Digital Marketplaces: Seizing the B2B2X Opportunity
CSPs can capture significant B2B2X revenue by launching digital marketplaces that bundle connectivity with partner services, but legacy infrastructure lacks the flexibility to quickly create seamless customer experiences.
While traditional connectivity services face commoditization and margin pressure, a massive opportunity beckons in the enterprise digital services market. Communications service providers worldwide are recognizing that digital marketplaces represent not just a revenue diversification strategy, but a fundamental transformation of their role in the digital economy.
The Opportunity Is Compelling
The market signals are clear and urgent. Industry analysts predict that by 2028, 60% of Tier 1 CSPs will utilize digital marketplaces to serve B2B customers, up from below 25% currently. This shift reflects enterprises' growing expectations for integrated, multi-partner solutions that combine connectivity with comprehensive digital services, and CSPs’ appetite to address these expectations.
The B2B2X model presents CSPs with opportunities to capture value far beyond traditional voice and data services. By orchestrating ecosystems of SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, IoT applications and vertical-specific solutions, operators can position themselves as trusted technology partners rather than mere connectivity pipes. Small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, face significant challenges procuring and integrating business applications from multiple providers, creating a natural opening for CSPs to become their unified digital services partners.
The Challenges Are Real
Legacy BSS/OSS architectures built for simpler use cases lack the flexibility and integration capabilities required for dynamic, multi-partner ecosystems. Partner onboarding remains painfully manual and time-consuming, often requiring months of custom integration work for each new relationship. This in turn limits CSPs’ imaginations in terms of what is truly possible.
Creating seamless customer experiences across disparate systems presents another significant challenge. Enterprise buyers increasingly expect a “marketplace” experience that is now common from AWS, Google Cloud, Snowflake and the like. These sophisticated portals offer intuitive browsing, instant provisioning, transparent pricing and unified support that legacy telco systems struggle to deliver. The complexity multiplies when managing revenue sharing, settlements, licensing and multi-party commercial relationships across diverse partner portfolios.
Perhaps most critically, many early CSP marketplace initiatives have fallen short by functioning as mere app stores that offer access to component services from CSPs and technology partners without addressing the integration and management challenges that enterprises actually face, and that are the key to driving true value.
The Path to Success
Successful digital marketplaces require comprehensive platforms purpose-built for telecom ecosystems. In particular, these solutions must feature:
- Unified product catalogs that seamlessly blend operator services with partner offerings
- Automated partner lifecycle management that reduces onboarding from months to weeks
- Sophisticated revenue management supporting complex B2B2X commercial models
- Intuitive customer portals delivering exceptional digital experiences
Cloud-native architecture provides the foundation for agility and scalability, while microservices-based design enables rapid deployment and continuous evolution. Critically, the platform must securely support multi-tenant capabilities, allowing CSPs to serve diverse enterprise customers and business lines with complete separation and customized branding.
Netcracker's Comprehensive Approach
Netcracker Technology has built a complete solution that addresses these challenges head-on. Netcracker Digital Marketplace combines front-end shopping portals with sophisticated back-end partner and revenue management, enabling rapid deployment in as little as 8-12 weeks. The cloud-native platform supports flexible business models including pay-as-you-grow, and can be deployed standalone without disrupting traditional operations.
Critically, Netcracker brings an extensive global ecosystem of pre-integrated XaaS, virtualized, and IoT partners, dramatically accelerating time-to-market. Automated partner onboarding, comprehensive Partner Lifecycle Management, and advanced Revenue Management capabilities remove complexity while ensuring accountability across multi-party relationships.
This approach has earned industry recognition. Netcracker was recently positioned as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Customer Experience Platforms for Telecommunications 2025 Vendor Assessment, recognized specifically for its organically developed portfolio, integration with AI and GenAI features, advanced analytics and proven delivery track record. As IDC noted, “with intelligent automation and native AI agent capabilities, Netcracker proves itself a strong partner for operators focusing on customer-centric service innovation to stay competitive in evolving markets.”
For CSPs ready to transform connectivity into comprehensive digital solutions, the time to act is now. The marketplace opportunity is massive, the customer demand is proven and the technology platforms are maturing. With the right strategic partner, operators can capture the B2B2X opportunity and secure their position in the digital economy.