Telecommunications Business Environment

The following topics will be covered:

Scene-setting for today’s business: covering the types of network operator and the range of competitors. The concept of ICT is defined, together with the convergence issues. This set of lectures will position the interaction of all the factors affecting an operator: macro-economic, the market place, government policy, regulation, competition, legacy aspects and technology changes, customer expectation and globalisation. The dotcom bubble burst will be examined for lessons for today’s business environment.

The concept of strategy is introduced and applied to a network operator (fixed, mobile, voice and data). The various strategy analysis tools (PEST, PUV, Porters 5 Forces, and SWOT) are introduced and example strategies are discussed.

The UK and European legal and regulatory framework is presented, showing the constraints and opportunities offered to incumbent and other operators and service providers. Besides interconnect issues, the Telecommunications Strategic Review is described, as is the role of OFCOM in regulating in a converged world.

This section presents a quantified view of the industry from a world-wide perspective. The major cost, revenue, demand, service and technology trends are analysed.

Description of the cost dynamics of a telecommunications infrastructure, covering access and core – fundamental to all networks (including railways, airlines, electricity supply, etc), fixed and variable cost, effect of volume on unit cost, cost and revenue apportionment, and long-run costs.

An overview of the principles of marketing and product management is presented, together with recent practical examples. The scope includes: market segmentation, pricing, promotion, sales strategies, customer-relationship management, billing issues and product/service development. In particular, the product life cycle is used as a structure to consider all aspects of product/service management. Although these principles are generic, the examples given will relate specifically to the telecommunications industry.

The key aspects of a business case are introduced, covering its role in corporate governance, the essential content, the financial case and supporting evidence.

The role of financial management in any business is described, with detailed application to the telecommunications network operators’ functions. You'll gain an understanding of financial statements and how to read them, as well as the principles of amortisation and depreciation, ebitda, profit, cash flow, cost of capital, share price dynamics and dividend policy.