The study revealed that 74 percent of CEOs of the most successful telecommunications companies are convinced that partnering with large webscale companies, including the cloud hyperscale companies, will be crucial for the strategic interests of these companies.

More than half of the respondents in this study believe that leading companies need to implement artificial intelligence (AI) and automation technologies, as well as strategic cloud platforms blending a diverse partner ecosystem.

Although the process of introducing 5G edge technologies can be costly, 91 percent of leaders in the telecommunications sector expect to outperform their current financial results in the next five years precisely as a result of using these technologies. By comparison, only 54 percent of the remaining respondents believe the same. Moreover, the race to transform telecommunications networks into software platforms continues to accelerate.

Therefore, one of the conclusions of the IBM study is that telecoms must become platforms that will take full advantage of Edge and 5G in order to operate successfully. Likewise, automation of telecommunications networks plays an important role in the transformation of telecommunications networks, and 79 percent of high-performing CSPs say they need to automate network infrastructure, operations, and functionality. It is also important that service providers give companies direct access to all automation options, while 61 percent believe that the same should be extended to partner ecosystems.

The study shows that 71 percent of telecommunications operators estimate that cloud computing will become the technology that will be the basis for achieving new results in the next few years, and 61 percent believe that this is the case with 5G as well. In this context, 60 percent of telco CEOs surveyed see strengthening data security and privacy as important to their customers and a way to build customer experience and trust over the next two to three years.

“The global trend we see in telecommunications shows that executives of telecommunications companies are embracing open hybrid cloud platforms that can support an increasingly diverse and flexible partner ecosystem,” noted Tomislav Balun, Country Leader at IBM Croatia, adding that IBM works with telecoms worldwide support them in transforming business processes and infrastructure, building innovation and customer experience in the 5G era.

The recent IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) study polled 500 telecom executives in 21 countries.