A digital revolution is brewing, and the telecom industry is at the heart of this transformation. Mobile operators are scrambling to adapt and thrive as customers adopt increasingly digital lives. Buzzwords like artificial intelligence, personalisation, IoT, and 5G may dominate the headlines. Yet, a closer look at these exciting technological advancements reveals a powerful truth: technology alone will not determine the victors in this high-stakes game.

Engaged employees, satisfied customers

The true differentiator between the winners and losers of tomorrow lies in the hands of those who turn technology into business outcomes and customer experiences – your employees. Employee engagement plays a crucial, long-term role in creating and sustaining competitive advantage in the highly competitive, rapidly changing mobile telecoms industry.

Research consistently demonstrates that highly engaged employees are more productive, innovative, and committed to their organisations:

In an industry where customer satisfaction and operational efficiency are key performance indicators, employee engagement must be part of any strategy to build a competitive advantage and drive profitability, market share, and customer retention. As such, digitalisation or digital transformation strategies must focus on helping employees in addition to customers.

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Outdated tech bottlenecks productivity

One major cause of employee inefficiency and frustration in mobile telcos is the reliance on manual processes and outdated technology tools. According to a 2019 study by OnePoll, the average office worker spends over a quarter of their time on avoidable administrative chores and outdated ways of working, exacerbated by manual administration processes that prevent them from completing core tasks.

Many telecom operators still rely on manual and repetitive tasks for essential business functions like billing and customer service. Outdated systems can also lead to disjointed workflows, lack of real-time data access, and team miscommunication, slowing progress and decision-making.

Product managers in many telcos, for example, must navigate multiple processes and gather data from multiple systems to properly understand their customers and their products’ market performance. Even after accessing and aggregating sales, customer feedback, marketing, and product performance data, they must be able to make sense of it to identify improvement opportunities. As data is often incomplete and in different formats, getting a unified view of their customers can be a difficult, if not impossible, challenge.

After a product manager has jumped through these hoops to make decisions about their products, they need to figure out how to execute them. To launch a new product or update, this product manager might spend weeks or even months configuring product terms, pricing, and billing rules across systems and teams. This doesn’t just slow a company’s pace of innovation; it frustrates employees and monopolises time and energy that could be spent on more productive tasks.

This doesn’t just impact employees. When a company cannot innovate quickly to meet customer needs, when it cannot easily resolve issues, and when manual processes introduce avoidable time and errors into the customer experience, customers suffer. And when customers suffer, the business suffers.

Empowering telco employees with the right tech

Investing in the right technology tools to improve employee experience can yield tangible benefits for mobile telcos. Modern technology solutions, particularly Business Support Systems (BSS), can automate routine tasks, simplify workflows, and provide real-time data access.

By streamlining processes, improving data accuracy, and integrating various operational functions, a user-friendly BSS can significantly reduce errors and increase efficiency. Furthermore, these modern systems require less technical expertise to operate and maintain, as they often come with user-friendly interfaces, easier access to data, and automated maintenance.

This allows employees across the organisation to interact with business systems more effectively and focus on higher-value activities, such as problem-solving and strategic decision-making. These tech-enabled improvements to employee experience are also key components of an agile and customer-centric organisation, which are more important than ever in an increasingly competitive mobile telco landscape.

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Circles X: built for operators, by an operator

At Circles, we understand the immense value of empowering employees with the right technology to do their best work in the telecom industry. As an operator ourselves, we built the Circles X platform for operators – it’s a full-stack platform that seamlessly integrates core business systems.

Circles X empowers employees to launch new products in minutes and generate a unified view of customer data, service offerings, and billing information to improve decision-making and facilitate cross-team collaboration. Telco operators can now scale their businesses efficiently with lean, nimble teams, even without deep technical expertise.

Want to learn how our people-lite approach keeps operations going with 10x fewer people? Talk to us. You’ll not only discover how innovative technology solutions can empower your employees, but you’ll also see why it’s a critical investment in an industry that has never been more challenging.

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This article was originally published by Anant Gupta on LinkedIn. Like what you read? Follow us for more news and insights from Circles.

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