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Success or stagnation in the communications industry? Unlock the value of your human capital in the digital age
By Deborah Brecher, Peter Hansen and Ryan Shanks
2 | Success or stagnation in the communications industry?
From the all-digital consumer environment, to increased M&A activity, to the rise of non-traditional competitors and threats to the pay TV model, pressures on traditional communications service providers (CSPs) have never been more varied and intense. To win in the digital age, providers are pursuing a range of options including geographic expansion, innovative partnerships and the development of ever-more-innovative products and services. Many of these ideas are now realities—from self-service apps and smart-home solutions for consumers, to social listening tools and 3-D technologies for the enterprise.
The ideas are compelling. The strategies are in place. But do CSPs have the human capital to successfully implement and expand those strategies and ideas?
CSPs are at an unprecedented crossroads. One path likely leads to growth and success—with providers leading a talented and diverse set of workforces united behind a common goal to accelerate growth and exceed consumer expectations. The other path likely leads to stagnation or decline, with providers unable to integrate new workforces, re-think how work gets done, or lead in the digital age.
What determines success or stagnation? Unlocking the value of your human capital.
Consider four specific dimensions of the CSP workforce of the future:
1. Workforce composition and design: Accelerating the shift to new workforces and organizational structures to compete more effectively.
2. Talent sourcing: Developing and sourcing from a “talent ecosystem” outside your payroll to fill talent gaps and address opportunities.
3. Job reinvention: Using digital technologies to support the future of work in traditional workforces.
4. Leadership: Developing distinctive leadership capabilities and culture to succeed in the digital age.
Time to rewire your organization Although CSPs are executing strategies to be more competitive in the digital age, the needed shift in workforce composition and design is not keeping pace.
For example, consider the typical CSP’s workforce composition compared to a Silicon Valley firm. Recent Accenture Strategy analysis highlights the sharp contrast. According to our analysis of social and job sites, nearly half of CSPs’ recent job postings (45 percent) were in sales and customer service while only 12 percent were in engineering or IT. For Silicon Valley companies, those numbers were nearly flipped: Only 13 percent of open postings were in sales and customer service, and 51 percent were in engineering and IT.1
Equally critical to workforce composition is the design of the organization. The ability of today’s CSPs to embrace critical concepts such as agility, experimenta-tion and empowerment is predicated on lean, flat organizations that empower small teams to innovate and act quickly. However, many of today’s providers still
employ steep hierarchies, silos that divide large teams and numerous layers of approval.
An inability to shift workforce composition and organizational design quickly puts CSPs at risk of being outflanked by nimble competitors with more digital talent.
Look beyond your payrollTo meet the new digital talent needs of a 21st century CSP means that some of the most valuable workforce contributors will not be traditional employees. Rather than trying to bring all critical talent in-house, companies need to think in terms of tapping into academics, suppliers, consumers and on-demand talent in a more strategic, collaborative way. For example, Audi’s Virtual Lab created an environment where design engineers engaged in web-based, real-time exchanges with more than 7,000 customers in the co-development of the Audi in-car multimedia system.2
Why focus beyond your payroll? Because the competitive landscape has changed. Critical digital skills needed to succeed are in high demand across high-tech, consumer packaged goods, financial services, media, entertainment and more. Where will the best workers go? That’s an issue. Recent Accenture Strategy research found that only 12 percent of recent US university grads report an interest in a career in the communications industry.3
Add it up and the imperative to look beyond your internal payroll is clear. CSP executives need to think very differently about what talent is needed, where it lives and how it is accessed.
Success or stagnation in the communications industry? | 3
12%interested in a
communications industry career
43% Other Non-Tech
33% Sales
7% IT5% Engineering
12% Customer Service
36% Other Non-Tech
10% Sales
18% IT
33% Engineering
3% Customer Service
CSPs Silicon Valley
Accenture Strategy analysis, 2015
4 | Success or stagnation in the communications industry?
Digital leaders needed
What’s old becomes new
Our research has found that 62 percent of high- performing organizations cite the ability to build the right leadership team as the most important factor in improving agility.5
But what does that mean? The leadership traits needed to improve agility and thrive in the digital age include managing complexity and exercising judgment in the face of ever-increasing amounts of data and the collapse of traditional hierarchies. CSPs could borrow a page from both Hollywood and Silicon Valley in the product development space, creating leadership teams around a particular goal and then realigning for the next challenge.
In addition, a premium will be placed on the ability to collaborate, experiment and relinquish control to unleash employee creativity. These leadership traits are
critical in helping to develop a culture that can attract and inspire the most diverse set of workforces in the industry’s history.
The challenge facing many organizations is hiring and developing a leadership team ready to lead in the digital age. According to a recent Accenture Strategy study, only 48 percent of surveyed workers felt that leadership and management were ready to adapt to advances in digital technologies, including social media, collabora-tion tools, mobile applications, robotics and analytics.6
Many traditional jobs will still exist in the CSP of the future. However, the nature of the work, the key capabilities required and the tools used will change in the digital world.
For example, take a look at the new tools available to field force engineers. One CSP recently deployed Google Glass wearables to field force technicians tasked with upgrading customers from old networks to new IP networks. The solution provides real-time access to schematics, and allows more experienced technicians to see what their junior colleagues are working on so they can assist.
Workers embrace the technology and feel better prepared for their jobs. The company has already seen productivity improvements from this state-of- the-art technology.
Integrating these technologies into current ways of working will require proactive management to deal with technology, process and culture change. However, you might be surprised at the willingness of traditional workers to embrace digital. A recent Accenture Strategy survey of 2,506 European workers found that more than half of employees surveyed (57 percent) see the impact of digital technologies on their work experience as positive. Only 8 percent view digital in a negative way.4
Impact ofdigital on the work
experience57%positive
8%negative
Feel leadership is
ready to adapt to advances in digital
technology
48%
Creating the workforce of the future
Master the balancing actCSPs need to rebalance their workforce across all jobs, traditional and new, shifting scarce resources to focus on driving digital across the enterprise and with consumers. New roles and teams need to be expanded in areas such as cloud, analytics and app development, while also launching broad digital upskilling programs. In addition, organizational structures should be assessed to identify opportunities to flatten hierarchies, reduce spans of control and break down siloes. Finally, as new workforces grow and traditional ones evolve, the integration of diverse workforces must remain a priority, stressing collaboration, understanding and mutual respect.
Connect the dotsAttracting and nurturing a deep network of contributors offers a tremendous opportunity to accelerate growth and learning, but such a strategy must be implemented with care and then supported at the highest levels of the organization. First, analyze talent gaps and strategic priorities while, in parallel, mapping potential outside contributors and the value they could add. Once the right opportunity is matched with the right outside contributor, develop an operating model that outlines how outside contributors will work with the organiza-tion. Focus on embracing the contributions of outside talent while still fostering growth and development opportunities for employees.
Reinvent traditional jobsMany CSPs are building out their digital capabilities, but leading organizations are also using digital technologies to re-invigorate traditional roles. Update job descriptions in areas such as sales, field service and customer care to include critical capabilities for the digital age—data interpretation and digital channel management as well as advanced problem- solving and collaboration. Next, identify critical capability gaps and develop a plan to transform these traditional workforces through innovative talent sourcing and development programs. Finally, empower the new workforce by providing information and training at point of need to raise productivity and increase customer satisfaction.
Crack the leadership codeTo attract and retain top talent, stay ahead of the competition and exceed financial expectations, leadership needs to foster a culture that stresses core digital-era concepts such as experimentation, collaboration and agility. Nurturing that type of culture requires new leadership behaviors such as the ability to manage complex spans of control, promote non-linear thinking, embrace systemic control and interpret multi-source data. To develop needed behaviors, organizations must combine recruitment of outside digital leadership talent with pioneering training and development activities—coaching, action learning and mentoring—that quickly build leadership capabilities at all levels to inspire the workforce of the future.
Our research and experience point to four strategies that CSPs should adopt to create the workforce of the future—one that is innovative, digitally adept and capable of supporting new, more customer-centric strategies:
Success or stagnation in the communications industry? | 5
To accelerate growth in a challenging marketplace, successful communications service providers will unlock the value of their human capital in the digital age. These industry leaders will re-balance their traditional and digital workforces and organizational structures to optimize performance. They will source talent beyond their payroll and reinvent traditional jobs. Equally important, they will rapidly establish a culture and leadership approach that infuses digital talent, tools and ways of working across the organization.
For an industry at a crossroads, a fundamentally different approach to sourcing, developing and growing the workforce of the future could spell the difference between success or stagnation.
6 | Success or stagnation in the communications industry?
Success or stagnation in the communications industry? | 7
Checklist: Re-examining work design at its most fundamental level
How is work organized? • Silos and hierarchies collapse
• “Resource on-demand” mentality prevails
• Work is divided into “microtasks” and distributed
What work is performed? • Analytics drives experimentation and adaptation
• Human-robot collaboration becomes the norm
Who performs the work? • Global, anytime, anywhere workforce
• Skillsets anchored in digital literacy
• New types of jobs created by the digital revolution
• Customized work experiences create a new value proposition for employees
• New physical and virtual workplace designs take hold
• Leaders are groomed to manage complexity
• Executives exercise judgment amidst a plethora of data
• Leaders relinquish control to free up employee creativity
Why, when and where do people work? How is work led and managed?
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Join the conversation @AccentureStrat @AccentureComms
Contact the authorsDeborah BrecherPhiladelphia, [email protected]
Peter HansenNew York, New [email protected]
Ryan Shanks Dublin, Ireland [email protected]
Additional ContributorsHolly Tu [email protected]
Maeve Farrell [email protected]
CJ Sinar [email protected]
About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 336,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page is www.accenture.com.
About Accenture Strategy Accenture Strategy operates at the intersection of business and technology. We bring together our capabilities in business, technology, operations and function strategy to help our clients envision and execute industry-specific strategies that support enterprise wide transformation. Our focus on issues related to digital disruption, competitiveness, global operating models, talent and leadership help drive both efficiencies and growth. For more information, follow @AccentureStrat or visit www.accenture.com/strategy.
Footnotes1 Accenture analysis of job postings on social media sites from a representative sample of both groups based on market share, April 2015
2 How companies tap the potential of innovative users—examples from Germany (part II), InnovationManagement.se, retrieved August 21, 2015
3 “Are you the weakest link? Strengthening your talent supply chain,” Accenture, 2015
4 “European Workers Set to Embrace Digital Technologies in the Workplace, Accenture Research Shows,” Accenture press release, May 7, 2015
5 “Leadership Imperatives for an Agile Business,” Accenture 2015
6 Accenture Strategy Employee Research on Being Digital, 2015
