Abstract:

Despite technological and regulatory advances telecommunications' strategic role in business is poorly understood. Management attention is excessively focused on reducing telecommunication costs (which rarely account for more than 1% -2% of total company spend) rather than on strategic applications that add to the business value chain. The promotion of strategic applications requires an informed corporate culture for which there are four prerequisites: effective organisation of the telecommunications function; telecommunications strategy closely linked to corporate strategy; active management of innovation; and synergy between business and technical managers. Survey results are presented for twenty companies with action flagged for performance improvement.