Enterprise architecture is all about uniting the disparate parts of your business, just as the communication industry brings the world together. Discover how EA empowers telcos and CSPs to embrace the future.
Enterprise architecture is the guide book to completing successful, repeatable business transformations. It's of particular importance to telecommunications companies (telcos) and communications service providers (CSPs), as their industry, perhaps more than any other, needs to constantly evolve to meet the needs of its customers and the progress of technology.
Not only is business transformation a challenge for telcos jumping from generation to generation of communications technology, it also has a tendency to leave a mess in the process. Transforming so quickly without detailed oversight of your application portfolio and IT landscape can leave you wasting money on legacy services and struggling with too much complexity.
Thankfully, there's an established solution to powering business transformation without the wastage. Investing in enterprise architecture enables telcos to drive their business into the future and keep it efficient, lean, and agile.
To find out more about how SAP LeanIX Enterprise Architecture can transform the telco industry, book a demo:
From Telephones Exchanges To Neural Networks
Enterprise architecture has fundamental connections to the communications industry. The discipline of EA developed alongside enterprise communications, only later coming to deal with the new era of digital technologies.
When Alexander Graham Bell invented the first communications device, the telephone, he couldn't have foreseen that he would be bringing about a new age in human history, and particularly a revolution for business. The first phones merely connected two different handsets, so were initially used as an intercom between business owners' homes and offices.
Soon, organizations had vast interconnected telephone networks that allowed them to operate across the world in real time. Making sure these networks were aligned with and acting in support of your physical operations became a key priority, and the term "enterprise architecture" was coined.
Nowadays, enterprise architecture is concerned with your software applications, rather than your enterprise telephony. However, the priority remains to enhance strategic alignment and ensure that all the disparate parts of a global business are communicating and working together.
As we move beyond even digital technology to a point where our enterprise systems are thinking for themselves with advanced artificial intelligence (AI), it's becoming more important than ever that they're aligned with our operations. That's why enterprise architecture is coming back into the limelight and becoming a vital discipline for communications service providers (CSPs), particularly when the market is calling on them to change.
Business Transformation For Telecommunications
Enterprise architecture is vital for enabling business transformation and that's of particular concern for telecommunications companies (telcos) and communications service providers (CSPs). From EY to Deloitte, a variety of analysts have highlighted the need for telcos to transform their operations to adapt to the modern market.
After all, who uses the telephone anymore? Even the older generation are more likely to set up a Zoom call, or Facetime or Whatsapp video, rather than use phone service.
CSPs are, therefore, increasingly moving into offering internet and technology services. Yet, these spaces are already occupied by organizations that are already established in offering these services.
The TelCo Of The Future
As landlines and cell phone service dies out, the telecommunications company (telco) of the future will need to specialize in new offerings:
- Latest-generation mobile internet for all their mobile and home devices
- Mobile internet, and video and voice-over-internet-protocol (VOIP)
- Reliable home internet suitable for remote working
- Cloud storage
- Artificial intelligence (AI) support
- Cyber security
- Payment services
These items and other new functionalities are what people use their phones and home communication devices for nowadays. Yet, it's Google and Apple that are providing most of these options, from Facetime to Gemini, Google Drive to Apple Pay.
As communication service users stop making phone calls in favor of Zoom calls, telecom services are becoming an expensive necessity they need to pay for to access Google and Apple services, rather than a service in themselves. Unless CSPs expand their range of services, they face a war of attrition to offer the fastest speed at the lowest cost to customers that wish they didn't have to pay them.
Offering that fastest speed will also require transformation. The evolution of telco services isn't gradual, and instead jumps forward from 3G to 4G to 5G.
This often leads to communications service providers (CSPs) implementing technology innovations to keep up with their customers' needs that quickly go out of fashion, like pagers and home VOIP phones. It's far too easy for CSPs to then forget to decommission this technology, leaving it draining costs and adding unnecessary complexity to their organization.
The winning companies will be the ones that keep up with each generational jump, removing outdated technology as soon as it stops being needed, without that work being so costly that they have to drive up prices to balance their books. Fast, efficient, regular transformation is, therefore, an essential part of any CSP's operations.
The Two Sides Of Business Transformation
As we explained above, enterprise architecture was once about organizing your business communications. Just as telecommunications companies (telcos) have had to evolve from offering phone services to providing digital services, EA has evolved to support technology architecture on two fronts:
Enterprise Architecture For App Portfolio Management
Enterprise architecture's primary function nowadays is application portfolio management. The average large organization has more than 650 software applications, and oversight of them provides a clear benefit.
It's common for our customers starting out with app portfolio management to find that they're paying for applications they don't need. Detailed oversight of this will tell you whether you should encourage your employees to leverage these applications, or whether you can cancel the contract and save the money.
Not to mention, with the rise of easy-access software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, organizations often don't know what apps their employees are leveraging in their work. This so-called Shadow IT issue has been well documented.
On a more positive note, oversight of your application portfolio can also show you where the gaps are. Leveraging the right application in the right place will supercharge your productivity and reduce resource use.
Enterprise Architecture For Technology Risk Management
Enterprise architecture isn't just about the ephemeral realm of software applications, however. It also serves to enhance your use of physical hardware. [p]Leveraging information within your configuration management database (CMDB), enterprise architecture can identify where you're running hardware you don't need to. It will then help you form the most-optimized version of your hardware landscape to best support your operations at the lowest cost.
This will also ensure your technology is complying with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) regulation by keeping its electricity use in check. As a bonus, reduced electricity consumption will also cut your costs.
To find out more about cutting your technology obsolescence risk by removing legacy hardware, take our test to see how you need to proceed:
Free Poster: Protect Your Organization From Technology Obsolescence Risk
Re-Architecting Telecommunications With SAP LeanIX
Enterprise architecture is a cheat code to empower telecommunications company (telco) and communications service provider (CSP) business transformations. Yet, just as the telecoms industry has moved from analogue to digital, enterprise architecture now needs digital tools to expand its scale.
SAP LeanIX was designed to digitize the process of enterprise architecture in order to democratize EA and make it as ubiquitous a workplace capability as budgeting or giving presentations. With SAP LeanIX, enterprise architects can get everyone in their organization involved in business transformation, and inspire your telecommunications business to thrive.
To find out more about what SAP LeanIX can do to drive telco transformation, book a demo:
