MNOs benefit from having the telecom network capabilities and the end-subscriber, which means that they can start thinking about alternative ways to execute their enterprise-enablement strategies.
It’s important to recognize that with the advent of new technologies, enterprises’ demands evolved beyond the traditional use of phones and mobile services. This includes SIM cards and connectivity services for IoT devices, cloud services such as private networks, emails and storage, voice services, virtual numbers, A2P messaging, and more. In particular, CPaaS providers have been surfing on this wave by implementing API (Application Programming Interface) business strategies to facilitate the monetization of telco communication services with 3rd party applications. Many sectors are already using these services, in particular finance, e-commerce, and public services.
There is always a debate around the price of SMS, the pressure for reducing costs keeping it low to avoid breaking the market, and the value it generates for the enterprise. However, based on Mobilesquared’s latest insight at the Messaging and SMS World event, 98% of the value does not come from messaging, but from platform offerings. Although the perceived value of A2P messaging traffic may be low, this market is much larger than it seems. According to Mordor Intelligence, whilst the telco industry growth rate is 1.2% CAGR, the expectation for the CPaaS growth rate is 34.3% CAGR.
MNOs who want to navigate in this domain should leverage their unique access to their own subscribers base, identify core network advantages and formulate commercial strategies to attract the enterprise market. To do that, MNOs need software solutions that solve the business complexity and operational inefficiencies inherent to this ecosystem, which will allow seamless onboarding of enterprises and easy access to services.
To start, A2P messaging is an opportunity MNOs can embrace. According to Mobilesquared only 5% of enterprises invested in A2P messaging, which means this is only the beginning of a new era of communication between brands and consumers.