For telecoms and their tier 1 vendors, the pace of innovation is daunting. There is no longer an option of competing in the marketplace using only in-house technologies, or else “over the top” (OTT) companies and competitors will leave the slower players eating their dust. The solution, which has become increasingly obvious over the past half decade, is to partner with the fast movers in an effort to capture the benefit of the latest technologies without the costly and slower in-house R&D. But innovation capture is also difficult. Which companies should be brought in as partners? How small is too small? Is there an established, predictable process for evaluating smaller companies and coming to a yes/no decision in a reasonable time? The best-of-breed large companies have set up a “funnel” process, much like that used by VCs, to evaluate as many companies as possible, and to make good decisions fast with limited knowledge. This is the only way the telco or tier 1 vendor of 2013 stays on top.
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