Telecom Companies in Mature Markets will Commoditize Connectivity - Shamik Mishra, Capgemini Engineering

By Shamik Mishra, Vice President & CTO Connectivity, Capgemini Engineering

With the Government of India approving 5G trials, India is now one step closer to adopting the new standard and mobile networks in the country. The technology will revolutionize all industries and transform how they operate and deliver their services. Businesses will get real-time insights and total control over their products, services, and assets.

Intelligent industry: Telecom companies are today collecting incredible volumes of data from industrial devices and processes. Enterprises that can use this data to innovate in the creation of new products and services will dominate the race for survival through intelligent operations and support. Telecom companies can ensure that their networks can consume large amounts of data efficiently and continue to deliver on security, privacy and regulated data governance.

Connected devices: The demand for connected devices in the telecom sector and other industries will continue to grow in 2021. Coupled with implementation of 5G and data driven industries, it will make devices exchange data in real-time. Devices will leverage connectivity and compute, and this is an opportunity for industries to deliver innovation through cloud and edge.

Edge computing: With edge computing, we will see the drastic speed up of processing real-time data collected through connected devices.Edge computing means moving the computation away from devices to the edge of the network. This means that smart objects, mobile phones, or network gateways provide services on behalf of the cloud. Telecom operators are expected to be a key provider for such heavily distributed compute infrastructure as they own the real estate and connectivity, the beach front property needed to deliver such services.

Robotic process automation (RPA): With the deployment of RPA for tasks, error rates and costs are reduced while operational efficiencies are boosted. Telecom companies must be prepared to offer high levels of scalability and agility so that RPA can take over many tasks such as report generation, responding to customer questions, order processing, price tracking and more.

Challenges and Solutions

Security and the threat of data breaches are some of the common challenges that the telecom industry will face. Moreover, the demand for better security will increase at perhaps a greater scale with the advent of more devices and more distributed computing inside the telecom operator networks. According to some studies, the world has seen the biggest cyberthreats during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Apart from keeping data secure, telecom companies must also ensure that they are being transparent with their customers and clients about how they use the data. As there is more reliance on digital tools and artificial intelligence, telecom companies need to consider how they collect data from their customers. We have already seen the impact of regulations like GDPR on how companies manage information and we may see many more regulations in the near future. Therefore, how telecom companies show that they have the right systems in place to track and analyze the flow and storage of information in the organization from end to end will become crucial. Telecom companies must be ready to show that they are committed to privacy.

Telecom operators can combine their connectivity capabilities and distributed edge compute to deliver new experiences, drive new revenues or improve productivity for consumers and enterprises. This requires adopting digital technologies, driving more automation, enabling AI and secured connectivity.

Today’s telecom industry is competing on enhanced customer experience and searching for new revenues by leveraging connectivity. Using data to deliver better experiences and outcome would be key to their strategy. This requires unifying the robust and resilient connectivity to different technologies like AI, edge, intelligent devices and cloud will be critical. The industry is also looking for new revenue opportunities. This requires innovation across the target markets. Such unified digital architectures will enable telcos to offer customized, automated, trustworthy, and reliable “connectivity” based solutions as an innovation platform to their B2B clients.

Betting Big on 5G Opportunities

5G will bring in the most revolutionary changes in the telecom industry. Once the technology is fully rolled out, the opportunities and possibilities are endless. This is an opportune moment as the demand for 5G and IoT is now higher than ever. 5G will be the answer to effective communications on the move and will disrupt and empower the workforce for tomorrow.

Telecom companies in mature markets will commoditize connectivity, which will help connected devices and IoT open up new revenue streams. Digital IDs are the electronic equivalent of an individual identity card and can optimize operations like enhance the customer experience by utilizing data to improve targeting and personalization and forming partnerships with companies using artificial intelligence that generate a vast amount of user data that then be used to continuously improve products which in turn drive brand affinity and loyalty.

Intelligent Industry powered by data is the evolution of Industry 4.0, cloud data, 5G, edge computing and big technology converge together to completely transform entire value chains of industrial companies starting from research and development, designing a concept to engineering and manufacturing. With intelligent products, intelligent operations and intelligent support and services, everything a firm does will become digitized, leading to new platforms and portfolios and ultimately to a more profitable and sustainable business.

According to a Research and Markets report, more than 600 million people became internet users over the last six years and another 600 million more internet users are expected to come online over the next six years by 2025. This increase in mobile subscriptions and fixed broadband subscribers will continue to fuel the telecom sector growth till 2025.