Network sharing, cloudification and CVM: The path forward for telcos in Bangladesh
While the next decade looks promising for the telecom operators in Bangladesh, an unfavourable economic climate and strategic choices may also weigh heavily on their performance levels
The telecom industry plays a pivotal role in realising our Digital Bangladesh objectives. During the onslaught of an unprecedented crisis ushered in by the pandemic, they bolstered society by meeting our surging connectivity needs.
While the next decade looks promising for the telecom operators in our country, an unfavourable economic climate and strategic choices deeply rooted in orthodoxies that inform this industry's outlook, may also weigh heavily on their performance levels.
There is an irrevocable need to rethink and reshift the road map for future success. Hence, based on a myriad of insights produced by McKinsey & Company, we suggest a few growth imperatives. These would be highly applicable in effecting fundamental changes, leading to sustained developments.
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Network sharing can be an essential source of substantial cost savings while increasing coverage and deployment time. Such structural changes are designed to make the carriers' asset-light, and drive improvements in capital allocation.
Operators can optimise their rural network spending, and manoeuvre their multiple business models to coexist, by facilitating the demand for more-active network sharing. While being a ubiquitous model across European markets, it is yet to be implemented into the mainstream of the telecommunications sector in Bangladesh.
Two operators engaging in network sharing can significantly enhance the speed at which new technology is rolled out. This is supported by findings from McKinsey highlighting that operators obtain cost reductions of approximately 30-35% through actively sharing networks.
Currently, Robi is the frontrunner in this arena, sharing 30% of its existing towers with other companies and are on the verge of selling off all its towers.
Running network functions on cloud infrastructure allows operators to implement a "pay as you grow" model, that makes room for scalability with business growth, while cutting down on upfront hardware expenses. With capacity being adjusted accordingly, they can streamline infrastructure management, operational costs and the complications associated with site-level permanent provisioning of capacity only essential for certain peak occasions.
In addition, network softwarisation accelerates innovation and agility, bringing with it increasing operational advantages such as flexibility in resource scalability and usage.
Cloudification, in tandem with softwarisation, will help to uncover new areas of efficiency and boost financial performance, much needed for an industry which has been generating dismal ROI in the past few years, even more so in the wake of the pandemic.
Investing in 5G core allows operators to capture value in the B2C marketplace. Instead of offering just connectivity, strategising ways to sell 5G-enabled customer-specific experiences will yield additional revenue streams.
5G-driven products and services that telcos can monetise - based on how effectively they target certain portions of the population - could take the shape of low-latency multiplayer gaming, fixed wireless access hybrid packages and smart stadiums, to name a few.
Unleashing the potential of 5G into selling business-class plans which provide all-time premium network conditions paves the way for pay-per-use 5G. Customers can be charged extra for stronger connectivity to stream a video, play an interactive game or make an important phone call.
The prospect of increasing average revenue per user through this channel appears high as it not only tackles frequent network congestion, but also allows for the monetisation of premium connectivity. This has experienced an upward trend in demand, with people today embracing the virtual world from every possible dimension more than ever before.
Personalisation at the heart of customer value management (CVM) will be integral to beating the competition and enhancing profitability. Based on analytics-driven CVM strategies, operators can classify customers according to a plethora of micro-segments, determined by data which can be effectively translated into campaigns that lead the way for highly curated services.
The telcos driving the current landscape can take a page from an Eastern European counterpart which structured a next-best-action churn model in which each customer's probability to switch was given several different scores. Each score is attributed to a reason for churn, such as price or weak network performance.
Such a granular view allowed the operator to articulate actionable campaigns which not only tackled issues that were most likely to result in specific segments of customers switching to a new provider, but also ascertain the most appropriate channel and timing of the outreach.
This approach caused the operator's revenue through CVM to triple in two years, hence setting a strong example of additional value creation from precisely understanding an abundance of data telcos usually have access to. Directing resources towards ventures that transcend connectivity is key to diversifying and restoring growth.
Today, access to an extraordinary talent pool combined with an established customer base should catalyse the process of building non-core businesses for telco operators. Ecosystem and marketplace businesses are two archetypes that will extend their technological capabilities and reinforce primary drivers of core earnings.
A Turkish telco produced revenues greater than USD 150 million through its portfolio of digital service businesses in 2021. Grameenphone, the market leader in mobile telecommunications in Bangladesh, has started to significantly enhance its competitive advantage by launching Cloud Store, an online platform offering various software applications and services to enterprise clients such as the 450,000 SMEs attempting to digitise management systems.
There is an expectation of ever-growing demand for data services. Hence industry players, as they stand at a critical juncture, should be able to envisage and integrate the aforementioned propositions, which underscores the notion that those forging ahead with a bold approach towards transformation, not to mention the speed and clarity of their actions, will be shaping the telco landscape of tomorrow.
Mehnaz Tabassum Khaleel is pursuing postgraduate studies at the Queen Mary University of London. Armaan Shams Khaleel is A Levels student in Sunbeams.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
