A lot has been said about communications regulator Icasa’s big spectrum auction. However, little has been said about how the telecommunications industry has been evolving; and what the new requirements for a telecoms operator have become.

Digital transformation and the introduction of new technology is rapid; therefore, your telecoms partner needs to be more than a communications expert. IT is more critical to telecoms than ever. You need to trust that your telco partner understands your business and has the expertise to help you grow.

This raises the need for consistent relationships. This can no longer be considered a transactional space. Telcos need to be more than just providers and take on the role of a partner — after all, your growth equals their growth.

It can’t be emphasised enough that the person you are speaking to needs to understand your business. No, not just the salesman who pitches their solution, but the support and team behind them. A consistent relationship means dealing with the same people week to week, day by day — people who know your business and know you. You can’t just be a number entered into a database that shows a list of products you currently use. Your business deserves more than that, and your growth is dependent on it.

If you want solutions developed through understanding your business, you should pick a telco partner that can meet your specific needs and offer you a service; not one who rolls out a quick “solve-from-their-product-stack”, solution. We like to call these duct-tape solutions. And when do we use duct tape? When we can’t fix something properly, so we solve it for the interim. The issue with duct tape is that we tend to forget about it. And we continue to use that duct-tape solution, never replacing it and accepting it for what it is: not a great solution, but it does the job.

At the end of the day, if something feels transactional, that’s because it is. But that’s not always a bad thing; it’s about understanding what you want.

A telco partner

Please do not mistake the point of this article. If you need a product, find a telecoms provider. But if you are after hands-on support from experts who know your business, it’s not just a provider you seek. You need a telco partner.

It could be time to rethink that duct tape, time to find a sustainable solution, one that scales as you grow, one that is customised and specific to your business, not a broad-based solution applied to companies “like you”.

This is about more than updating copper lines, moving to the cloud, voicer over IP or PBX. It’s more than speech analytics and call centre solutions. Everyone has a product for that .

A telco partner is someone who takes the time to find a solution specific to your needs and in line with your potential growth. They integrate the solution seamlessly, proactively look for innovation and the means for you to scale by using all that telecoms can be to your business.

It’s a partner who knows your growth equals theirs.

It’s time to rip off the duct tape.