HFS Horizons: Telecom Service Providers, 2025

HFS refers to these three factors as its strategic telecommunication services framework. Once these frameworks, in whole or in part, are applied to their strategy, more tactical aspects of telecommunications services can be addressed. HFS believes that for services firms to succeed in this changing market, they must focus on the following tactical components of a telecommunications firm’s offerings:

1. Network and infrastructure services: Delivering the physical infrastructure needed to facilitate data, voice, and video communications. We view the enablement of 5G services as crucial from a technology standpoint and are interested in how IT services firms link this technology to value creation.
2. Service delivery capabilities: Managing, orchestrating, provisioning, and enhancing how customers can use their networks and services for public and private business needs.
3. Support go-to-market efforts: Providing or provisioning solutions that support sales, marketing, and operations to develop activities, products, or innovations that drive revenue growth from the markets that telecommunications firms serve.
4. Collection and billing: Facilitating the adoption of solutions, enabling firms to monitor, bill, and collect fees for services rendered under the B2B and B2C agreements they have with customers.
5. Customer experience: Delivering services and solutions, from call centers to customer loyalty programs, that can retain and grow a telco’s customer install base.
6. Newco innovation: Determining new strategic bets needed to create new business models that can reinvigorate the traditional telco business and their ability to deliver value-added services to the core markets where they compete.

The purpose of this study is not to research the outsourcing of back-office applications (ERP, SCM, etc.) or labor arbitrage offerings unless these are directly linked to these value-capture activities. Rather, by focusing on applying solutions for value creation, we hope our insights can foster partnerships that drive business outcomes aligned with overcoming regulatory, industry, and growth challenges. Business leaders should leverage this study to understand the core competencies of the 20 firms we interviewed as part of this study. We remind our readers that understanding their needs, maturity, and current relationship should add to the qualification of any services provider mentioned. This ranking should further inform existing and new relationships.