The first step to selling, cross-selling and up-selling service solutions
The first step to selling, cross-selling and up-selling service solutions is to expand the catalog offering and integrate more third-party solutions productivity, cybersecurity, collaboration, and so on).
However, managing an expanded portfolio manually drains time and increases costs.
To achieve true scalability, telcos must create a system that eliminates complexity through end-to-end automation of all ordering fulfillment and billing of subscriptions with global software vendors.
Each vendor requires a dedicated integration, because every subscription model is different, and this becomes t
he Achilles heel of the process. Time to market for each new vendor in the catalog is simply too slow.
It’s usually after considerable time, effort and investment when they realize that their homegrown development initiatives are not fit for the intended purpose so they have to abandon them in favor of a specialized SaaS/ IaaS distribution platform.
The next step is to create and publish this catalog, which customers of branches in different locations can use as a self-service storefront.
By using hyperscalable XaaS marketplaces, adding solutions to your catalog do not result in increased overhead costs. Welcome to business scalability. In either case, a global self-service marketplace platform automates all ordering, fulfilment, and billing processes.
A unified view and data integration improve visibility and workflows as well.
Local subsidiaries are then able to manage their quotes and regional catalogs and curate location-specific listings while the service provision is handled centrally.
Scaling these processes with digitisation is critical to reduce costs and free up resources.
The third step is for Telcos, reinvented as DSPs, to start using more sophisticated, strategic sales and marketing techniques like product bundling, to increase ARPU.
In practice, this means offering all-inclusive contracts to their customers in the form of cybersecurity, productivity, collaboration or networking packages.
A good example is Telefonica Tech, who offers a CyberSecurity package, which includes a physical firewall, SaaS licenses and professional setup services, all available to order through their marketplace as a single solution and delivered at a monthly fee.
What is the important outcome of offering these bundles? It's that they significantly simplify their SMB customers’ operations, while increasing stickiness and ARPU.
Moreover, the deeper telcos get into complex automation, the more personalization they will be able to offer through the automated deployment of packages, such as a complete Workplace as a Service.
The final step is hybrid cloud solutions.
75% of enterprise customers using IaaS will move to a multi-cloud strategy by the end of the year.
Gartner: Comparing Multi-cloud Management and Governance Approaches
That means, DSPs must focus on a hybrid cloud approach by developing the necessary tech infrastructure. Multi-cloud orchestration enables fulfillment and deployment of complete hybrid cloud solutions.
Cutting-edge telcos are now experimenting with complex solutions involving automated application deployment. As an example, we’ve seen Website- as-a-Service offerings, where a fully automated web server cloud instance is deployed using scripts and is ready to be used by the SMB in a matter of minutes, for a monthly fee.
Holistic multi-cloud solutions that can give each customer the desired cloud service package will keep evolving over the next couple of years.