Overview of the global communications equipment industry
The global telecommunications equipment industry produces technologies and services that are used to facilitate people’s communication. Major products of the telecommunications equipment industry include cell phones, wireless, chipsets, and landline infrastructure equipment, digital-subscriber-line (DSL) and cable modems, and networking devices, such as routers and switches.
Factors that are expected to fuel the growth of the communications equipment industry are the rising demand for IP-based communication and multimedia solutions and the need for increasingly high bandwidth by residential and business customers. Additionally, the rising demand for technologically superior products has been a silver lining for the telecommunication industry. This, in turn, has boosted the demand for communications equipment manufacturers.
However, our recent analysis of the latest telecommunication industry trends shows that the telecommunications equipment suppliers are facing challenges in terms of:
- Competitive landscape: The telecommunications equipment industry solely depends on purchases from businesses, cable companies, data communications providers, telephone companies, and TV and radio broadcasters. Moreover, the profitability of individual companies is linked to technical innovation and the ability to secure high-volume contracts from large customers.
- Technology investment: Technology investment is crucial to the telecommunications equipment industry’s ability to keep pace with the competitors. High-speed broadband is increasingly being viewed as a fundamental human right, with calls for the industry to increase investment in networks to deliver improvements in fiber-optic connectivity and 5G coverage.
Many such factors are compelling firms in the telecommunication industry space to leverage the use of supply market intelligence. 
Supply market intelligence helps companies to manage changes, acquisitions, customer wins and losses, divestitures, operational changes, and other factors that have a substantial impact on a supplier’s ability to deliver. These solutions also help companies build a low cost, reliable, nimble supply chain, which consequently helps in delivering better quality products at a lower cost.
The Business Challenge and Journey
Client background: The client, a leading communications equipment supplier with business units spread across the globe was providing unified communications software, networks, devices, and services based on its open communication approach, but changes in the market were prompting them to reexamine their business model.
Client issue: Although the traditional telephony product business was declining, the market for services such as cloud and managed services in unified collaboration was growing. The pressure was mounting from new players, who were more experienced with IP- and cloud-based technology. To succeed in this market, the company needed to adapt to changing market demands.
The supply market intelligence experts at SpendEdge carried out a comprehensive research methodology. The research approach included primary and secondary research coupled with qualitative and quantitative data collection procedures to help the communications equipment supplier build a business model that would take the company from being a hardware solution vendor to a cloud and managed services provider.
Client journey: The communications equipment supplier made use of an agile approach to design, prototype, and roll out initiatives, including the design of a modular service offering catalog, service delivery process management. They also made use of managed services automation, field service performance improvement, offshoring and outsourcing of field service capacity, and change and non-conformance cost management to succeed in the market.
Fundamental questions answered in this supply market intelligence engagement
The Results
The ResultsWith the help of SpendEdge’s supply market intelligence solution, the communications equipment supplier was able to master the new market environment and achieve immediate savings. The client also overhauled its service delivery model and captured significant direct savings across all areas of the business from service and delivery, supply chain, and IT to sales and marketing and R&D.
To know more about our supply market intelligence solution and how it can help companies in the telecommunication industry
