28 June 2019

Angus Ward

A new study of enterprises’ attitudes to purchasing IT services by BearingPoint//Beyond has found that unless telecom firms radically change their approach and become more open, innovative and collaborative they will miss out on a multi-billion dollar revenue opportunity.

It "validates" the multi-trillion-dollar enterprise ICT sales opportunity facing communication service providers (CSPs).

The study, which surveyed 250 decision makers in enterprises spanning Europe, Asia and the USA, found that 97% of businesses were willing to purchase ICT services from them.

It also investigated the approach and changes 100 CSPs are making to address this massive opportunity with their enterprise customers. The BearingPoint//Beyond’s study casts doubt on operators’ readiness and willingness to act on the enterprise opportunity.

“Enterprise IT spending is huge, growing fast, and one of the last untapped growth engines for CSPs in saturated markets. Enterprise will be pivotal to 5G and IoT," said Angus Ward, chief executive officer at BearingPoint//Beyond. "The research makes for positive reading in the main – there is an obvious opportunity for CSPs to capitalise on - but there are obstacles they must overcome. Among them, they must prioritize investment in enterprise, junk overly bureaucratic legacy processes and policies that slow them down and commit to understanding and engaging with enterprise customers differently. Critically, CSPs must act quickly – if not, they stand to lose out to more agile and open competitors.”