That's according to Julian Watson, principal analysist, wholesale telecoms at Omdia, who was speaking the BT Partner Plus event held in Birmingham on 28th February.
Watson said that the new opportunity had arisen as a direct result of the move to more flexible working, driven by the need to attract and retain the best talent.
Added to that, he said, was the shift from the location of where someone works to how they work, as evidenced by the 40 per cent of respondents who are hybrid workers (versus 33 percent tenant and 27 per cent fully mobile), as per Omdia's annual global enterprise IT survey, which examines their key challenges, priorities and outlook on technology investment.
Watson said that enterprises had become increasingly more ambitious about the outcomes they want to achieve from their technology. He added that this was reflected in the seismic mindset shift from viewing technology investment as a cost base to a business and revenue driver, and the fact customers are now demanding more from their providers, particularly in terms of ease of doing business, additional portals and relationship building.
The rise of AI and IoT
Another key driver behind this shift has been the adoption of AI and IoT, said Watson, particularly in the last couple of years. In that vein, he said, around 50 per cent of UK enterprises surveyed were activity operating these technologies.
"There has been a big shift from the implementation of IoT to save costs, such as truck roll and energy consumption, to driving better outcomes around the likes of improved customer retention and satisfaction, and improved worker and facilities safety," said Watson. "In terms of AI, customers are also increasingly looking for tools such as predictive analytics (for preventative maintenance, credit scoring and understanding shopper behaviour)."
Given that 5G is reasonably well established, Watson, said that it was surprising 5G wasn’t such a priority for enterprises. Reflecting this, only 33 per cent of enterprises said that they had adopted the technology to improve connectivity, however, those who had were thinking about it more strategically than they were a couple of years ago, with a greater focus on the tangible outcomes investment in this area can deliver, such as superior application performance for both internal and customer applications, as well as supporting new ways of working.
Top of mind for enterprises in terms of challenges in 2024, said Watson, was increasing operating efficiency. That was inextricably linked to the current inflationary environment, he said.
"While enterprises are still very price conscious, what they want, above all, is price predictability and transparency," said Watson. "They also want greater flexibility within the contracts, for example, the ability to add or remove services, and make changes without incurring a financial penalty is key."
Improving customer outcomes
Second on the list of issues they face, said Watson, was improving customer experience. Another problem that has been prevalent for the last few years, he said, was managing security, identity and privacy, particularly given the growing awareness among business of the impact of cybersecurity incidents and breaches, and the inadequacy of protection in terms of business reputation and, ultimately, financial performance.
"As channel partners and service providers, it’s vital to embed what you’re doing around security within your processes and products," said Watson. "That’s what will most resonate in your new customer conversations."
He added: "Irrespective of the size of the business, having robust, secure connectivity is foundational to what an enterprise does, whether it be accessing cloud-based resources and services, communicating or collaborating with colleagues, or enabling digital transactions. With an overall UK enterprise network services market worth about £8.6 billion in 2024 and forecast to grow to around £9.2 billion by 2028, there’s a huge opportunity to serve these kind of businesses – particularly in terms of educating them on the uses of mobile."
With regards to what enterprises most value from their connectivity partners, Watson said that operational excellence ranked highest, especially around delivery lead and restoration times, and how quickly new products such as broadband and ethernet can be established (46 per cent). Second only to that, he said, was breadth of services offered (42 per cent), closely followed by quality of digital tools, such as portals and APIs (36 per cent).
"Innovation also features highly on the list for corporate roles," said Watson. "So, the ability to demonstrate innovation through the likes of new products and service features, and flexibility with pricing models is going to resonate greatly with the prospects that you speak to.
"We are seeing a shift in business model among both service providers and enterprises themselves to an as a service model. Partly this is driven by monetisation, but it’s also about providing support across the customer journey from lead discussions through to post sign-up – this is where customers' technical or commercial needs may change or you need to help them through a technology migration such as the PSTN shutdown next year, but also longer term with the shutdown of 2G and 3G networks."