Transformation Reality Check

What does the evidence tell us about transformation?

Transformation programmes succeed or fall short for many reasons — strategy and business alignment, architecture, governance, skills, execution and change management. This section brings together findings from credible research, keeps each source’s own wording and qualification, and separates what the research says from what the Academy reads into it.

Evidence reviewed: Sep 2026 · 50 findings from 27 publications · Every statistic was read in its source before publication.

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5 of 28

80%+

of senior telco software buyers agreed their "BSS needs to enable new product offerings to be launched in days, not months"

Omdia · Jun 2025 (data May 2025) · Global telco

Medium confidenceFreshness: Current

The evidence library

Each card shows one finding from one source. Open a card to see what the research says, what the Academy makes of it, and where it came from.

Showing 50 of 50 findings

Did you know?Contextual

≤26%

reported success rate among high tech, media and telecom respondents

McKinsey & Company · 2018 · Global telco

Freshness: Historical

Did you know?Contextual

Qualitative finding

BCG names five ways telco transformations fail at the outset

Boston Consulting Group · 2024 · Global telco

Freshness: Recent

Did you know?Contextual

Qualitative finding

Telco executives rank ineffective transformation as a top-three sector risk, behind budget, collaboration and skills

EY · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

17%

of CSP respondents had moved at least half of their OSS/BSS workloads to the public cloud — up from 8% in 2021

TM Forum · 2024 · Global telco

Freshness: Recent

Did you know?Medium confidence

66%

of CSP IT executives rated IT modernisation and technical-debt reduction a high priority; 70% said the same of cost optimisation

TM Forum · 2026 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

Qualitative finding

CSP IT leaders increasingly name unclear vision and organisational culture as major transformation obstacles

TM Forum · 2026 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

42%

of CSP decision-makers said their OSS/BSS procurement will be entirely driven by systems' ability to enable a platform business model and partner ecosystems; a further 46% called it a consideration

TM Forum · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

11%

of 100 CSPs surveyed had sufficient BSS in place for effective 5G monetisation; 98% said they would have to alter their BSS

Nokia · 2022 · Global telco

Freshness: Aging

Did you know?Contextual

10–15%

reduction in cost to serve from holistic telco transformation, with up to 8% incremental revenue a year and 20–40-point satisfaction gains, per McKinsey's prior research

McKinsey & Company · 2024 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

−10–15%

decline in telcos' return on invested capital in North America and Europe from 2018 to 2022, as industry invested capital rose by around $300 billion

McKinsey & Company · 2024 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

2 of 87

senior CSP IT and network leaders who reported that their company has fully democratised data

TM Forum · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

38%

of operators still collecting data in silos, managed separately by different teams (GSMA Intelligence with RADCOM)

GSMA Intelligence · 2026 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

75%

of telecom CEOs who say outdated IT platforms slow their ability to innovate (EY CEO Outlook Pulse)

EY · 2026 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

71%

of CSPs who said cultural and organisational issues are a serious barrier to digital transformation (TM Forum Digital Transformation Tracker 3)

TM Forum · 2018 · Global telco

Freshness: Historical

Did you know?Contextual

40%

of operators had moved less than a tenth of their IT workloads to the cloud in 2021

TM Forum · 2021 · Global telco

Freshness: Historical

Did you know?Contextual

60%

of CSP respondents wanted to use cloud-native technology; 22% said they were absolutely committed to a cloud-native approach

TM Forum · 2021 · Global telco

Freshness: Historical

Did you know?Medium confidence

33%

of operators were absolutely committed to cloud-native for all IT workloads in 2022, up from 22% a year earlier

TM Forum · 2022 · Global telco

Freshness: Aging

Did you know?Medium confidence

65%

of CSP respondents preferred a hybrid public-and-private cloud approach; 8% preferred a public-cloud-first approach

TM Forum · 2022 · Global telco

Freshness: Aging

Did you know?Medium confidence

33%

of operators name inflexible legacy IT among the most significant barriers to digital transformation — level with skills

TM Forum · 2022 · Global telco

Freshness: Aging

Did you know?Medium confidence

28%

of telco software buyers now prefer to host BSS/OSS entirely in their own data centres, down from 38% a year earlier

Omdia · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

13%

of telco software buyers think lifting a legacy BSS into public cloud as it stands would bring cost and agility benefits

Omdia · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

~70%

of senior telco software buyers agreed that all their future software systems must be cloud native; 13% disagreed

Omdia · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

~80%

of IT budgets go on integration and customisation, many operators report — leaving about 20% for innovation

TM Forum · 2021 · Global telco

Freshness: Historical

Did you know?Contextual

of CSP executives are satisfied with the return on their IT modernisation investments over the past three years

Accenture · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

26%

of CSPs follow the advanced cloud-first practices that deliver scalability and agility — while 93% call cloud-first a significant capability

Accenture · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

60%

of CSPs are still locked into legacy data tools in design and practice; 80% are not prepared to be data-first

Accenture · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

66%

of CSP executives rank rising data maintenance costs among their top three data infrastructure and management challenges

Accenture · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

9 in 10

of 133 operator executives considered flexibility and scalability an "extremely important" future requirement of their BSS

TM Forum · 2023 · Global telco

Freshness: Aging

Did you know?Medium confidence

80%+

of senior telco software buyers agreed their "BSS needs to enable new product offerings to be launched in days, not months"

Omdia · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

40%

of senior telco software buyers agreed that "it is easy to make a business case for new investments in BSS/OSS"; 36% disagreed

Omdia · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

19%

of senior telco software buyers said their consumer and enterprise BSS/OSS stacks are currently very similar; 30% expect them to be by 2030

Omdia · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

30%

of senior telco software buyers disagreed that "the number of OSS/BSS systems we use is decreasing", up from 13% the year before

Omdia · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

~70%

of telco software buyers still prefer a traditional licence for BSS/OSS over a subscription; SaaS ranked last of 14 selection criteria

Omdia · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

88%

of operators say a system's ability to enable a platform business model shapes their OSS/BSS procurement — entirely for 42%, partly for 46%

TM Forum · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

98%

of 100 CSPs surveyed said they would have to alter their BSS in the coming years to put up-to-date monetisation tools in place

Nokia · 2022 · Global telco

Freshness: Aging

Did you know?Contextual

~70%

of CSPs were considering cloud-based monetisation systems in 2022; two-thirds called real-time charging essential for 5G

Nokia · 2022 · Global telco

Freshness: Aging

Did you know?Contextual

0.52%

of revenue is the leakage operators now report, down from 1.22% in 2021

TM Forum · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

22%

of CSPs actively measure risk reduction, although over 90% now have dedicated business assurance functions

TM Forum · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

~50%

of senior IT and network leaders say their data architecture still follows a legacy, division-by-division approach

TM Forum · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

19%

of senior IT and network leaders point to a leadership role focused specifically on data, such as a Chief Data Officer

TM Forum · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

19%

of 200 telecom executives said their company has integrated AI into three or more network or OSS functions

IBM Institute for Business Value · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

64%

of CSP executives admit their AI initiatives have not yet delivered the full value expected

IBM Institute for Business Value · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

70%+

of CSPs use machine learning in autonomous operations — but fewer than half run it on a shared data model

TM Forum · 2024 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

75%

of telco software buyers expect agentic AI to play a critical role in their future BSS/OSS architecture

Omdia · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

1 in 3

of operator IT executives call ODA the core guiding principle of their transformation; another 55% have embedded parts of it

TM Forum · 2026 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

45 CSPs

have committed, by signing TM Forum's Open API Manifesto, to make the Open APIs a preferred requirement in their IT RFPs

TM Forum · 2025 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

900,000+

downloads of TM Forum Open APIs by 50,000 software developers from 2,800 organisations, by TM Forum's own count

TM Forum · 2025 · Global

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Medium confidence

22%

of CSP IT executives put cybersecurity in their top three short-term initiatives — though eight in ten call it a high priority

TM Forum · 2026 · Global telco

Freshness: Current

Did you know?Contextual

~80%

of respondents from large operators say platform development is a key reason to insource talent

TM Forum · 2024 · Global telco

Freshness: Recent

Did you know?Medium confidence

72%

of operators name data analysis among the skills they need most; systems-and-networks knowledge comes last at 38%

TM Forum · 2022 · Global telco

Freshness: Aging

What successful transformations do differently

The same research also describes what the successful organisations had in place. The failure side of the evidence is under What Can Go Wrong?.

Strong executive sponsorship

Leadership commitment from the CEO through middle management, sustained for the life of the programme.

Evidence

Clear business outcomes

Target value defined before the platform is chosen and measured after go-live.

Evidence

Business and IT co-ownership

The business is accountable for delivery decisions, not only for sponsorship.

Evidence

Effective governance

Decision forums, stage gates and escalation that move at the speed of the programme.

Evidence

Architecture discipline

A business-led, modular platform with a funded plan to retire what it replaces.

Evidence

Organisational readiness

Skills, roles and operating model prepared before implementation, not after.

Evidence

Change management

A change story communicated by leaders, and roles redefined to match the goal.

Evidence

Data readiness

Data profiled and sized before the migration plan is written.

Evidence

Benefits tracking

Progress monitored against defined outcomes throughout.

Evidence