15/02/2017 London. ROCCO publishes its vendor Innovation report, The Innovators”.

The Innovators

After thousands of years of evolution documented in fossils and books, we can confidently state that innovation is an essential part of nature. Deeply ingrained in our system is the code that determines the future of this world and the ever-morphing surroundings that change with our mental progress: longer bike lanes, trash separation, stricter green area preservation, traffic regulations, pollution preventions – we exist to create better solutions in the name of prosperity.

However, innovation does not happen fast – it’s a tedious process of trial and error which some businesses might even consider unnecessary. Why invest thousands into research and development when we can: a) wait while someone else figures it out b) imitate something that someone else took time to invent?

This is obviously not the mindset of an innovator.

Many companies have faded overtime due to slow adaptation (MySpace, Vine, Compaq, Blockbuster Video, etc) and many are in the process of erasure or rebrand, struggling to keep up with the latest trends and the burning stamps of people’s perceptions.

What might’ve been a hit yesterday could be history today. Are you keeping up with the whirlpool of digital technology? If not, you should, for things are bound to get easier, faster and cheaper and the opportunity must be spotted before it’s too late.

So what is happening on the road of Innovation?

Virtual and augmented reality software apps will be the Technology, Media and Telecommunication (TMT) sectors to watch in 2017. Moreover, sector dealmakers are expected to invest millions into start-ups that are promising to turn new technologies into commercial opportunities in 2017.
Mobile Money Transactions are no long a thing of the future – in order to remain competitive, telecoms should contemplate more advanced transaction services (WeChat, the mobile payment giant in China).
Current estimates of the commercial impact from the Internet of Things (IoT) market opportunity are already being rated in the billions and trillions. It has been predicted that China and the US will compete for dominance of the global market by 2025, with the US leading in terms of revenue.

About our report

In the last 4 years ROCCO research has been publishing Vendor Performance Reports and in so doing supporting MNOs with these important investment decisions, one of the major requirements of MNOs taking part in our research has been to understand how Vendors perform in the area of innovation. Adapting and being flexible in delivering the diverse needs of MNOs is after all an inevitably in International business.

In 2016 we decided to broaden our research into some specific areas and we asked our research base of over 500 MNOs which areas were specifically appealing and while many KPIs for performance and leadership are fundamental to delivering services, Innovation was the one that they told us about over and over.

Taking all the Vendors in the marketplace that we have in previous reports featured, we created 18 KPIs specific to Innovation in three broad categories:

Leadership
Creativity
Engagement

and we asked MNOs to tell us more about the Vendors in these specific areas. MNOs were asked via social media, and our mailing list and given over 4 months to complete a confidential survey to allow us to gather their perceptions and experiences.

The KPI’s featured some important criteria, which are significant to the optimal delivery of services as well as Vendors ability to innovate. What we publish here in this report are the aggregated perceptions of MNOs on the industry vendors and which in their opinion are truly “The Innovators”.

Buy the Innovators report

Further Research Surveys

MNOs can also take part in four other Surveys currently ongoing:

Next week ROCCO starts two new research projects into Steering of Roaming.