more complex to design and implement than ERP-type IT projects using applications such as Peoplesoft, SAP, etc. This was primarily due to the fact that telecom and network infrastructure devices and applications also had to be included in the project, and most of the IT professionals really didn’t have the expertise and experience.
They also commented that they had challenges finding vendors who could “pull it all together” for them.
So What Does it all Mean to the Customers and Providers?
There is a huge human factor gap that unless filled, will make the evolution to next-generation unified communications solutions running on well-designed and managed IP based networks be much slower than the industry would like to meet their revenue expectations.
The telecom/tech industry should work harder to develop and provide customers with customized approaches and solutions to fill the gap in order to make the customers feel comfortable with the technology, the human resources and service agreements required to move to next-generation unified communications solutions.
As for the greying of the industry, we encourage the sector to look at creative, alternative work programs to leverage the experienced professionals who have left the sector to come back, albeit part time, flex or seasonal work programs.
For those telecom/tech companies that have made the effort to develop these types of flexible work programs (i.e. FOX GROUP), it is well worth the time and effort to the bottom line.
For the experienced grey professionals it is also a much better retirement/semi-retirement income alternative to try to make up for portfolio losses!
Lastly, it makes good bottom line business sense!
If you would like to discuss how we have developed employment programs that leveraged experienced telecom/tech professionals for our business, do not hesitate to contact me.