MWC 2015 was a significant show for Comptel, because it’s where we debuted “Operation Nexterday,” our framework to help digital and communications service providers transform their businesses and thrive in the post-digital era. We launched a book, threw a party and shared our vision for new sales, marketing and service playbooks with the world.

Operation Nexterday took off. It inspired our first anti-seminar, Nexterday North, and we’ve seen how it’s changed the way our customers and partners talk about business opportunity in the era of digitalisation.

At MWC 2016, we want to keep our foot on the gas and build on that momentum. We’ve declared 2016 as a year of action and execution, when telcos take the Nexterday concept a step further and commit to transformation. We’re ready to help our customers and partners take action. Here’s how:

Nexterday: Volume II

Our first book introduced readers to the four factors creating the need for digital transformation: evolving buyer expectations, new monetisation strategies, advancements in telco infrastructure and the need for rich data insights.

This year’s sequel – a hard copy of which you can pick up at our booth, stand 5G40 in hall 5 – explains exactly how you can tackle each one. It also includes even more contributions from experts and visionaries both within and outside telco, including economist Dr. Kjell Nordström, business experts Stefan Moritz, Mark Curtis and Jeetu Mahtani, and analysts Stewart Rogers, Fredrik Jungermann, Caroline Chappell and Steve Bell.

#Nexterday Party

What’s a trip to Barcelona without a party? We’re hosting 400 people for a #Nexterday party on Wednesday 24 February starting at 7 pm CET. This isn’t the usual cocktails and canapes affair – we’ll have live performances, a DJ, superhero nitro cocktails, an open bar, bus transportation to the city centre and plenty of networking opportunities. You can pick up an exclusive ticket at the Comptel booth or at the stands of one of our partners: Salesforce, IBM, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, CloudSense and Hitachi.

FWD

Operators who stop by our booth can get a first-hand look at Comptel FWD, our disruptive digital sales and marketing channel for operators that creates a faster, convenient and more personal mobile buying experience for consumers. It’s a radical new way for operators to sell mobile services, and it’s how operators will connect the next 2 billion internet users to the Web.

Industry Blueprints

We’ll feature guides to help operators complete their digital business and IT transformations. Topics include cloud transformation, NFV service orchestration, IoT, agile elastic portfolios and automated contextual engagement.

Multi-Touch Demo Wall

Our demo wall will visualise how real-time data sources can be seamlessly connected with content and customer profiles, and then instantly turned into contextual, omni-channel actions for better business outcomes.

For Comptel, MWC 2016 will be about celebrating a year’s worth of progress and issuing a challenge for operators to take action. We invite you to join us in transforming for the better in 2016.

To book a meeting with Comptel at Mobile World Congress 2016, contact your Comptel account manager or send us an email at [email protected]. And be sure to stop by our booth, stand 5G40 in Hall 5, to pick up your copy of Nexterday: Volume II and get a ticket to the #Nexterday party.

We’ve published Nexterday: Volume II, a follow-up to our previous book, Operation Nexterday. You can pick up a hard copy of the book at this year’s Mobile World Congress or download a digital version by visiting our new online magazine and community, Nexterday.org. With this edition, our goal is to help each operator become a “Perfect Digital Company,” one that works for and with its customers to enhance the digital moments that make up life.

To achieve that, operators need to open their minds to fresh ways of thinking about serving customers, taking inspiration from their counterparts across the globe and visionary, non-telco businesses that are changing the face of digitalisation.

The Customer is in Charge

Generation Cloud is, as always, at the centre of the digital struggle. B2B and B2C customers crave the autonomy to customise, configure and purchase digital services at a faster pace and on their own terms. On top of that, operators are increasingly starting to play in non-traditional markets, including connected devices, smart cities and healthcare, in both established and emerging markets.

Technology advancements – from the introduction of and ongoing management needs for virtualised network functions to the rising importance of real-time data in sales, marketing and service management – mean operators have more tools at their disposal to serve buyers’ unique interests and succeed in new verticals.

The challenge is determining how to effectively leverage these tools, while also applying the creativity and radical ideas operators need to distinguish their service at a time when customers are willing to switch digital and communications service providers at a moment’s notice. It’s not just about offering dynamic new services, but also delivering those services as part of a more pleasant and fulfilling customer experience.

Creating Perfect Digital Moments

Nexterday: Volume II describes how your business can evolve to meet the needs of a changing digital economy. The book includes:

• Inspiring real-world examples of telco and non-telco businesses that strive to offer customers extraordinary digital experiences
• Perspectives on the qualities of leading digital businesses from economist Dr. Kjell Nordström and business experts Stefan Moritz, Mark Curtis and Jeetu Mahtani
• In-depth research from analysts Stewart Rogers, Fredrik Jungermann, Caroline Chappell and Steve Bell
• Blueprints on how operators can automate their enterprise sales approach, pursue Internet of Things (IoT) service opportunities, create a richer B2C customer experience and re-engineer their back end for accelerated service delivery and enhanced digital service lifecycle management

Though we believe strongly in the themes we cover in the book, we want it to inspire a rich dialogue about the state of our digitalisation. We invite book readers to visit Nexterday.org to share their opinions and challenge our thinking. Whether you agree or disagree, we want to hear from you at Nexterday.org. Registration is simple: just sign up with your LinkedIn account.

Nexterday: Volume II, which will be available in hard and digital copies, will be officially released at our #Nexterday party on Wednesday, 24 February at 7 p.m. CET during Mobile World Congress. We’ll have live performances, an open bar and plenty of opportunities to unwind and mingle. You can pick up an exclusive ticket at the Comptel booth (stand 5G40 in hall 5). If you are not attending Mobile World Congress, you can download a digital copy of the book at Nexterday.org.

We invite you to join the movement and become a ‘Perfect Digital Company’ that serves the best interests of its customers. Nexterday: Volume II will show you how.

Veli-Matti Mattila, CEO of Finnish operator Elisa, recently cited M Room’s app as an example of how mobile and digital services are changing our everyday lives. As Mattila explained, digitalisation is a major change agent in global society and has the power to disrupt all industries.

Digitalisation will usher in an era of business transformation that will radically change how all businesses including telcos, in particular, operate. Elisa is a prime example – the company may have once been known as a traditional voice provider, but today, it would be more accurate to call it a digital and communications services provider.

Elisa offers its customers much more than simple connectivity. Its range of consumer services include an entertainment service for watching TV with cloud-based recording and content on demand, a wallet app for mobile payments and a book app for avid readers. On the business-to-business (B2B) end, Elisa offers video conference, customer interaction services and social media listening services, to name just a few.

Mattila helped engineer Elisa’s digital business transformation in his 12 years as CEO, and the results have been significant. The company’s initial six-month financial review showed that, despite a challenging economic climate, Elisa made its best-ever result from January to June 2015. The company also reported an expected growth in year-to-date revenue compared to the same time period in 2014.

Mattila’s comments reinforce what Comptel has discussed in our book, Operation Nexterday: digitalisation is forcing telco business transformation, and this adoption and evolution is vital if operators are to best serve individual and business customers and grow their organisations. Here are three takeaways from Elisa’s journey that other operators should note.

How Telco Can Disrupt in the Digitalisation Age

Consider how private car hire and ride-sharing service Uber has transformed public transportation internationally. Customers can simply queue up the app to find a nearby driver and conduct the entire transaction digitally, making for an easy and cashless ride.

As more industries embrace digital technology – from massive international conglomerates like Uber to the local coffee shop on your nearest street corner – operators will increasingly find an opportunity to add value.

They can enter markets they may never have thought possible, such as delivering over-the-top (OTT) content, social apps and now even books, as Elisa has done.

Operators should not discount cooperating with other players and building digital ecosystems to accomplish this. In the case of Elisa, the Finnish telco purchased capabilities from other organisations to establish an enablement platform upon which it could disrupt the market.

Embedding a Digital Culture at Every Level

Of course, making this change is not easy. Not every operator may have the vision to execute a broad digital business transformation. But, as Mattila explained, businesses do not need a Steve Jobs-type visionary at the top to push forward a digital service strategy. All you really need is firm direction, leadership, courage to change and a willingness to try new things.

Senior management should be in charge of digitalisation, Mattila recommended, and the sales, distribution and customer service functions need to buy in as well. Change may happen incrementally, but as long as they are watching the market, experimenting and pushing in the right direction to rewrite their playbooks, operators can transform successfully. Those that do not will die and perhaps result in new life.

Experiment Often, With a Focus on Speed

Above all, transforming into a digital business is a matter of trial and error. Not every new digital service offering or business idea will succeed, but as long as operators try new things quickly and ‘fail fast’, they will have the opportunity to quickly recover, learn from the results and react and ‘scale fast.’

Telco organisations should not fear failure, Mattila advised, because mistakes inform future successes. Maybe one opportunity will stick and truly catapult the business forward. The experimenting done and ideas that survive will ultimately make a major difference in operators’ successful transition to next-generation digital and communications service providers.

This blog post is based on Veli-Matti Mattila’s interview on the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) website and written up by Antti Blåfield.