John Chambers, chief executive of tech-giant Cisco, said he expected sweeping changes in the operator landscape, with 50 per cent of today’s service providers becoming irrelevant in ten years’ time as they fail to adapt in a fast-moving digital world.

“Success of companies, cities and countries depends on getting market transitions right,” he told journalists at a Cisco press conference held at Mobile World Congress.

Chambers said technical change, through the likes of cloud-based and virtualisation technologies, was not enough. Changes in organisational structure and business processes was also needed.

He took Cisco as an example. “We have changed more in the last three years than we have in our entire history,” said Chambers.

The Cisco boss enthused about Internet of Everything technology and big data analytics as ways to boost economic growth, as well as improve operator and enterprise profitability.

“Internet of Everything is a $19 trillion opportunity based on profits and savings alone,” said Chambers, adding that the number would be much bigger if job creation were taken into account.

“Governments around the world are beginning to address the need for change, adopting broadband and getting the right [big data] information at the right time, which needs to be complete information and not stove pipe,” he said.

Cisco used today’s press conference to showcase Mobility IQ, its mobility software as a service (SaaS) analytics solution. Hosted on Cisco Cloud Services, Mobility IQ gives service providers (and their business customers) real-time visibility into network, user and business intelligence across Wi-Fi, 3G and LTE networks.

“This transformational new capability enables service providers to deliver valuable, new differentiated mobile services to their customers, while achieving new levels of operational efficiency,” said Cisco in a statement.

Chambers also took time in his remarks to claim leadership in network functions virtualisation (NFV) in terms of the number of functions it has managed to virtualise. “We have 49, while our competitors have less than 10,” he said. “In a year from now it will be over 90.”