The market for fixed and mobile voice services in the economically developed world is nearly saturated. Revenue growth is flat to negative, seriously impacting service provider (SP) profits. Tough economic times only amplify this situation. To maneuver in this challenging business climate, SPs must reinvent their business models by offering new, profitable, next-generation managed services such as web-based video conferencing and collaboration, along with other unified communications solutions. These new services can help SPs realize revenues incremental to those from network-based legacy services such as access and transport, and offer the potential for rapid return on investment.
Next-generation managed services provide attractive opportunities for SPs because they can be integrated into their current product and services portfolios. Not only will these services enhance SPs’ offerings—they will also generate pull-through revenue by combining existing capabilities such as audio with, for example, web-based collaboration.
The market for next-generation managed services is growing fast—the compound annual growth rates (CAGR) of web-based video conferencing and collaboration segments in the United States and Europe are forecast to reach 19 percent and 15 percent, respectively, by 2015. By adding next-generation managed services to their existing portfolios, SPs can provide customers with a rich collaboration environment that includes content sharing, instant messaging, and webcam video—all in a single communications session.
Service providers face a number of challenges in designing and bringing next-generation managed services to market and providing after-sales support. This Point of View from the Cisco® Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) examines these challenges and illustrates how one company—Vodafone—is successfully deploying next-generation managed services via an innovative partner ecosystem model that helps SPs streamline and improve their operations processes, deploy new services quickly and effectively, and reduce costs.
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