This study examines the growth opportunities for partner ecosystem management (PEM) and digital business solutions. It includes detailed company profiles of Beyond by BearingPoint, Netcracker, and Subex, the leading providers of PEM and digital business solutions. Discussion of important industry trends is included both within the profiles and elsewhere in this research.

The fifth generation of wireless technology (5G) represents a fundamental shift in communication network architectures that will accelerate revenue generation through innovative services facilitated through 5G-enabled smartphones, tablets, laptops, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. It will deliver a potent combination of network capabilities and flexible options for network deployments to improve the ability of communications service providers (CSPs) to deliver a customized and scalable wireless experience. 5G is the first generation of mobile technology where the revenue from enterprise or vertical-specific mobile and IoT deployments is expected to rival, and possibly even exceed, revenue from consumer mobile and IoT services. However, given the diversity of use cases required to effectively target different industry verticals with relevant, outcome-centric wireless enterprise solutions, it has become important for CSPs to nurture a partner ecosystem that can help them maximize the 5G opportunity by co-creating and offering vertical industry solutions.

Virtually every mobile and IoT data service today is a result of various entities contributing different technology components to compose a solution. As more of the mobile data value creation moves away from CSP environments to external entities, newer forms of relationships between CSPs and their vendor-partners will have to be defined. Frost & Sullivan is of the opinion that a digital platform business model for CSPs has a good chance of succeeding, particularly in the 5G era.

Author: Vikrant Gandhi