Telco Integrations – The Game has Changed

Suppliers now deliver most of the work in major telco integration programs – often 90% or more.

The operators who execute faster don’t try to control them; they orchestrate suppliers into a single delivery engine.

However, this is not the case for the vast majority of operators who still play by the old rules.

For them, on paper, the pieces line up. Progress reports look reassuring. Dashboards are green. Nothing feels urgent.

Then the drift begins.

Why the Early Calm Is Misleading

Across 16,000 programmes studied, 92.5%* hit major trouble within a year. Everyone knows that statistic. It’s been quoted for years. And, frustratingly, it’s still true.

Not because teams are weak. Not because suppliers are poor. But because so much of the work sits outside the operator, the old way of running programs prevents operators from seeing the danger signs early enough.

Aviation, energy and finance solved this long ago: they don’t treat suppliers as contractors; they run them as one delivery engine. Telecom is only now catching up.

When most delivery happens externally, green dashboards don’t mean safety. A supplier can say “on track” even when an assumption hasn’t been tested, a key role isn’t staffed, or another supplier is unknowingly blocking them.

Early calm doesn’t signal health. It signals issues that haven’t surfaced yet. High-reliability industries don’t wait for drift; they look for it.

What Good Orchestration Actually Does

Good orchestration removes friction and creates speed. Our experience with the Roma 5G program proved this. The program had a hard deadline to be live in time for the Pope’s Jubilee celebration on 24th December 2024.

An early, independent review exposed sequencing issues, capability gaps and scope assumptions that would have undermined the program months later.

Because those issues were dealt with upfront, the program didn’t stall – it accelerated. Critical Jubilee milestones landed. Confidence went up, not down.

This is what leadership-led orchestration looks like: fewer surprises, more speed.

Clarity also attracts A-teams. Suppliers commit top talent when expectations are sharp and decisions are quick. When operators are vague, suppliers hedge; when operators are clear, suppliers lean in.

Orchestration brings truth early. Early truth gives choices. Late truth gives escalations that shock top management.

Most importantly, orchestration makes the whole system tick. When the system stays in sync, delivery becomes predictable. When it doesn’t, small issues rapidly become big ones.

The Leadership Edge

When suppliers deliver most of the program, supplier management stops being a contract exercise. It becomes the delivery engine.

Operators who execute faster orchestrate everyone around three simple points: the goal (what must be true at the end), the next step (the move that unlocks progress), and the risk (the thing that will bite if ignored).

When everyone sees the same three things, suppliers stop hedging, teams stop guessing, and delivery accelerates.

So, the question isn’t “How do we stop suppliers running the show?” It’s “How fast could we go if everyone saw the same goal, the same next step, and the same risk?”

That’s the advantage. And the operators who take it will win.

*Extensive research by Professor Bent Flyvbjerg in his book “How Big Things Get Done”, published 2023.

About the author

David Hilliard is founder of Mentor, specialists in strategic program execution.

You can call him on 0118 359 2444 or email david.hilliard@mentoreurope.com.