Partnerships - Telecom buoy for survivors

During the last few years we've all seen announcements of joint "partnerships" between companies, not only between various telecom vendors but also between various service providers. Most of these never made a mark on new services, and these days they're piled with dust in a deserted corner office. But as carriers go forward after this nuclear winter, partnerships will be key to moving past business as usual into new services.

The future of telecom companies hinges on two things: the ability of the executive management to combine strategic planning with financial decisions, and the execution of the right set of partnerships for the company. What's the chance of the average vendor or carrier doing either of these well enough? Very slim. But we believe that the telecom survivors will be those that do both, and do them both very well.

Partnerships have been traditionally neglected, or, at the most, minimally maintained after the first brouhaha press releases. Today, the few that work can often be considered by the jaded eye as typical wholesale or vendor relationships. One example of a company trying to make the most out of its partnerships is EarthLink, which has one of the largest broadband customer bases using DSL, cable, and even satellite access lines. As a broadband partner, EarthLink brings to the access provider a huge customer base, many of which will migrate to a broadband connection within the next few years. The carrier or multicable system operators (MSO) doesn't have to worry about customer acquisition costs in this case because EarthLink bears the burden of education and advertising. At the same time, EarthLink relies on its infrastructure partners to make the installation and service delivery as smooth as possible for new broadband subscribers.

Another example in the broadband arena is BroadJump, typically known for its Virtual Truck installation software used by its carrier customers. With its new product ControlWorks Activation Edition and partner roster, BroadJump also brings content and applications partners to the table to help carriers capture revenue opportunities in the customer sign-up process, and at other points in the customer lifecycle as well. Instead of home-growing antivirus, content-filtering or other applications, carriers should be looking for partners that bring those to the table with either software and/or hardware platforms.

As broadband services mature, carriers will have to increasingly rely on other partners to bring new applications to consumers and business. The good news is that there are entertainment and gaming companies today putting the pieces together, typically for smaller, rural telcos.

Partnerships need to be supported with more than a link between Web sites. In some cases, partners need active training and support for the other company's sales channels. Both parties have to see a significant upside to the relationship, and both sides should expect to work hard to support each other's resources when required. Partnership programs have to evolve past being gratuitous marcom statements. If carriers truly expect "value-added" services revenues to help save the day, then they'd better be working with big consumer/business brand companies today to figure out not only what a win-win partnership can bring in terms of dollars and cents, but also what it takes to deliver.

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