Binish Patel, Co-Founder and VP, Head of Solution Services at Apptium, a TD SYNNEX Company, recently authored an article for Pipeline, about how cloud technologies are redefining the telecom industry. In the article, Patel shares how telecom providers are undergoing a major transformation from traditional connectivity providers to full-service digital enablers by embracing cloud services, hybrid infrastructure and SaaS solutions. Cloud marketplaces are emerging as strategic platforms, enabling telecoms to monetize through vertical-specific bundles, integrated billing and frictionless customer experiences. The article also explores how automation and AI are playing a critical role in scaling operations and delivering intelligent, adaptive services that improve customer value.
To conclude, Patel outlines that ecosystem partnerships with hyperscalers, ISVs and integrators are essential to expanding reach, accelerating innovation and delivering curated solutions. To lead in the cloud-first era, telecoms must modernize their infrastructure, adopt agile business models, and prioritize customer-centric, platform-based strategies that empower enterprise digital transformation.
Read the full article in Pipeline here, or keep reading below!
Redefining Telecom: Monetization Strategies in a Cloud-Driven Era
By: Binish Patel, Co-Founder and VP, Head of Solution Services at Apptium, a TD SYNNEX Company
Originally featured in Pipeline
Cloud services present a major revenue opportunity as telecom providers shift from traditional network services to digital-first business models. By leveraging cloud-based infrastructure, SaaS solutions, and hybrid cloud offerings, telecoms can extend beyond connectivity to provide enterprise customers with scalable, on-demand digital services. This shift is not just a trend—it’s a defining transformation. Cloud marketplace models and new, vertical-specific solutions are becoming key monetization strategies that will help telecoms generate new revenue streams. Coupled with the growing role of automation, AI, and ecosystem partnerships in enabling telecoms to become full-service technology providers in an increasingly cloud-driven world, the opportunity is massive for those willing to lead.
The legacy model of telecom services is being reimagined around flexibility, innovation, and valueadded offerings. What was once a business centered on delivering bandwidth and infrastructure is now evolving into a dynamic platform for digital enablement. In a landscape where enterprises demand agility, intelligence, and industry-specific outcomes, cloud technologies create a new foundation for telecom growth and differentiation.
Cloud Marketplaces: A Gateway to Innovation and Revenue
Cloud marketplaces have emerged as strategic growth engines for telecom providers transitioning into full-service digital enablers. For telecoms, these marketplaces are more than digital storefronts—they are platforms for innovation, verticalization, and monetization. Telecom operators can combine their native services with third-party SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS solutions to build industry-specific bundles that meet the unique needs of verticals like healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services.
To unlock their full potential, these marketplaces must evolve into omnichannel, omni-transaction platforms. This means supporting customer journeys across self-service portals, APIs, field sales, and partner ecosystems, all underpinned by a unified commerce layer. The goal is simple: deliver consistent, personalized, and frictionless buying experiences regardless of the entry point.
Modern cloud marketplaces in telecom are defined by several advanced features. They incorporate multi-tenant invoicing to simplify payment processing and billing across a diverse customer base. A unified catalog and provisioning orchestration ensures that all services—whether in-house or from third parties—can be deployed and managed efficiently through a single interface. These platforms also support usage-based pricing and consumption metering, allowing telecoms to offer flexible, scalable billing models that align with actual service usage.
A critical enabler in this model is direct carrier billing (DCB). By integrating DCB into cloud marketplaces, telecoms allow enterprise and SMB customers to charge digital service consumption directly to their telecom accounts. This streamlines procurement, improves billing transparency, and reduces friction. It also opens doors to microtransactions and pay-as-you-grow models, which are ideal for cloud-native and SaaS products.
In addition, cloud marketplaces are increasingly equipped with co-sell and marketplace-as-a-service capabilities, enabling independent software vendors (ISVs) and ecosystem partners to participate directly in the go-to-market strategy. Furthermore, AI-driven personalization and recommendation engines tailor offerings to individual customer needs, boosting engagement and conversion.
Moreover, by extending marketplace functionality through APIs, telecoms can embed commerce into third-party platforms—enabling transactions to occur wherever users already work. This omnitransaction approach increases reach, stickiness, and share of wallet.
Telecoms that invest in cloud marketplaces with integrated billing, commerce, and distribution capabilities will be best positioned to become indispensable players in these evolving ecosystems. By combining direct carrier billing, omnichannelexperience, and platform extensibility, cloud marketplaces become not just a revenue channel—but a strategic lever for telecoms to scale innovation and partner-driven growth.
Vertical-Specific Solutions: From Connectivity to Industry Enablement
A one-size-fits-all model is no longer viable. To remain competitive, telecoms must move beyond generic services and provide industry-specific digital solutions that address real business challenges in verticals like healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and logistics.
For example, telecoms can offer edge-enabled IoT platforms for manufacturing, AI-powered fraud detection for banking, or secure, compliant cloud storage for healthcare. These offerings address mission-critical needs, enhance digital operations, and unlock new sources of enterprise value. By integrating connectivity with intelligent services, telecoms elevate their role from infrastructure providers to strategic business partners and enablers of digital transformation.
In the logistics sector, telecoms can deliver end-to-end tracking and monitoring solutions through IoT and cloud integration, helping enterprises gain visibility into supply chains. In education, secure cloudbased platforms and content delivery networks can facilitate remote learning and hybrid models. These use cases underscore how telcos can align their services to industry-specific priorities, helping enterprises accelerate digital initiatives while growing their own revenue base.
Automation and AI: Enablers of Scale and Intelligence
As telecoms evolve into full-service technology providers, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are proving to be critical levers, not just for operational efficiency but also for product innovation and customer experience enhancement.
Today’s AI capabilities go far beyond traditional analytics. AI agents, or autonomous software programs capable of performing complex tasks and making decisions in dynamic environments, are becoming foundational in telecom operations. These agents can manage network orchestration, respond to customer service inquiries, and optimize backend workflows in real-time. When deployed in cloud marketplaces, AI agents can facilitate vendor onboarding, automate service bundling based on user behavior, and ensure compliance with service-level agreements (SLAs).
Similarly, AI inference – the process where trained machine learning models apply knowledge to make real-time decisions – transforms how telecoms deliver intelligent, adaptive services. From dynamically adjusting bandwidth based on predictive traffic patterns to detecting and mitigating potential fraud, inference capabilities are being embedded at the edge, in the network core, and in customer-facing platforms. A report by McKinsey notes that generative AI and advanced inference engines enable enterprise functions such as procurement, marketing, and IT operations to achieve up to 40 percent time savings on routine tasks. (McKinsey, 2023)
In telecom contexts, these technologies are being used to automatically predict and resolve network outages, personalize offers and bundles within cloud marketplaces, trigger customer support workflows without human intervention, and perform anomaly detection across vast, real-time datasets.
Combined with intelligent automation, such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and cloud-native service orchestration, these AI innovations allow telecoms to scale their offerings without scaling cost. Ultimately, AI agents and inference models are the telecom industry’s new “digital workforce,” capable of delivering precision, speed, and scalability that legacy systems cannot match.
Ecosystem Partnerships: The Future is Collaborative
The most successful telecoms will be those that build and nurture ecosystems. This includes partnerships with Hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), SaaS providers, system integrators, and domain-specific technology firms. Rather than trying to everything in-house, telecoms can serve as orchestrators, offering curated bundles of services that combine network capabilities with third-party innovations. APIs are central to this strategy, enabling modular and interoperable service composition at scale.
This ecosystem-first model accelerates innovation, opens new verticals, and enhances customer value, especially when services are delivered via integrated marketplaces or industry clouds. By offering a robust ecosystem, telecoms create a platform where innovation flourishes, revenue is shared, and enterprises gain more value per dollar spent.
Further, these partnerships can expand geographic reach, deepen vertical expertise, and accelerate time-to-market. Through white-label solutions, co-branded services, and joint go-to-market strategies, telecoms can attract and retain enterprise customers seeking complete, integrated digital solutions.
The Opportunity Ahead
Spending on public cloud services continues to surge, and telecom operators are poised to benefit from this momentum. According to Juniper Research, global telecom expenditure on cloud services is projected to reach $64.9 billion by 2028. This rapid growth is more than a reflection of enterprise cloud adoption; it represents a pivotal opportunity for telecoms to redefine their value in the digital economy.
However, capitalizing on this opportunity requires more than technical capability. To succeed as fullservice technology providers, telecoms must undergo a strategic and cultural transformation. This means embracing agility, fostering a culture of innovation, and putting the customer at the center of every decision.
Key areas of investment will be critical. Telecoms must modernize their infrastructure with cloudnative technologies and development practices that support rapid deployment and scalability. Equally important is building cross-functional product teams that understand the needs and nuances of different vertical markets, from healthcare and finance to logistics and manufacturing.
Adopting platform-based delivery models and marketplace strategies will enable telecoms to scale services quickly. At the same time, integrated data, automation, and artificial intelligence capabilities will unlock operational efficiencies and new revenue streams. Alongside these, modern billing systems, flexible monetization frameworks, and robust revenue assurance mechanisms will be essential to support evolving consumption models such as pay-as-you-grow and subscription-based services.
Customer experience must also be a top priority. This means delivering intuitive digital touchpoints, responsive self-service portals, and seamless integration into enterprise workflows. The telecom providers that will thrive are those who can transform their traditional network strengths into differentiated digital outcomes, be it more innovative connectivity, vertical-specific solutions, or embedded cloud services.
Ultimately, the path forward is clear: telecoms have a unique window to lead in the cloud-first era. The winners will not just provide the infrastructure for connectivity; they will become architects of enterprise transformation.
Telecom’s Moment to Lead
Cloud services are not just a tool but the next frontier of telecom strategy. By embracing marketplaces, vertical-specific solutions, automation, AI, and ecosystem thinking, telecoms can transcend their traditional role and become indispensable partners in the digital transformation journeys of their enterprise customers.
This transformation should be viewed not as a challenge but as a profound opportunity. Telecom providers have the infrastructure, reach, and customer relationships to lead in this space – they just need the right digital foundation. In this cloud-driven world, the winners will be those who not only connect the enterprise but empower it. For telecoms ready to act, now is the moment to lead, not just as service providers but as cloud-first enablers of innovation, growth, and enterprise value.
