Leading study reveals top three priorities for CSP revenue growth and highlights partner ecosystems as key

In this video interview, Mike Barrell talks to Angus Ward, CEO Digital Business Platforms, at Digital Transformation World Nice, about partner ecosystems, following a released study from BearingPoint//Beyond.

Watch the full video below

Video overview

BearingPoint//Beyond undertook research encompassing 550 senior executive interviews across multiple industries in the US, Europe and Asia, focusing on the number one challenges CEOs face.

“If CSPs are to avoid commoditization, win new customers, grow revenue, grow dividends and grow share price, then they must adapt to digital far more quickly, and that means taking advantage of all the new technologies that are rolling through.”

Top three priorities for CSPs:

1. Be more systematic in the way they create new products and services, delivering those which are more sophisticated, more compelling and not so easy for competitors to copy
2. Retain customer relationships and prohibit OTT players from taking their customers away
3. Because few innovations these days are created solely in house, partner ecosystems have become critical

“Our research looks at this business model and then really drills down on partner ecosystems as a major theme within that.”

Top takeaways from the research

The top takeaway from the research was that CSPs really understand where they need to be. They realize that digital business models and more compelling products and services are critical. The issue is that there’s a gap opening between knowing what to do and actually doing it.

“Looking at the research 69% of CSPs put digital business models and new products and services as their number one priority. This proves their understanding. Half of respondents reported that partner ecosystems are a critical part of being able to do that.”

The research discovered that while 69% stated that products and services and digital business models were their number one priority, only 26% are actually following through and have new products and services in the pipeline. This compares to 34% across all industries.

Another challenge is that the top three types of players CSPs are partnering with currently are other CSPs, IT & Tech and Utilities. Where are the startups? Where are the digital players? CSPs are essentially partnering with companies who look exactly like themselves. Whereas if you look forward two years, the research is saying that they plan to evolve – that they see partnering opportunities opening up with manufacturing, transport and other sectors.

“Maybe it is moving in the right direction, there’s just a huge lag between the two.”

Why we’re not seeing more ecosystems

CSPs view three barriers stopping them from making this change – all of which have a technology element:

1. Limitations of the current complex IT landscape
2. Difficulties in extending the current technology to incorporate partner ecosystems
3. Digital introduces a new way of working, with a focus on experimenting – DevOps, continuous development and continuous deployment – CSPs are struggling to adapt

Of course some partner ecosystems do exist. In B2C you see it with media and content, and in enterprise it’s ITC. But for CSPs, they need to overcome these barriers to change before they can move forward.

How does BearingPoint help solve these challenges?

BearingPoint combines consulting with a major play in digital business platforms with our Infonova software, combing Open APIs, opensource and open architecture with our own proprietary components.

“We can really help companies the entire way through the cycle: set the digital ambition, innovate new products and services, build their partner ecosystems, and then with our technology really execute very quickly on that model.”