The results show that over three-quarters of respondents (79%) are dissatisfied in some way with their current IT systems. This legacy infrastructure is obviously holding them back from effectively selling new products as the majority (82%) say they cannot easily bundle across all products and services – a major disadvantage in such a competitive and fast-moving marketplace.
When asked which technology will most impact their business in 2015 the answers spanned a range with no one clear winner. The most popular answer was the cloud (29%) followed by digital services (21%), whereas the Internet of Things and wearable technology only scored 13% and 6% respectively. Big data was cited by only 10%.
“According to Ovum, the telecommunications sector will be one of the top industries for IT spending over the next 12 – 18 months. But the challenge for the vast majority of Communication Service Providers globally is that their current systems are not built to deliver future success. With a number of technologies impacting their company in 2015 their commercial success will be dependent upon how they sell and deliver those new technologies to customers. The numbers are clear; 79% of communication provider decision-makers admit their systems are holding them back when selling new products and 82% acknowledge they are limited in how they can bundle their products and services,” says Richard Britton, CEO, CloudSense.
“47% of our survey respondents say that ‘winning new business’ will be a key challenge for 2015, closely followed by 46% saying ‘reducing operational overheads’. However, it is impossible to increase new business whilst reducing costs without a significant change in approach. Continuing to rely on ageing systems which undermine the order to cash journey impacts revenue, costs and customer experience.”
The survey showed that a vast range of issues continue to impact the customer journey negatively. For example, 35% were concerned that their customers still had a different experience depending on channel. The next two most significant concerns for businesses were the continuing use of manual processes (highlighted by 31%) and the fact that order capture and management systems are not fast enough to change, leading to increased time to market for new products or services (30%).