Five main observations have been made. First, the integration is likely to continue within the mobile telecom industry. Second, the value creation process will change significantly during the next few years. Third, the operators must reinvent their position in the value chain to maintain high profitability. Fourth, ecosystem keystones will capture most of the value. Fifth, flexibility will become even more important in the future. Both horizontal and vertical integration makes the companies larger and less flexible, which in turn makes it more difficult for them to adapt to the market and the rapidly changing consumer needs. However, it is through size, integration and cooperations that a company can take a keystone advantage position. To become a so called keystone, and be able to capture most of the value created within the industry, it is important to have the customer in focus and apply co-creation and the customers-as-innovators approach. By taking in the consumer early in a product development process, the risk of losing flexibility to changing consumer needs can be reduced. Currently, it is the operators and the mobile phone brands that are competing for the position as keystone within the mobile telecom industry
