As both consumer and business-facing, telecommunications companies collect vast amounts of the data produced during the “digitization” age. Often, these companies use only a small proportion of this data, because it is costly and laborious to move and evaluate the data internally.

Enter third-party analytics and database management companies, which have become more important in the telecommunications industry facing decreasing revenue per user virtually worldwide. Telecommunications companies' need for determining market share and customer movement among competitors only stands to increase in this tumultuous market. For instance, in a 2015 Harvard Business Review survey of executives from more than 15 industries, 64 percent of telecom executives expected to see “moderate or massive” digital disruption in 2016-17. Only the media sector executives foresee greater disruption in their industry.

While the telecom industry is hardly in peril, as evidenced by Moody's Investor Service changing its outlook on the industry writ large in March 2017 from negative to stable, the database analytics providers serve an increasingly essential role by supplying information to telecom giants operating under the shadow of market contraction and fierce price competition.