In 2022, telco services revenue soared to a staggering $1.7 trillion, resilient in the face of pandemic challenges and supply chain disruptions. To sustain and build on this growth, telcos must strategically align with key trends, focusing on advanced connectivity, digital commerce and innovations like zero-touch capabilities. While 5G smartphone services fall short of revenue expectations, a new path to return on investment beckons for a proactive approach - telcos must not only catch up with transformation but stay ahead of it. So, how can telcos leverage technology to navigate the evolving landscape, especially when considering the pivotal shift from B2C to B2B markets? Let’s look at Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) and explore how it might fit the bill.
What is NaaS?
NaaS is a cloud-based service where customers lease networking services instead of creating their own network infrastructure. With NaaS, businesses can take their on-premises networking to a cloud-based, software-defined environment. As such, it gives them access to networking services on demand, which is a refreshing alternative to conventional purchasing methods, configuring and managing physical network infrastructure. This makes NaaS a more efficient alternative to enterprises setting up and running their own 5G Private Networks.
How to Embrace B2B with NaaS
Traditionally consumer-centric, many telcos are now recalibrating their strategies, eyeing the B2B market as a lucrative avenue for growth. With its flexibility to meet rapidly changing business dynamics, the NaaS operating model emerges as the catalyst for this transformation.
As enterprises increasingly seek agile, scalable and cost-effective network solutions to meet their growing connectivity needs, telcos can combine their experiences from B2C markets with network capabilities to drive enterprise success. Performance assurance is key, let alone for mission-critical applications, and telcos must ensure high-performing and reliable 5G private networks with consistent high-speed connectivity and minimum downtime to go down this path.
Providing these NaaS offerings creates opportunities for telcos to collaborate with enterprises on digital transformation initiatives, fostering a mutually beneficial ecosystem that drives long-term customer relationships and builds brand loyalty for both.
By embracing B2B with NaaS, telcos can unlock a new revenue stream, expand their customer base into the lucrative enterprise market and strengthen their position as trusted partners in digital transformation. On the revenue side, telcos can capture a share of the 5G private network market by offering several key advantages to enterprises:
- Access to expertise: Enterprises get access to a pool of experienced network professionals who can manage, monitor and troubleshoot network issues, freeing up their IT teams to focus on core business operations.
- Reduced complexity and expense: NaaS simplifies the deployment and management of 5G private networks for enterprises and eliminates the need for in-house expertise. This reduces upfront capital expenditures and makes 5G private networks more accessible to a wider range of businesses.
- Flexibility and scalability: With NaaS, enterprises gain the flexibility to customize their 5G private networks to meet their specific needs and scale network resources as demand fluctuates. This adaptability is crucial for businesses with dynamic or evolving network requirements.
- Cost-effectiveness: NaaS enables a consumption-based model where enterprises only pay for the resources they consume. This eliminates the burden of overprovisioning or under provisioning network capacity, leading to more efficient resource allocation.
To truly succeed, telcos must leverage these advantages to position themselves as trusted, forward-thinking partners for enterprises looking to deploy and manage 5G private networks.
Navigating the Future of Telco with NaaS
NaaS is more than a buzzword. It promises to revolutionize how businesses buy, implement and manage networking in the future. It reduces the cost of connectivity and security for customers and enables a pivot to outcome-driven experiences. It unifies security in an end-to-end, scalable format that allows for more mobility without compromising network and cloud access. This means costs become more predictable and everything can be managed in a single view. The NaaS model also empowers enterprises to position themselves for the future, whether that is adopting new technologies, workloads and workflows, or dealing with new and unexpected challenges. The result is that the network is no longer seen as an obstacle to continuous innovation, but the very thing that enables it.
In essence, the telco industry is experiencing a paradigm shift, transitioning more aggressively from B2C to B2B as NaaS presents a compelling proposition for both telcos and enterprise customers. By embracing NaaS, telcos can position themselves as leaders in the digital era, while enterprises can reap significant benefits in terms of cost, agility and performance. It’s really a win-win scenario, driving innovation and growth in the telecommunications industry and beyond.
As telcos continue their journey through the challenges of the digital era, NaaS stands as a beacon, guiding them toward a future where innovation is not just a possibility but a constant reality.
