Connecting Companies: Strategic Partnerships for the Digital Age

Connecting companies: Strategic partnerships for the digital age is a report from The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), sponsored by Telstra. It is designed to guide senior executives through the global trend for digital partnerships between organisations, which are connecting regions, crossing industries and linking generations. Specific industry analysis can be found in separate briefings that accompany this report.

This report draws on two main sources for its research and findings:

In June 2015 The Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 1,044 senior business leaders, half (51%) of whom are C-level executives or board members.

Geography: Survey respondents come from across the world, with 48% based in the Asia-Pacific region; 33% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and 19% in the Americas. There is a minimum of 75 respondents from each of the following countries: China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the UK and the US.

Industry: A total of 20 industries are represented in the survey with at least 80 respondents coming from each of the following six industries: entertainment, media and publishing; financial services; healthcare; IT & technology; manufacturing; and professional services.

Company size: The sample is evenly split between firms with annual revenue over US$500m and below US$500m.

Alongside the survey, The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted a series of in-depth interviews with the senior executives and experts

Executive Summary:

Digital technology is blurring the distinctions between companies and industries as we know them. “Offline” companies in older industries – those that came to the Internet later in life – are looking to develop digital capabilities by partnering with those that have perfected them. Native online companies, for their part, are learning to value the product and service expertise of offline firms as they attempt to turn rapid growth into mature, profitable and sustainable business models – or simply to survive. The result is the rise of digital partnerships.

The form of these digital partnerships ranges from contract-based alliances between two or three players to cross-industry networks and large, loosely organised, ecosystems based on a dominant technology platform. The early adopters already have multiple digital partners and some belong to more than one form of partnership. Many others, meanwhile, are intent on catching up. Private-sector organisations tend to dominate these partnerships, although the prominence of state-owned enterprises in Asia points to closer government involvement over time.

This report finds that the growing trend for digital partnerships is already having a measurable impact for the organisations involved in them. One-half of the 1,044 executives surveyed by The Economist Intelligence Unit for this study believe that their digital partnerships have proven their value “beyond doubt”. Expectations for the future are even grander. Key findings from the research include the following:

• Accessing the connected customer is core to the digital-partnership strategy
• Executives embrace “strength-in-numbers” to manage change
• Companies have high expectations of digital partnerships, but patience is required
• Speed and specialisation are set to promote growth of cross-industry ecosystems
• Traditional companies are learning how to share information, but some walls remain
• Digital natives are joining partnerships for profit, not philanthropy
• People and geography matter, as long-distance relationships prove difficult
• The popularity of APIs foretells the rise of collaborative innovation
• Today’s digital partnerships point to bigger changes to come

Full Report

The Future of Jobs

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which includes developments in previously disjointed fields such as artificial intelligence and machine-learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, and genetics and biotechnology, will cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also to labour markets over the next five years, with enormous change predicted in the skill sets needed to thrive in the new landscape.

This is the finding of a new report, The Future of Jobs, published today by the World Economic Forum.

Executive Summaries

2015 Telecoms.com Global Industry Survey Report

The 2015 Telecoms.com Intelligence Annual Industry Survey has garnered responses from 2,066 professionals from all parts of the telecoms sector. This is a substantial representation of today’s industry, with more than half of all responses coming directly from service providers, and represents one of the industry’s broadest and most comprehensive analysis pieces available today.

Surprises and contradictions are what one tends to look for when examining the results of surveys such as this and there were several that stood out. Take multiplay, for example, where the trend’s early movements came from fixed-line and internet service providers adding TV offerings to its portfolio. Surprisingly, the majority of respondents (60%) believe it will indeed by mobile operators who are in the strongest competitive position to move towards multiplay.

But clearly identified by operator respondents as the biggest challenge facing operators over the next five years was competitive pressure between operators (64%), swiftly followed up by competitive pressure faced by OTT content providers. Compared to last year, when the majority of respondents saw regulatory pressure on pricing as the biggest challenge facing the industry, this marks a substantial shift in mind-set sweeping across the industry.

The survey was wide-ranging in scope. Telecom.com had asked the industry about operators' BSS strategies, the ongoing mission of deploying and expanding LTE networks, the move towards NFV and SDN-based network management, and telco network security among other issues. The benefits and challenges associated with each of these areas of operator focus emerged clearly, with network performance and quality of service for customers among the dominant concerns throughout.

Access this free report of the findings