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Commercial Growth: How Telcos Can Monetise Enterprise Demand and Partner Ecosystems

Why Telco Monetisation Strategy Must Change Now

If you’re a CSP or digital service provider, you’ve already felt the pressure: network investments continue to rise, but monetisation is not keeping pace. Operators have invested over $3.6 trillion in network infrastructure and expanded broadband speeds by more than 1,000%, yet revenue growth has remained almost flat.¹ Meanwhile, global ARPU in both mobile and fixed broadband is projected to stagnate over the next five years, even as overall telecom revenues grow marginally.²

Contrast this with enterprise spending. GSMA Intelligence identifies an addressable $400 billion opportunity in B2B technology services — cloud, edge, IoT, cybersecurity, analytics, and AI — representing 35% of the global operator revenue base.³ Yet, most CSPs still generate the majority of B2B revenue from legacy connectivity.

The implication is clear: faster networks alone won’t deliver new growth. Operators must rethink how they package, sell, and monetise value — especially in enterprise services and partner-driven ecosystems.

The Four Monetisation Gaps That Telcos Must Address (2025–2026)

Operators cannot scale new monetisation models because four structural gaps persist across the industry.

Enterprise Digital Services Monetisation

Enterprise spending on cloud, cybersecurity, IoT, automation, and analytics is growing at a double-digit CAGR, while operator B2B revenue remains largely tied to core telecom services.

The gap lies in the inability to design, price, sell, and bill complex digital solutions across the whole enterprise lifecycle — configurable offers, custom SLAs, multi-site deployments, lifecycle changes, and outcome-based charging. Without a flexible digital BSS, operators cannot convert enterprise demand into recurring revenue.

B2B2X & Digital Marketplace Monetisation

B2B2X and ecosystem-led growth are advancing rapidly, with global momentum around Open Gateway, CAMARA, and other network API exposure frameworks. Yet most operators lack unified partner onboarding, catalogue federation, revenue-share automation, and multi-party billing.
This results in a disconnect: hundreds of pilots and announcements, but very few live, monetised partner marketplaces that developers and enterprises can transact on.

Data & AI Monetisation

Omdia projected that a third of global network traffic would be AI-driven by 2025, but telco B2B AI revenues stand at only $4 billion — a tiny share of the broader AI economy.⁴

The challenge isn’t generating data; it’s productising that data into packaged analytics, insights, and AI-enabled services with transparent commercial models, predictable billing, and enterprise-ready controls.

Vertical Solutions & Complex Deal Monetisation

Industry verticals such as financial services, manufacturing, logistics, aviation, and automotive are accelerating their digital transformation agendas, with global enterprise spending on cloud, AI, automation, and IoT projected to grow at double-digit rates through 2030.⁵ Yet vertical solutions still contribute only a small share of operator revenue because offerings remain generic and back-office systems cannot support industry-specific bundles, complex pricing, multi-stakeholder workflows, or long-term enterprise contracts.
To capture this value, operators must industrialise vertical solutions — designing them as repeatable, monetisable products rather than one-off custom projects.

These gaps define why monetisation hasn’t scaled. But the fastest path lies where enterprise demand and partner activity already exist.

Below are two high-impact use cases showing how operators can unlock growth beyond connectivity today.

Use Case 1 — Enterprise Digital Services Monetisation

Enterprise buyers are rapidly shifting budgets to digital technologies. Spending on cloud, cybersecurity, IoT, analytics, and AI now exceeds traditional connectivity spend by a factor of five, representing a $400B+ opportunity for operators ready to evolve their B2B models.⁶

The monetisation frontier is no longer SIMs, data plans, or VPN links — it’s private 5G, industry automation, edge-powered visibility, and AI-driven operational intelligence, delivered with hyperscalers, system integrators, and solution partners. Early industrial deployments already prove this value:

Predictive maintenance
Smart asset tracking
Advanced security and surveillance
Remote equipment operation

These use cases deliver measurable ROI, but scaling them commercially requires the agility that operators currently lack.

To monetise enterprise digital services at scale, CSPs need the ability to configure multi-component offers, automate partner revenue sharing, monetise differentiated SLAs, and support digital onboarding with self-service lifecycle management. Traditional BSS stacks cannot handle multi-layer pricing, multi-stakeholder contracting, or real-time assurance for mission-critical use cases.

Cloud-native digital BSS changes this. It allows operators to compose offers in minutes, price them dynamically, onboard partners seamlessly, and automate fulfilment across industrial environments. Real-time rating and SLA assurance enable premium tiers for latency, bandwidth, reliability, and device density — creating new recurring revenue streams.

By re-architecting how enterprise solutions are packaged and monetised, operators shift from selling connectivity to becoming strategic enablers of digital transformation, unlocking sustained B2B revenue and strengthening enterprise relationships.

Use Case 2 — Partner Marketplace & B2B2X Monetisation

As traditional ARPU plateaus, operators recognise that future growth depends on ecosystem-driven monetisation — yet commercial scaling continues to lag behind technical progress.

GSMA Intelligence estimates more than $400B in addressable enterprise technology services across cloud, edge, IoT, AI, and APIs. STL Partners forecasts ~$31.5B in network API revenue by 2030⁷ — a downward revision that reinforces the gap: APIs are advancing, but monetisation models are not.

The constraints are structural. Operators lack unified marketplaces where partners and developers can discover, trial, buy, and integrate telco capabilities with consistent pricing, automated onboarding, and multi-party settlement. Today, most revenue is concentrated in basic identity and security APIs. In contrast, high-value location, QoS, and event-exposure APIs struggle due to fragmented rollout, inconsistent consent handling, and siloed developer experiences.

The breakthrough comes from a digital marketplace-led approach, where operators expose network APIs, partner services, and vertical solutions as ready-to-consume products with usage-based pricing, subscriptions, or revenue share. Aggregators and federation models help scale these capabilities across markets.

To commercialise B2B2X at speed, operators need modern BSS that supports catalogue-driven packaging, API productisation, partner lifecycle automation, real-time usage reporting, unified consent, and multi-party billing and settlement. This is how they move from pilots to repeatable, cross-ecosystem monetisation.

By integrating a digital marketplace layer with modern BSS, operators unlock scalable ecosystem revenue and become orchestrators of digital commerce — not just carriers of connectivity.

Conclusion: Empowering Telecom Growth with Csmart Digital BSS

Covalense Digital is enabling telecom operators to unlock new, sustainable revenue beyond connectivity through modern, cloud-native digital BSS capabilities. As your strategic partner, we combine deep industry expertise with a future-ready product vision to help you commercialise enterprise digital services, scale partner ecosystems, and accelerate monetisation across B2B and B2B2X value chains. Discover how Csmart Digital BSS can transform your monetisation strategy and position your business at the centre of the digital economy. Connect with us to schedule a demo and explore what’s possible.

Author

Shreya Chakravarthy, Associate Product Marketing Research
Shreya is focused on translating market intelligence into competitive advantage. She drives strategic product positioning by performing in-depth market analysis and evaluating emerging trends. Her insights ensure product roadmaps are directly aligned with evolving customer and industry demands.

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