With telecommunications trends shifting faster than the sands of the Sahara, there are some industry essentials to keep on top of that could determine your organization’s very survival. Consider the following cases of these two fictional telecom companies.
San Antonio-based Legacy Telecom was contracted to transform a sprawling multi-campus university system’s old line-based phone system into a sleek, 21st-century wireless system run from a central command facility. The completed modernized telecommunications system would help not just with campus calls but in logging student safety, employee contact, and physical plant integrity. Meanwhile, another company, Wichita-based AmeriSpeed Telecom, was contracted to do similar work on four college campuses in Paraguay.
Legacy Telecom shipped in seasoned technicians from the United States who had limited experience on overseas deployments. Legacy technicians were quickly ensnared and tripped up by a variety of local rules, regulations, and cultural sensibilities. Within weeks, they had to pull their technicians out, and the project was scrapped entirely. Legacy had to report a significant Q2 loss.
Meanwhile, AmeriSpeed sent a couple of senior engineers to Paraguay and relied on local IT specialists for the rest. They completed the country’s regulatory paperwork with ease, procured the proper supplies, and seamlessly finished the job ahead of the promised schedule.
Why did one company fail and the other succeed on such strikingly similar projects?
Legacy approached the job in Nigeria like they would the same job in the United States. They had a set rule book they followed and decided to sink or swim with it. They sank.
What works in Peoria doesn’t work in Paraguay.
Knowing this, AmeriSpeed approached the job in Paraguay differently. They built a remote team of installation engineers to support modern campus communications by techs in the field. They implemented installation guides and built tools to monitor and track installations. They used a local support team that helped maintain the client's schedule.
In other words, AmeriSpeed adapted to the local land, using local people combined with the latest knowledge. They were also able to have enough personnel to complete such a large job. That’s the recipe to succeed in today’s telecommunications industry.
Let’s break down some of the specifics that AmeriSpeed used to succeed and how you can apply them to your own business:
Scalability: Some projects require an army of qualified technicians to come in and get a project off the ground. Other, no less important issues, may require only a tech or two. You need to be able to muster the right size response to an issue. One size fits all no longer applies. A telecommunications partner needs to be able to offer services of all sizes to fit any situation. If you can’t do that, you risk being priced off a project or, conversely, not being able to offer enough resources. Scalability is not a black-and-white concept, but it’s something your business needs to be familiar with.
Go global, think local: The global economy presents endless opportunities, so to survive, you need to be thinking beyond your backyard. But you can’t just decide to do business in Macedonia or Australia without knowing the local lay of the land.
The right people: This ties into the above, but you can’t survive if you don’t have technicians that are not just highly trained in the latest industry advances. They also need to be “regulatory smart,” knowing the bureaucracy, which can vary from city to city, province to province, and capital to village. You need to tailor your talent to fit the situation.
Know your numbers: Use your own analytics to know whether you need to shore up your platform management or network onboarding. McKinsey reports that “a comprehensive, analytics-driven approach to base management can help telecom companies reduce churn by as much as 15 percent.”
Legacy Communications can afford to make mistakes — they are a fictional company. Yours is real, and you can’t. Following the above keys and partnering with the right on-the-ground entity to provide the locally tailored tech services you need can help you succeed like AmeriSpeed. Your success will be real.
