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Author: Rohit Maheshwari

  • Telco AI Transformation – Building the New Hyperscalers [Part 1: The big picture]

    Telco AI Transformation – Building the New Hyperscalers [Part 1: The big picture]

    Who would have imagined – at literally the flick of a switch the way we work and live will be changed forever – thanks to the pandemic.

    Amidst all this, the folks from the telecom industry have been the unsung heroes playing a critical role in the dramatic shift. A big thank you to the telco warriors – without your tenacity, resilience and grit this could not have been possible.

    Yet, as has been the case in the last several years most of the wealth making opportunities have continued to elude the telcos. It is a curious paradox that on one hand telcos have become the backbone of our new world order, and on the other, the pressure on revenues, margins, and that of customer expectations has only grown.

    While one might find multiple reasons for this – in my opinion, there are some things telcos can do to address this situation.

    • Embrace AI: Shift gears from scattered and sporadic AI experimentations for decision analytics to a strategic view of transforming all decision analytics in the organization by leveraging AI. This has to be a top-down CXO-driven imperative. It is clear across the telco value chain AI driven decision analytics has the ability add a few percentage points in terms of revenue uplift and cost reduction
    • Re-think tech stack: Cloud for elasticity and Open Source for agility is absolutely necessary. Ensure best practices from hyperscalers such as Google, Uber, GoJek are adopted.
    • Derive value from data: Ensure data and features are well cataloged and searchable. And Ensure AI infra and services from Image to Speech to Forecasting to Deep Learning are easily and readily available. That’s the only way to attract and retain Data Science talent.

    Learn from the hyperscaler enterprises that are built around data and AI-driven decision analytics. Just think about it – if you were to let go of the entire data science teams in telcos there be very minimal impact. Now compare it with the impact of the same activity on the likes of Google, Uber or GoJek. The repercussions will be catastrophic, to say the least!

    No – it’s not to say that telcos do not understand the value of AI-driven decision making. The truth is that across the telco value chain there are several opportunities to leverage AI-driven decision analytics with the possibility of boosting revenues and profits. But most efforts thus far have been sporadic and scattered set of experiments.

    It’s not all gloom though. And I would like to use the example of a telco who are clearly thinking at a planetary-scale. I had the opportunity to listen in to Rakuten’s CTO Tareq Amin during a webinar session and I was absolutely floored by his vision, clarity of thought, and conviction to think planetary scale. He calls it Rakuten Un-limit. Rakuten sees itself as a platform company and is combining the power to Open Source for agility, Cloud for scale and elasticity and a co-create/ collaborate model to redefine how telcos can compete against the best and win. Telcos like Rakuten, Jio and Telefonica to name a few have a tremendous focus on leveraging data, and AI-driven decision platform as a must have layer in their entire stack.

    In my mind, I am absolutely convinced. Intense digitalization, the impending launch of 5G services combined with AI in decision analytics has the power to propel telcos into the league of hyperscalers. It is time telcos recognize this and start organizing themselves around data – a precious commodity they are already awash with!

    Note: This blogpost is part of a multi-part series on AI transformation for telcos. Look forward to the subsequent parts that will be published under the title.

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  • 5G and the dawn of “age of inventions” – Key Takeaways from MWC19! – Subex Limited

    5G and the dawn of “age of inventions” – Key Takeaways from MWC19! – Subex Limited

    I am just back from MWC 2019 and am really excited to share my thoughts. The mood at this year’s MWC was of general enthusiasm and exuberance, particularly with respect to 5G and the possibilities it opens up for telcos.

    When 3G and 4G happened telcos were slow to evolve and transform their business models. Global internet giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook made most of the mobile internet revolution in the last decade, whereas telcos saw continued pressure on margins, revenue and customer experience.

    5G is yet another chance for telcos to #makeithappen if they can get their acts together. I firmly believe telcos have learnt from their previous experiences and are much better prepared for the next wave.

    Here are my top three takeaways from MWC 2019

    1. The dawn of “age of inventions”: 5G has finally broken through the hype and we saw some groundbreaking innovations being displayed around at MWC 2019. This is after the last few years where there was, in my view, a higher degree of tentativeness. We saw low latency, reliable connectivity-based use cases such as:

    a)  Remotely operated medical surgery/ emergency medical treatment

    b)  Ushering of “second great inflection point” # in transportation with autonomous cars, cars with natural language interface, cars with cognitive interface

    We also saw several announcements in the area of IoT and Industry 4.0 with SAP, AT&T, Vodafone, Ericsson, Telstra etc. launching new solutions.

    From Subex’s point of view, these are exciting times as our IoT Security solution is well positioned to help operators, smart cities and autonomous cars by providing much needed security cover.

    2. 5G means intense Capex: While developing economies will continue to focus on monetizing 4G networks, developed economies will start rolling out 5G networks starting 2019. 5G rollouts will be Capex heavy needing massive investments in Radio Access Network with network densification, mmWave network rollouts etc. and in core network to support high speed, high capacity, low latency use-cases which 5G promises.

    Subex showcased its Network Analytics portfolio driving smart spend, smart asset management and AI/ML driven network capacity planning use cases and these were very well received by both customers and prospects alike.

    3. Digital Trust key to success in 5G: According Vittorio Colao, Ex CEO Vodafone one of the main challenges facing telcos is “the lack of a genuine customer orientation, which, if you have it, makes customers truly love your services and thereby drives value” (McKinsey Quarterly).

     As the 5G juggernaut rolls out, telcos will need to do aggressive network build outs, forge new partnerships, and offer far more critical services. Customers will expect ubiquitous connectivity of very high quality, investors will expect better management and ROI.

    All this means telcos will need to really focus on building digital trust – a mechanism that creates trust in their offerings, processes and information systems. Failure would mean yet again handing over advantage to the internet giants who already benefit from global scales, not having to invest in expensive networks, and who have shown to be far more nimble in responding to customer needs. Subex with its focus on enabling digital trust through privacy, security, risk mitigation, predictability and confidence in data, is yet again well positioned to work closely with operators in building this much needed digital trust.

    What do you think of dawn of age of invention powered by 5G? Let me know in the comments section below.

    # Mckinsey Quaterly 

    PS: Oh! Here is a bonus takeaway for those among you planning to be at MWC 2020. Wear comfortable shoes. One easily clocks 20,000 steps each day.