Peter Ford is the executive vice president and head of the Information Solutions business at iconectiv. Charged with leading the platform portfolio for the company’s trusted communications, network and operations, numbering and registry businesses, he has responsibility for all business operations, including product management, and oversees the company’s sales efforts and expansion strategies across the globe.
Ford is an experienced senior executive in the consulting, technology and communications sectors, with more than 25 years of experience. He previously served as the managing director, EMEA, of the Service Provider Transformation Group at Cisco Systems, where he developed partnerships with some of the largest global telecoms players to address industry issues such as big data analytics and network convergence and security.
As communications service providers (CSPs) continue to reinvent themselves for the digital era, their challenges are compounded by the geographically fragmented nature of telecoms in an increasingly globalised marketplace. In addition, erosion of trust across the communications ecosystem alongside the mass adoption of communications platforms such as Teams, Webex and Zoom, has seen further shrinking in CSPs’ traditional telecoms businesses.
What’s needed alongside greater interoperability between CSPs is a greater focus on their strengths as trusted providers of quality-assured services and robust caller identity. This, Ford tells VanillaPlus managing editor George Malim, enables a future in which CSPs add value to enterprises, consumers and brands alike
George Malim: Are CSPs still suffering from split personalities as they simultaneously engage in new business models, products and services in the digital economy while also transforming their traditional telco businesses? What are the challenges of keeping all the different balls in the air?
Peter Ford: CSPs have been at a crossroads for the last seven or eight years trying to decide if the future is about network-based differentiation or content and service differentiation. Initially, they started acquiring content with the belief that was all they needed to transition to a new, content-based, over-the-top (OTT) mode of business. To date, we haven’t seen any of them fully succeed in that effort.
While I wouldn’t call it a split personality, I would say that there are two different worlds in which CSPs can profitably and successfully pursue reinvention. One is a network-based communications play and the other is a service-based content play. I don’t think
CSPs need to accept a choice between one or the other. They could be both a network-based and a service-based entity.
