Digital Infrastructure: Opportunities and Challenges for the Telecom Industry after the Coronation Crisis

In the past few weeks, there has been little demand for services from telecommunications providers. Store doors remain closed, hotel beds are empty, theater and movie theater seats are folded, telephone lines are lit, and online stores are scrapped. Now even grandparents can have video conferences. And net. Is it possible to use Telkos? Sebastian Spicker, Director of Sales, ServiceNow Commercial Service Provider, I have other ideas.

Where are the telecom companies and Internet providers in the Covid 19 pandemic?

Sebastian Spicker: First, we can say that telecommunications providers have done a good job in the past few weeks. Without a stable supply of internet and telephone connections, the closure of Covid-19 will certainly not be so smooth.

So is everything well with the telecommunications provider?

Sebastian Spicker: Covid-19 just made some old problems clearer. Example: Supply to rural areas. Our team itself is affected. Some employees live farther away. Calling the company network in the morning is already a challenge.

In addition, there is almost no service automation in this field. Changing connections, reconnecting, correcting failures, all of which are still highly manual. Document cards and Excel lists may replace the end-to-end digitization of thousands of employees. The result may be a connection problem for weeks. From today’s perspective, this means: no home office, no home education, and no home entertainment. No provider can seriously want or just accept it.

From your point of view, has the telecom company given up the huge automation potential?

Sebastian Spicker: Anyone who fundamentally makes money online must work hard to ensure that they work as smoothly and flexibly as possible. Through end-to-end digitization, not only can orders be processed faster. They can also aggregate the required data to understand the true needs of customers. This is the premise to support them with meaningful new services.

This is where the third theme comes into play: the individual company domains have never been truly integrated into Telkos. Using our “platform platform” method, you can connect established systems without having to completely replace them. This will be a big step towards end-to-end digitization. In order to make the data more or less accessible in the established organizational structure, a very large conversion process is required. But this is exactly what the provider really needs to bring its customers back to the scene.

Therefore, telecommunications companies should not only guarantee highly automated, high-performance data connections…

Sebastian Spicker: The content pipeline (that is, the backlog of processes) must be as automated as possible-process automation is the core business of ServiceNow.

In addition, there is intelligent processing of merged data. The data pool of the Internet of Things is huge. The service opportunities based on this are equally huge. Every emergency call chip in a modern car communicates with a central server, and the tracking of packages and letters generates a lot of data. Or imagine how many different assets a German transport and logistics group manages alone, from renting bicycles to employee laptops to trains.

Another huge growth market is the use of lockers. Most of them are now controlled by computers. This means that they no longer only apply to suitcases. You can also deliver the package there or leave the rental car key. The customer controls the process through the application. If you want, the system behind it is a CRM system suitable for various commodities. All of these have nothing to do with the crisis, but the most important thing is the opportunity.

Isn’t Covid-19 a crisis for you, but a beginning?

Sebastian Spicker: For example, I can fully understand that workers with children will feel annoyed after two and three contacts for several weeks. If sales fell overnight, then this would not only be an economic disaster, there is no doubt.

On the other hand, we rarely see the benefits of digitization clearly. We should take it seriously and expand it further. Anyone who has established a solid digital structure and processes today will be confident to grasp the best prerequisites for the next similar crisis.

How does ServiceNow help the telecommunications industry in this regard?

Sebastian Spicker: Complex work processes are ubiquitous in the telecommunications industry. With the help of 5G, the industry is facing new challenges as well as huge opportunities. Therefore, we provide new industry-specific solutions that enable the company to meet growing customer requirements and provide new services and technologies without losing control of cost management.

Telecommunications service management and telecommunications network performance management solutions combine customer service and network operations, including proactive customer service and automatic service assurance. This will create new workflows that are not only the basis for continuous digital transformation, but also greatly improve the employee and customer experience. The solution is based on our Now Platform^® And will be fully listed later this year.