Salesforce VP Deepak Pargaonkar sounds an alarm bell on the consequences of failing to deploy new-age technologies

Deepak Pargaonkar, VP, Solution Engineering, Salesforce India, sets an alarm bell for India’s telcos and its allied service providers. In a revealing interaction with VoicenData, Pargaonkar gives an alarming threat to the telecom industry and tells that if the decision makers don’t wake up now in leveraging new-age technologies, then the consequences will certainly have a dire effect on the company’s growth.

While interacting, with crystal clear clarity, Pargaonkar had put forth valid pointers that explain where all would a company lose out on the failure to integrate AI, ML, VR, and other new-age technologies.

Telcos will only be relegated to be an ordinary connectivity provider. However, that is not something which organizations would want to do.

His pointers are like banging the nail on its head. “If the organizations do not evolve with the help of new-age technologies they will be left behind. Telcos will only be relegated to be an ordinary connectivity provider. However, that is not something which organizations would want to do. These organizations surely would want to provide the value-added services to their consumers to make their consumers really happy with the type of service they are providing. A lot of disruptors are already providing consumer’s options. Consumers can very easily switch to whatever comes their way which provider gives them easy, people experience, personalization and innovative solutions,” initiates Pargaonkar in this warning sign-based discussion.

If companies don’t embrace the new-age technologies of AI for personalization and skill, better customer experience, frictionless service, IoT, connectivity, then the organization will be left behind.

In a nutshell, telecom service providers or for that matter any business that doesn’t embrace the new age digital technologies will be left behind in the race. The race would be for a consumer’s mindset. If companies don’t embrace the new-age technologies of AI for personalization and skill, better customer experience, frictionless service, IoT, connectivity, then the organization will be left behind.

What is coming next is actually an opportunity to monetize digital services. This is the most lucrative space. This is where I think the entire consumer-oriented focus is also happening. 

AI becomes mission critical for predictive-personalization

“We are in the fourth industrial revolution. Everything is connected and there are a lot of new technology companies which are coming in. And especially if you look at it from a consumer’s perspective, things are changing and industries as well. When we look at the telecom industry, let’s look at its evolution. Initially, what happened, there was a time when they were monetizing voice. Then they started monetizing messaging and then the monetization of internet access started. However, what is coming next is actually an opportunity to monetize digital services. This is the most lucrative space. This is where I think the entire consumer-oriented focus is also happening,” indicates Pargaonkar.

Continuing the indication, he says, “There are a lot of these digital disrupters: Google, Skype, Apple, Amazon, Netflix. They are actually ruling our world. These services are meeting a lot of impact on the demands from even the telecom providers because the subscriber’s expectations are getting set. The preference for OTT-based services is impacting traditional voice- and messaging-based engagements. However, the telecom organizations have a big strength underlining and that is the strength of their ability to provide connectivity.

He coins the term Predictive Personalization in relation to meeting consumer demands and satisfying them.

According to Pargaonkar, consumer habits are changing. They expect simple and frictionless experience combined with faster innovation. He coins the term Predictive Personalization in relation to meeting consumer demands and satisfying them.

Netflix and all other players like Amazon, Google are set out to change the consumers’ behavior and also change the expectations and experiences. What this means for telecom service providers is that it is now the ripe time to harness and leverage new age technologies to manage the expectation that the customers have today. Those expectations are initially faced simple and frictionless experiences, faster innovation and the third one is predictive personalization.

The solutions help drive hyper-personalization, which is going to be highly critical for any organization meeting consumer demands.

Artificial Intelligence can build solutions to make predictive personalization possible. Artificial intelligence when we look at honestly speaking is already a part of our lives. Most of us use voice assistants like Google Home or Alexa or Siri. This is a classic example of day-to-day AI. With so much of these technologies around, Salesforce too has built its abilities around these new-age technologies. Salesforce has the ability to use consumer data and build artificial intelligence specific to the analyzed data.  The solutions help drive hyper-personalization, which is going to be highly critical for any organization meeting consumer demands. It is going to play an important role in creating a frictionless experience for consumers,” nails Pargaonkar.

AI and its symbiosis with Chatbots, IoT, predictive analysis

AI as a technology has brought to the table something called Bots. Pargaonkar reveals that Salesforce has pioneered to build ChatBots. These bots can help the telecom service provider the necessary engagement around service with the consumers. Based on the demand, Salesforce can provide bots for omnidirectional to bidirectional chat services to engage consumers. The bot is continuously working, servicing the consumer providing a seamless and frictionless experience — Which is absolutely important in today’s world!

Another point Pargaonkar implied in the discussion is the association between AI and IoT. “I want to explain this association with a real-time example, One of Salesforce’s customer is Kone Elevators. We helped Kone by providing a solution that uses IoT capability and Artificial Intelligence to make the prediction of the problems which are likely to come in the elevators and execute the resolution of those issues beforehand. Remember something at a backbone level what is connecting all these things is connectivity that the telecom service provider provides. The connected data becomes critical to build solutions for predictions. Understanding the data can be used to deliver better experiences to the consumer.”

"We are very well poised to offer the right solutions in this era to our ever-demanding telecom service providers,” promises Pargaonkar.

Salesforce pegs to be the trusted new-age technology solutions partner

“Salesforce is absolutely on the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution. We have always been providing the business benefits to all verticals right from the inception including the telecom industry, which started way back in 1999 with cloud revolution. Today we provide the telecom service providers the ability for them to manage seamless and frictionless service for their consumers. This seamless and frictionless service capability has also artificial intelligence embedded in that. Salesforce’s Artificial Intelligence, customer service portfolio, marketing portfolio, commerce portfolio, IoT portfolio are all in sync to help telecom service providers manage all of the demanding expectations at the core industrial revolution. We are very well poised to offer the right solutions in this era to our ever-demanding telecom service providers,” promises Pargaonkar.

Agreed that Salesforce is at the forefront in providing the much-required new age solutions. But there is an inevitable demand that these provisions come secured. Defending his company, Pargaonkar strongly expresses, “Salesforce is built on four core values. Customer success. Innovation. Equality. Trust. Trust is our number one value and we provide world-class security framework within our datacenters for the customers. Whatever the standard requirements of certifications and then validation by the third party those are all very well deployed by us when we provide customers a seamless experience of delivering our solutions.”