Only 3 Of Every 10 Telcos In Africa & The Middle East Plan To Go Digital

Telecommunications and digital transformation have met at many junctions in world business, with the former benefiting off the latter. Telecom operators, as such, are moving fast to not just digitize their sales channels, but also monetize them.

In North America, digital telecoms has penetrated by 45 percent. In Asia-Pacific countries, they manage to derive 39 percent of their revenues from digital channels. Latin America is at 0 percent, while Africa and the Middle East are at 28 percent.

The moot stat is: only—and even fewer than— 3 in every 10 telcos in the Middle East region and the African continent have a roadmap to the digital paradise. This gap was revealed by a new report from the Technology Innovation Council, under the commissioning of Upstream, a organization of mobile technology experts.

The Road To Digital is a look into how global MNOs are getting ready to ditch the analogue-style telecoms, especially in response to the implications of the novel coronavirus pandemic on world economies.

According to the report, there is a huge precedent for digital sales in the Middle East and Africa. Surprisingly, just one-third of the telcos in these regions are at least 70 percent dependent on physical channels. These are the means through which they engage customers and enable their sales.

Telecoms is a tech-led industry, and with present global health crises, it even need to be more digital and interactive. At least, that why 75 percent of the total telco count in the world are accelerating their plans to start using non-physical sales channels. Per the report, 91 percent of North American telcos went digital during the pandemic.

African telecoms is valuable industry, mainly on the back on the continent’s more than 1.2 billion people, which will double to 2.4 billion in 2050. But, the region, alongside the Middle East, fall behind in aspects like talent acquisition because the telcos are yet to perform IT skill assessments to attract competent candidature.

However, Upstream CEO, Dimitris Maniatis, said that despite emerging markets like the Middle East and Africa being the least prepared for digital innovation, yet arguably the ones that could benefit most from it in future.

“Since the pandemic began, telcos in the region have had to work overtime to ensure that communities stay connected, but being so dependent on physical sales channels has made engaging with customers more difficult than ever before, he said”

He added: “By accelerating their plans for digitalization and, crucially, putting an achievable roadmap in place to hit their digitalization goals, telcos in the region could dramatically enhance customer engagement and reduce their costs through automation and self-service.”

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