Going into 2023, telecoms operators worldwide can be heartened by the collective resilience they’ve shown amid the recent geopolitical and economic turbulence. In the past two years, a combination of price increases, M&A deals and government intervention has helped share prices across the global telecoms sector broadly recover from the lows they touched during the pandemic — although the rebound remains gradual and uneven.
Fast-forward to today, and telcos are refreshing their strategies to navigate a volatile operating environment. They’re expanding the scope and ambition of their digital transformation initiatives. And they’re refocusing on sustainability, including seeking to improve workforce diversity and inclusion (D&I) and attract new talent.
But are telcos sufficiently attuned to the current and emerging risks confronting them to achieve these goals? Amid a high inflationary environment — pushing up operating costs — telcos must also deal with a range of challenges from customers’ cost-of-living pressures, to evolving expectations around security, to changing perceptions of workforce culture — the threats being faced are both urgent and diverse.
In this article we look at the top 10 risks we’ve identified across the sector and consider how to mitigate them.