Innovation Research

• Report Overview
• Who Should Read this Report?
• About the Authors
• Quotes from Interviewees
• Table of Contents
• Index of tables, figures, boxes, exhibits

Report Overview

Telcos are operating in an increasingly competitive environment, vying over a finite set of customers. Core revenue streams are on the decline or flat at best. So how do Telcos compete in this cut-throat environment? Innovation is a critical component for successful differentiation.

This Snell UK Telco Innovation Report 2004 follows a series of interviews with over 25 executives of the UK’s premier Telcos. It highlights the alarming fact that innovation receives far less attention in the industry than it deserves. Not one of the Telcos interviewed had formally documented innovation strategies and only a small number really understood how to manage innovation strategically.

This report provides information, suggestions and tools that offer senior executives in the telecoms industry new ways to think, question and understand how to improve their capacity to innovate so as to ensure the future prosperity of their companies. In particular, the report identifies a number of innovation performance improvement programmes to assist management in achieving early results.

Who Should Read the Report?

• Any company wishing to grow revenue faster.
• Mobile and fixed operators: Gain a better perspective on how well your company is doing in relation to other players and obtain new insights into how to further strengthen your innovation management processes.
• Regulators and analysts: Understand the extent to which Telcos are managing innovation to drive growth.
• Mobile and fixed network equipment vendors: Understand your role in the Telco’s end-to-end innovation process.

This is a timely assessment of an industry which is at innovation crossroads. It identifies a number of trends and weaknesses in the management of innovation in the telecommunications sector. What is needed, and what I hope the report will initiate, is the integration of innovation in both strategy and organisation of Telcos.
Joe Tidd, Professor of Technology and Innovation Management, Director of Studies, SPRU, University of Sussex

Quotes from Interviewees

Here's what some of our interviewees had to say on innovation:

“We do not have an innovation strategy nor should we have one.”

“Having a Head of Innovation would be dull.”

“Yes, innovation is a strategic priority but I could not point to anyone at an executive level, even the CEO, and say there is a person who is accountable.”

“Innovation is the only thing that is going to take us out onto a growth phase.”

“Not measuring innovation could be viewed as an abdication of management responsibility.”

“To move from where it [innovation] is just in pockets to where innovation is in the DNA of the business is incredibly difficult.”