The digital future of Telcos: dumb pipes or crucial partners in innovation of new business models?

Born-digital firms instantly reach customers globally. The process of developing local market knowledge and internationalizing incrementally that is at the core of the internationalization process model is seemingly becoming superfluous. Further, these firms may reduce mobile telcos, whose existence is grounded in local market knowledge, to dumb pipe suppliers of connectivity. Using the telco Telenor as our case, the purpose of this paper is to analyze these possibilities. We identify factors that will determine whether telcos could utilize their local market knowledge to create new growth opportunities. We argue that local market knowledge remains a significant, but insufficient factor. The transformation of the telco business model will depend on whether telcos are able to draw on dynamic capabilities.