The use of innovation and intrapreneurship techniques at telecommunication providers while competing with Over the Top service providers

Abstract

The telecommunication industry especially in Europe has suffered significant downfall in the past five years. Two of the main reasons being, corporate complacency associated with great focus on organic growth and core services, and the emergence of Over The Top players that have introduced new business models. In particular, OTTs take advantage of the mobile and fixed networks, built by the traditional telecommunication providers, to offer all of their IP-based services on top of the internet connectivity. It has been evaluated that the telecommunications industry for the period between 2012 and 2018 would lose $386 billion of revenues to all IP-based services, from mobile applications for voice/video/messaging over IP such as WhatsApp and Skype to entertainment on demand and pay-tv offered by Netflix and Amazon. Hence, when missing corporate foresight and long-term strategy in order to sustain corporate growth it is difficult to compete and remain relevant as an organization over the decays ahead. The leaders on the executive level need to steer their organization towards building diverse knowledge by promoting exploration activities supported by lean and streamlined internal product development processes and procedures. In addition, large organizations need to evaluate the potential and the benefits of new ideas and business opportunities from external sources. Most often working with external party on new product or service provides faster time to market and lower risk of entering new market. Therefore, establishing innovation and entrepreneurial environment could help telecoms build corporate value and growth perspectives in the long-term. Amazon Inc. the e-commerce leader is one of the great examples for how to set-up effective long-term corporate strategy. In particular, strategy designed to produce results in adjacent and distant sectors compared to its core industry of operations. Further, making decisions to explore such new opportunities has to be done with the full understanding that some new business models require time to produce results and become viable.