Service provider industry girds for more mergers, heightened competition
THERE is no such thing as “going solo” in business, especially in the ever frenetic and fastpaced industry of service providers and telecommunications.
In the past few years, service providers have felt vulnerable, standing alone against new competitors coming to eat their lunch.
As a result, many operators are searching for ways to realize the value of mergers and acquisitions to rationalize their business, consolidate their networks, integrate their offerings and better prepare
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FPLA marks 2nd year
for the competition.
Even the expected trends in 2014 are all about “two is better than one.”
According to Michael Harris, market insight and strategy director at Amdocs—provider of customer experience systems and services—the wave of consolidation will continue into 2014 across regions.
Pressure from market saturation, increased competition, the search for new growth engines and economic conditions are driving service providers to rationalize their business and to THE FIRST Pacific Leadership Academy (FPLA)—the dedicated corporate university of the First Pacific Group of Companies—took significant steps that challenged and surpassed commonplace industry practices on leadership succession and management in its first two years. FPLA provides custom-designed leadership and management programsmainly to the First Pacific Group and to a large base of clients that include top regional private local and foreign corporations, the national and local government, and nongovernment organizations. Manned by seasoned leadership trainors, HR practitioners, partners in organizational development, FPLA sees no stop in the continuous evolution of this institute for leadership and innovation. “Moving forward to 2014 and beyond, we look forward to achieve many more monumental feats for FPLA and the First Pacific Group. These are all for nation building. Needless to say, the positive impacts are sweet victories that are worth the effort and the wait, and this only encourages us to raise the bar higher and find innovative ways to develop more thought leaders for our nation,” says Roy Agustin K. Evalle, general manager for Leadership Succession and Development for the First Pacific Group and FPLA executive director, “The best is yet to come for FPLA.”
CTBC donates P15M
CTBC Bank (Philippines) Corp. (formerly Chinatrust Philippines) said that its Taiwanbased parent company, CTBC Financial Holding Co., Ltd., will release the equivalent of about P15 million to help rehabilitate areas severely affected by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (Haiyan). The donation will be coursed through CTBC Bank Philippines for postdisaster reconstruction of schools and the purchase of educational supplies, among others, in keeping with its thrust to uphold the humanitarian spirit and in recognition of the close ties between the people of Taiwan and the Philippines. "We are thankful for our parent holding company’s gesture of solidarity and support to the victims of Typhoon Yolanda. The funds provided will further complement the initiatives undertaken by our own employees intended for disaster relief operations,” Mark Chen, president and Chief Executive Officer, said. “We have been strongly advocating programs on education, and the reconstruction of schools will not only allow students to return to their studies sooner, but will also help uplift the overallmorale of the communities,” Chen added. consolidate, he said.
Another trend to watch out for is “Big Data.”
Defined as “data that exceed the capacity or capability of current or conventional methods and systems,” big data will play a role in 2014 with service providers shifting toward realizing its value and using it to help with internal and external datamonetization.
This will also allow for a more seamless customer experience where consumers can expect a more personalized service such as sending proactive alerts to customers when they’re reaching data limits or offering deals by partnering with their favorite retailer.
Networks will still be a huge player in 2014. Service providers will make the shift from LTE rollouts tomonetizing and optimizing their major network investments.
They will look to combine efficient deployment with innovative pricing strategies and a rich portfolio of services.
This was something seen in 2013 with Vodafone offering access to Sky Sports TV or Spotify Premium.
Service providers will focus more on deployments of small cells, WiFi offload and leveraging SON (self-optimizing network) technologies to optimizing their network investments.
Finally, 5G is the new 4G. 4G/LTE was successfully rolled out in many countries in 2013 and will continue its rapid growth in 2014.
Service providers are focusing on optimization and monetization of their new networks as the development of a standard for 5G is heating up-trials have already started.
Other growth areas and trends include omni-channel experience, growth of wearable devices, mobile financial services, SMB and enterprise, next generation TV experience and virtualization.
Harris concluded that there would be great opportunities in 2014 and there would be plenty of mergers and acquisitions in the new year as the industry would continue to evolve and service providers consolidate to embrace new challenges.
Be ready for an exciting year ahead.