To thrive in new market realities, communications service providers must embrace human-centric customer service, enter adjacent verticals and monetize their data.

1. Cognizant 20-20 Insights | January 2018
Executive Summary
A decade ago, legacy communications service
providers (CSPs) owned both the medium (fiber,
copper and wireless) and consumer traffic, while
media companies owned content creation and
aggregation. Over time, technology and market
upheavals (digital convergence, bandwidth avail-
ability, market entry and industry consolidation
and vertical integration) have blurred those lines.
Fast forward to today, where new over the top
(OTT), digital and tech-based entrants own con-
tent as well as innovative and lucrative services,
relegating legacy CSPs to provisioning low-mar-
gin commoditized services (such as POTS, DSL,
etc.). This is a pivotal point for providers — they
must look outside of their traditional services and
products to achieve growth.
By applying the following concepts to their strate-
gic thinking, CSPs can better adapt to new market
realities and revive their flagging fortunes in the
years to come.
The Growth
Imperative: How
Communications
Service Providers
Can Get their
Mojo Back
To thrive in new market realities,
communications service providers
must embrace human-centric
customer service, enter adjacent
verticals and monetize their data.
COGNIZANT 20-20 INSIGHTS

2. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
The Growth Imperative: How Communications Service Providers Can Get their Mojo Back | 2
Embrace a human-centric approach to
customer service.
A logical first step is to relook at customers and
understand their needs in the backdrop of accel-
erating change. For years, industry experts have
emphasized a customer-centric approach, but
that has meant little more than rough, demog-
raphy-based segmentation models — from which
providers have responded by tailoring products
and services to those broad segments. However,
technology and availability of high-quality, gran-
ular demographic, behavioral and financial data
now allow for better hyper-personalization, not
just at the point of purchase as a prospect, but
across their entire journey as a customer. Pro-
viders can now look at customers as individual
human beings with emotions, wants and prefer-
ences — and personalize not only their offerings
but also the experiences they deliver to drive
customer growth, satisfaction and retention.
Venture into adjacent vertical segments.
Providers must assess opportunities and expand
into market spaces where they can leverage core
strengths, assets and investments — their net-
work reach, infrastructure, brand and customer
base. As an example, the proliferation of con-
nected devices and the Internet of Things (IoT)
has opened new avenues and opportunities for
providers to become more than mere enablers of
these technologies. Providers can use this oppor-
tunity to build upon other services and products
that can be applied for outreach in various ver-
tical markets. For example, collaboration with
technology companies and government can help
build and manage smart cities, and collaboration
with healthcare providers and device manufac-
turers can elevate healthcare to new levels.
Monetize data.
Data is the most valuable currency
in the digital economy. Providers
are in a unique position because
they have access to descriptive
customer data, such as demographics and loca-
tion, as well as utilization and behavior patterns.
Providers can use insights generated from anal-
ysis of customer data to build more appropriate
solutions for customers and to deliver better
customer service. Data and analytics can help
build a holistic view of a customer’s daily life,
which enables providers to personalize, cross-sell
and upsell new content features and services.
Insights generated from data analytics can also
spawn and enable entirely new business models.
This white paper dives deeper into these three
concepts to see how traditional video, Internet and
mobile service providers can make this transition.
Technology and availability of high-
quality, granular demographic, behavioral
and financial data now allow for better
hyper-personalization, not just at the
point of purchase as a prospect, but across
their entire journey as a customer.
KEY
DIMENSION 1
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DIMENSION
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3. The Growth Imperative: How Communications Service Providers Can Get their Mojo Back | 3
INDUSTRY BACKDROP
Incumbent providers of video, Internet and
mobile services face numerous business chal-
lenges such as commoditization, customer churn,
slow growth and shrinking profitability from tra-
ditional services. They also face challenges from
digital entrants and disruptors such as Google
and Amazon as well as startups, which are fun-
damentally altering how service providers build
and maintain long-term relationships with their
customers.
As a result, the communications industry is at
a crossroads — traditional video, Internet and
mobile service providers must proactively fend
off new competitors while they address new busi-
ness opportunities.
Given this, what can traditional communications
service providers do, not just to survive but also
to grow, reclaim and dominate the market? Can
they avoid being disrupted and disintermediated?
And can they position themselves for growth and
lead in the new digital era?
For long-term growth, providers must leverage
their two biggest assets — a large customer base
and connectivity backbone. The large customer
base provides access to customer data that can
help generate new revenue streams. Providers
must also take advantage of the infrastructure
that is in place for connectivity and develop and
deliver a portfolio of value-added services. An
example of such a service can be to allow for more
integration between all devices a customer owns
— like allowing a smart home assistant to talk to
the smart car and control all smart home settings.
KEY DIMENSIONS OF SUSTAINED
STRATEGIC GROWTH
We see three important dimensions that provid-
ers can undertake to rejuvenate their business.
Taking a Human-Centric Approach:
Simple, Intuitive, Personalized
Numerous studies have shown that customer
experience is one of the most important factors
in the success or failure of a business.
1
Providers
that can create a hassle-free, pleasant experi-
ence at every touchpoint are more likely to gain
long-term customer loyalty. A human-centric
approach to customer service focuses on putting
the customer at the center, delving deep into a
customer’s mind to understand her emotions,
needs, wants and perceptions.
It must start from the pre-purchase phase where
products and services are defined and created. It
must then continue to how and where products
are marketed and sold into after-sales support.
Product Definition & Development: Building
Infinite Flexibility
Most video, Internet and mobile providers offer
numerous traditional products and services.
Unfortunately, most are complex; customers typ-
ically have a difficult time determining the best
product that meets their needs. Often, customers
do not know the technology well enough to utilize
these products and services to the fullest extent.
This impacts not only product/service expan-
sion but also negatively impacts experiences as
customers perceive that they aren’t getting full
value for their time and money spent.
A human-centric approach to customer
service focuses on putting the customer at the
center, delving deep into a customer’s mind to
understand her emotions, needs, wants and
perceptions.

4. The Growth Imperative: How Communications Service Providers Can Get their Mojo Back | 4
For example, there is a lack of flexibility in what
consumers can choose from traditional paid TV
providers versus what OTT providers offer. Most
traditional paid TV providers bundle a large
number of channels. For a single male sports fan,
for example, children’s channels are unnecessary.
For a family with younger kids, Disney channels
and other kids programming channels is a must,
but these customers may not care for western
movie channels. However, the way channels are
currently bundled, customers do not have much
of a say in what channels they can select, unlike
OTT providers such as Sling TV that allows them
to select channels by genre.
Providers need to focus on developing prod-
ucts and solutions that address specific needs
and wants of the customer. As they streamline
product offerings to achieve customer relevancy,
providers must consider the following factors:
• Invest in research studies and data analyt-
ics to develop valuable insights into how,
where, when, why and how often customers
access various products. Analyze various
events in the context of the customer’s per-
sona to determine unmet needs. Leverage
these insights to develop relevant solutions.
• Build simple products with a high degree
of flexibility so that they can be easily cus-
tomized by customers to address their needs.
For example, allow customers to view and cus-
tomize their bandwidth via a smartphone app.
The Customer Journey: Self Defined, Person-
alized, Yet Repeatable
Following product development, providers must
continue to probe existing customer needs
to determine how to upsell and cross-sell and
attract new customers. Providers must use
insights available from historical data to better
target their solutions. Developing a personalized
relationship with customers from the purchase
and beyond helps build a perception that the pro-
vider cares for customers and can aid retention.
For example, online retailer Zappos is known for
its loyal customer base. A Zappos customer ser-
vice representative reportedly sent flowers to a
woman who ordered six different pairs of shoes
because her feet were damaged by harsh medical
treatments.
2
This personalized treatment creates
lifelong customers.
As they modernize their operations for customer
support from marketing and sales to after-sales
support, providers must consider the following
factors:
• Get to know your customer — really know
them, their preferences and connect with
them. Knowing your customer helps you
understand their preferences. To connect and
establish a relationship with the customer,
collect information from the beginning and
continue to track every subsequent touch-
point in the customer lifecycle (e.g., video
viewing patterns, billing history and payment
patterns, past history of customer service
Cognizant 20-20 Insights

5. The Growth Imperative: How Communications Service Providers Can Get their Mojo Back | 5
contacts, demographics, online habits, their
feedback on social media, etc.) Use this
knowledge to personalize all interactions
from marketing to customer care.
• Simplify how customers can reach you.
Customers want to reach providers about
issues instantly and via multiple channels.
A digital channel is the leading choice for most
customers when contacting providers. Adopt
a wide array of tools and platforms to meet
customer expectations and provide seamless
transition from one channel to another during
a contact. For example, a customer may reach
out to a sales associate via online chat and
switch to the phone to continue the conversa-
tion. The customer might be frustrated if he
were to be routed to a different associate and
had to explain his need all over again.
• Empower your employees so that they can
go above and beyond and help customers
resolve issues. For example, enable employ-
ees to extend promotions, offer discounts,
issue refunds and offer incentives to keep
customers satisfied and reduce churn.
• Be proactive with customers. Reach out on
potential service disruptions and, if possi-
ble, provide alternatives that anticipate and
resolve customer issues and needs. For exam-
ple, let customers know if a better service
plan or a better product may be available to
meet their needs less expensively.
• Solicit customer feedback often and follow
up after every touchpoint with the cus-
tomer. For example, if a customer calls with
service issues, sincerely follow up after a
couple of days to check if the service is better
and issues are not repeated. This is proven
to improve brand reputation and increase
customer retention. Feedback is critical as it
identifies new areas of growth based on cus-
tomer needs and wants.
The better a provider knows its customers, the
better equipped it will be to provide custom-
er-relevant products, services and solutions.
Venture into Adjacent Verticals: Making
Incremental Bets in Adjacent Spaces to
Drive Growth & Limit Risk
The most sustained, profitable growth comes
when a company pushes out the boundaries of
its core business into an adjacent space. Tele-
communications providers have the advantage
of owning the network connectivity that is at the
core of their solutions. They are best equipped
to build powerful platforms to enable verti-
cal industry solutions. There are tremendous
opportunities for growth by developing indus-
try-specific solutions.
For example, consider the application of con-
nected devices in healthcare. Many providers
have forged partnerships to provide healthcare
solutions for enhanced patient care. Solutions
that enable remote monitoring of patients, or
video conferencing with doctors, etc., open the
Cognizant 20-20 Insights

6. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
The Growth Imperative: How Communications Service Providers Can Get their Mojo Back | 6
door to preventive healthcare and reduced costs
in consumer healthcare. By marrying smart
home technologies and healthcare solutions,
providers can develop solutions for the elderly
that will enable them to live longer at their home
and receive healthcare.
For example, collaborating with technology ven-
dors and government bodies can help advance
the creation and management of smart cities.
An efficient network infrastructure is required to
handle the volume of data that is needed to do
this. Providers can gain a foothold by providing
the necessary communications infrastructure and
then develop solutions to address key city pain
points, such as the strain of a growing population,
with smart transportation systems, smart utilities,
waste management and smart healthcare.
Pursuing Adjacencies: A Three-Step Pathway
for Increasing the Odds of Success and Mini-
mizing Risk
• New products and services: Introduce new
and top-of-the-line products and services, and
provide a natural transition path for exist-
ing customers. This will lead to newer, higher
margin services that are content- and data-
driven.
• Acquiring new customers for new services:
Target new customers for these products and
services, specifically millennials. Younger cus-
tomers form an ever-increasing percentage
of the working population and, being digital
natives, are more inclined to use new technol-
ogy-powered offerings.
Collaborating with technology vendors and government
bodies can help advance the creation and management of
smart cities. An efficient network infrastructure is required
to handle the volume of data that is needed to do this.
A Formula for Market Expansion
Bubble sizes indicative of size of opportunity
1. Immediate adjacencies: Leverage loyal,
existing customers to research, test, develop
and upsell newer products and services. Offer
a migration path for existing customers to
transition to.
2. Near adjacencies: Target new customer
segments as these newer products become
more established and accepted.
3. Far adjacencies: Develop new, innovative
next-generation products and services to
target these newly acquired market segments.
Products and Services
Provide the path to transition existing
customer to newer, higher margin services
Existing
Customers
Acquire new customers (millennials) and
provide top-of-the-line products and services
New
New High Risk
Low Risk
Voice
Mobile & Internet
Connected Tech,
Data, Security
1
2
3
3
Figure 1

7. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
The Growth Imperative: How Communications Service Providers Can Get their Mojo Back | 7
Monetize Data: Use Data as a Growth
Accelerator
Almost any “thing” can be instrumented to gen-
erate data and insight. Companies that learn how
to monetize this information will be the winners
of the digital economy. Providers have a signif-
icant advantage when it comes to data access
— they hold customer data that has been accu-
mulated over years as well as the vast volume of
data that flows through their networks. Moneti-
zation opportunities include:
• Emphasize connectivity platforms. Most
providers already offer connectivity platforms
for IoT. These platforms help create an install
base of IoT devices that rely solely on their
networks and create an ecosystem for the car-
rier within the customer’s home. For example,
devices built with AT&T’s IoT Starter Kit are
designed to make the company the default
carrier once those devices are deployed.
3
• Enhance data storage and analytics. Pro-
viders must develop capabilities to store and
analyze the vast volumes of data collected.
The resulting intelligence can create trans-
formative business services and applications.
For example, many telecom companies col-
laborate with banks and retail outlets to
apply analytics generated from a customer’s
behavioral data to detect fraud by triangulat-
ing location, purchase details and customer
information. They also use this data for tar-
geted, personalized real-time offers based on
customers’ travel preferences and behavior.
• Monetize anonymized data. Providers can
also analyze and classify different types of
data — subscriber, device, usage, demographic
and location based — and then sell the insight
and foresights in anonymized form to third par-
ties such as retailers. As new business models
are created to enable data-powered revenue
generation, conduct adequate research to
understand the data value chain. For example,
as cities embrace smarter management of
their resources, they will be ready to consume
anonymized data on traffic and movement of
people and usage of resources. Uber Technol-
ogies now provides data such as ride durations
between two points, based on trips booked on
its ride-hailing platform, to city officials to help
them in urban transport planning.
4
CSPs can provide similar data on movement
of individuals throughout the day that will
aid local governments in infrastructure plan-
ning. Data obtained from CSPs may even be
superior and more holistic as they can provide
data categorized by modes of travel. AT&T
has partnered with the University of Califor-
nia at Berkeley and the California Department
of Transportation to use aggregated data to
help manage traffic patterns by using mobile
phone pings to track commuter patterns and
identify trouble spots.
5
• Mine data for better customer experience.
Providers can use data analytics on customer
behavior, usage patterns, customer experi-
ence and customer complaints to improve
customer retention. For example, analyzing
historical data on how often customers com-
plain about network issues and correlating
it to account abandonment (applying geo-
graphic and demographic data segmentation)
will help to proactively determine when
customers may leave and implement churn
prevention plans. Similarly, customer pref-
erence data, along with insights into usage
patterns, can help improve service person-
alization. Providers can use the knowledge
gleaned from data analytics to find ways to
connect with customers.

8. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
The Growth Imperative: How Communications Service Providers Can Get their Mojo Back | 8
Providers can identify indifferent
customers that have not
expressed any feedback in the
recent past and reach out to them
to understand their needs and
present them with personalized
solutions that will build and
nurture their relationship with
customers.

9. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
The Growth Imperative: How Communications Service Providers Can Get their Mojo Back | 9
For example, a survey by blog site thinkJar
found that only 1 in 26 unhappy customers
complain, and the rest churn.
6
Providers can
identify indifferent customers that have not
expressed any feedback in the recent past and
reach out to them to understand their needs
and present them with personalized solutions
that will build and nurture their relationship
with customers.
A CALL TO ACTION
The market for traditional services is saturated
and, to some extent, driven by commodity pric-
ing. To achieve revenue growth, providers must
leverage emerging technologies to enhance
customer experience and pursue market adja-
cencies. Customers are already experiencing the
benefits of connected devices (e.g., wearables,
smart alarms, voice-enabled virtual assistants,
etc.) and are demanding services that will sim-
plify their life.
For example, personal assistants such as Alexa
and Google Home help customers perform simple
activities like searching the Internet, making lists,
searching for music and even controlling home
lighting systems. There is a growing demand for
how voice-enabled personal assistants can get
more integrated into a customer’s life, for exam-
ple, by monitoring health, tracking schedules and
managing household finances.
Take this opportunity to make organization
changes to capitalize on the changing industry
dynamics:
• Consider overdue technological changes
and infrastructure upgrades. Invest in
internal technological systems and network
infrastructures that facilitate more flexible
and agile operations and enable your orga-
nization to respond to the dynamic market.
Make smart use of digital technologies to
collate and analyze customer information
to reduce churn as at-risk customers can be
identified and efforts can be made to retain
them. Ensure new network technologies are
not only flexible to handle higher speeds and
more data, but are also sufficiently flexible to
handle the new products and services arising
from the IoT revolution.
• Overhaul business processes and services.
Re-architect business processes and service
protocols to provide flexibility, easy acces-
sibility and consistency to connect with and
support the consumer at every touchpoint,
whether that interaction occurs in a digital or
non-digital environment.
• Assess key elements of your organiza-
tional culture. Venturing into newer business
models requires a fundamental mindset
change for employees. Attract and retain
talent that can execute on digital. Support
this change by creating platforms for employ-
ees to learn and support an entrepreneurial
culture where they can bring forth new ideas
for solutions and products.
It is imperative that CSPs undergo a complete
refresh of how they do business. They must
seize those opportunities that enable them to
be key digital partners by providing connected
ecosystem solutions that span multiple vertical
industries in a way that makes it seamless, simple
and personalized for the customer.

10. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
The Growth Imperative: How Communications Service Providers Can Get their Mojo Back | 10
Vanisree Krishna
Moorthy
Manager,
Cognizant Consulting
Communication’s Media and
Technology Practice
Vanisree Krishna Moorthy is a Manager within Cognizant Consult-
ing’s Communication, Media and Technology Practice. She has over
four years of experience as an IT and management consultant work-
ing with marquee media and communications companies, leading
key IT projects. Her areas of expertise include intelligent automa-
tion, IoT and digital strategy. Vanisree holds an undergraduate
degree in electrical and electronics engineering from the College of
Engineering Trivandrum, India, and an MBA with concentrations in
marketing and finance from XLRI Jamshedpur. She can be reached
at Vanisree.Krishnamoorthy@cognizant.com | LinkedIn: https://
www.linkedin.com/in/vanisreekm/.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FOOTNOTES
1 Jake Sorofman, “Gartner Surveys Confirm Customer Experience Is the New Battlefield,” https://blogs.gartner.com/
jake-sorofman/gartner-surveys-confirm-customer-experience-new-battlefield, A Gartner survey on the role of marketing in
customer experience found that, by 2016, 89% of companies expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience,
versus 36% four years ago.
2 Jim Edwards, “Check Out the Insane Lengths Zappos Customer Service Reps Will Go To,” www.businessinsider.com/zap-
pos-customer-service-crm-2012-1.
3 “AT&T IoT Starter Kit,” https://marketplace.att.com/products/att-iot-starter-kit-2nd-gen.
4 John Ribeiro, “Uber offers cities ‘anonymized’ ride data,” www.pcworld.com/article/3155494/techology-business/uber-to-
provide-anonymized-data-to-city-officials.html.
5 “AT&T uses big data for smart traffic management,” www.rcrwireless.com/20151001/big-data-analytics/big-data-for-traffic-
management-tag15.
6 Vala Afshar, “50 Important Customer Experience Stats for Business Leaders,” www.huffingtonpost.com/vala-afshar/50-im-
portant-customer-exp_b_8295772.html.
REFERENCES
• Jürgen Meffert and Niko Mohr, “Overwhelming OTT: Telcos’ growth strategy in a digital world,” www.mckinsey.com/indus-
tries/telecommunications/our-insights/overwhelming-ott-telcos-growth-strategy-in-a-digital-world.
• Paul-Louis Caylar and Alexandre Ménard, “How telecom companies can win in the digital revolution,” www.mckinsey.com/
business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/how-telecom-companies-can-win-in-the-digital-revolution.
• Brendan O’Brien, “Three Ways CSPs Can Monetize IoT,” www.ariasystems.com/blog/three-ways-csps-can-monetize-iot.
• Chris Howarth and Arnab Chakraborty, “Big Data generates big opportunities for CSPs,” http://telecoms.com/opinion/big-da-
ta-generates-big-opportunities-for-csps/.
• Jomer Gregorio, “The Power of Human-Centric Marketing,”www.business2community.com/infographics/power-human-cen-
tric-marketing-infographic-01825600#8LrRbvmXwph7kwqp.97.
• Tony Zambito, “The future of modern marketing is human centered,” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140518191726-12991-
the-future-of-modern-marketing-is-human-centered/.

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