Following the recent news that the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger has been approved by the US Dept. of Justice, Kathryn Weldon, Technology Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view on how this might impact the business services market:

“While there has been a lot of debate over the last 18 months regarding the possible negative repercussions of the merger, there has not been much discussion about the effects on the business market and several positive synergies that come along with it.

“The corporate culture of T-Mobile is certainly unique – it has been a marketing powerhouse, gaining consumer subscribers every quarter and rarely letting up its momentum, with new benefits, services, promotions and ‘freebies’ for consumers as well as SMBs. Sprint is more conservative and less dynamic in its approach to marketing and can actually learn a lot from T-Mobile about drumming up excitement, and developing new promotions and innovative ways to get businesses to pay attention to T-Mobile and leave the comfort of AT&T and Verizon.

“On the other hand, Sprint knows much more about the business market, especially the mid-market and large enterprise segments. It deserves to lead the business services group within the new company and follow its plans for converged wireline wireless sales, SD-WAN services; a better performing, compelling service portfolio for Internet of Things (IoT) based on its new dedicated network core and platform, and its Unified Communications and managed mobility offerings. But even in the business segment, it should benefit from T-Mobile’s marketing savvy and ‘can-do’ attitude.

“The bottom line is that there is not really that much overlap between the two companies’ business services portfolio and approach, allowing for some fascinating and possibly market-moving synergies in the near future.”