As communications service providers continue to seek alternative revenue streams, one customer segment they are trying to better serve is the business segment -- that is, their enterprise and small-to-midsize business (SMB) customers. Forward-thinking operators are marrying the capabilities of cloud and mobility to offer more enhanced service to this segment.

As customers today want services 24/7 from anywhere, on any device, service providers are becoming increasingly aware that cloud mobility is the next logical business model.

According to this month's Heavy Reading Service Provider IT Insider, "Leveraging Cloud Mobility to Enhance Enterprise/SMB Services," a recent Heavy Reading survey indicates that a majority of service providers are looking to a more aggressive cloud strategy within the next two years. When asked what cloud services they plan to offer enterprises and SMBs in the next two years, respondents say they are mostly looking to offer services such as cloud-based disaster recovery/high-availability services and application performance management.

When it comes down to what business customers want, survey respondents report that the top three functions that enterprises and SMBs are requesting from operators to help move them into the cloud are websites, IT support and business productivity.

As service providers are always fighting with over-the-top (OTT) players for market share, the survey also indicates that network ownership and the ability to offer end-to-end service-level agreements (SLAs) between customer premises and data centers are important factors to service providers that are looking to differentiate their enterprise services from the competition, such as Amazon.

But, in ramping up for cloud mobility to beat their competition, are service providers' IT systems ready? Survey respondents report that their IT resources still need improvement in areas such as product management catalog and customer billing and charging for current or planned cloud services. Respondents also indicate they will make significant investments in business support systems (BSS) to support their cloud services.

Service providers will have to choose a solution that can help them provide successful cloud mobility to their enterprise and SMB customers while also integrating with their current BSS/operations support systems (OSS). This report further examines the survey results and service providers’ perceptions and plans with cloud mobility.

— Ari Banerjee, Analyst, Heavy Reading Service Provider IT Insider

Leveraging Cloud Mobility to Enhance Enterprise/SMB Services, a 16-page report in PDF format, is available as part of an annual subscription (6 bimonthly issues) to Heavy Reading Service Provider IT Insider, priced at $1,499. Individual reports are available for $595.