We help telecommunications companies embrace AI, agile, and bold new approaches for a reinvented customer experience and a reinvigorated business—while keeping costs in check.
Clotilde Bégon-Lours
For many telcos, the transformation in the world around them is happening faster than the transformation within their own organization. As the telecommunications industry undergoes major shifts, telcos must shift, too.
How best to do that? The answer lies not in outdated business or operating models but in bolder ideas, strategies, and execution. This means applying transformative enablers such as artificial intelligence and agile ways of working, embracing end-to-end digitization, and taking new—even daring—approaches to network excellence.
We help telcos transform their business—and the services and experiences they provide—by focusing on eight imperatives.
Network Excellence. We help telcos identify use cases, embed automation intelligence to balance network traffic and heal failures, and leverage advanced analytics to deploy targeted, cost-effective rollouts.
Data-Driven Customer Centricity. Using analytics and personalization, operators can tailor products, promotions, and bundles to the specific needs and behaviors of telco customers, creating segment-of-one experiences and securing revenue growth.
Next-Generation B2B. We work with operators to identify growth opportunities—and integrate these new services effectively into their B2B offerings.
Beyond-the-Core Opportunities. We help telecommunications companies pursue the plays that best fit their markets and customers, and build on the strengths of their assets.
Simplification and Digitization. Telcos worldwide are racing to digitize to address customer needs, increasing competition and external threats. By digitizing products and services, customer journeys, and processes, telecommunications companies can unlock significant value.
New Capabilities and Ways of Working. Telecom transformation requires new skills, streamlined processes, and flexibility. We help telcos adopt agile at scale, so they can respond faster to change.
Balance Sheet Optimization. Telcos need to explore models such as network, data center, and tower sharing, or to take advantage of debt restructuring and M&A.
Closing the Digital Divide. We work with telcos and policy makers to identify—and pursue—actions that can bring underserved populations into the digital age.
To help telecommunications companies achieve these goals, our telecom consultants combine deep knowledge of the telecommunications industry with expertise in cutting-edge technologies and methodologies.
Our telecommunications consultants have partnered with operators across the globe to bring new technologies, new experiences, and new possibilities to telco customers. Examples include:
Collaborating with BCG and BCG X, A1 Telekom Austria revolutionized its customer management approach by combining the strengths of humans and AI.
Replace product-centric marketing with an AI-driven, personalized strategy to reach the right customer with the right offer at the right time, no matter the channel.
Millions of school children do not have internet access, impairing their ability to thrive in their local and global economies. BCG partnered with the ITU and UNICEF on the Giga initiative to close the digital divide and equip every child with digital connectivity.
Accelerating Digital at Telstra
Australia’s largest telecommunications company, Telstra, engaged BCG as a strategic partner to oversee all aspects of design and implementation of its digital transformation program, including radical product simplification, customer migration strategy, end-to-end process automation, new technology stack, and the deployment of accelerator squads to drive faster, higher-quality outcomes.
Getting Back on the Growth Track
After our client, a large Asian conglomerate, acquired a struggling telco, it partnered with us to transform its new division. The process began with a 100-day plan centered on five pillars: cut costs and focus on topline growth (through new sales, marketing, and portfolio strategies); redesign human resources (to better identity next-generation management candidates and retain critical talent); manage change; monitor progress; and—crucially—make performance visible, identifying the goals each business unit was responsible for meeting. Within six months, the telco was profitable—and better positioned for growth.
Patrick Forth, senior advisor, explains how you can successfully transform your organization.
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Overall, the telecom industry’s efforts to boost its sustainability is stalling. We outline steps telcos can take to get back on track with this critical goal.
Developing a private telco cloud was once an easy call. But as hyperscaler offerings evolve and in-house efforts bog down, a public-private mix can offer a best-of-both-worlds solution.
Telcos’ five-year performance record in terms of total shareholder return and value creation is below average—but an analysis of the top-ranked players shows how companies can overcome the industry’s challenges.
Most transformations disappoint. By avoiding five early mistakes, telcos can start on the right foot—and stick the landing.
