Digital Transformation World 2019, takeaways from the event
Strategic Marketing Director
Strategic Marketing Director
Strategic Marketing Director
At Digital Transformation World (DTW) 2019, which is organized by TM Forum, delegates discussed both industry opportunities and challenges with one goal in mind: How to make customers happy. Frankly, we were also asking ourselves about a second goal: How does cloud native, artificial intelligence and digital customer experience make our customers happy?
It’s about culture and people
I believe we did get the answer, but with a slight twist and it’s something that the industry has been aware of for some time. It’s an organization’s mindset and culture that need to be fixed first. We need to consider the most important tool that could make this happen, something that was reaffirmed at the event: People. The delegates emphasized the need for flat organizations, fewer silos, cross-functional collaboration and being empathetic to customer needs —making processes simpler and resulting in the meaningful application of technologies.
Be customer-centric
By working in customer-centric teams, we can relate to our customers’ digital needs. Together, we could figure out the best set of open APIs and microservices to provide our customers with superior services in a matter of days, even minutes. Together, we would need to be pragmatic while introducing artificial intelligence, and evolving from low to zero touch. Finally, we would need to adopt the mindset of not shying away from failures.
But are we collaborating enough?
Increase collaboration
Collaboration and developing a collaborative ecosystem were rightly reinforced at Digital Transformation World. Just think of the full potential of 5G monetization for vertical industries. Have we, as vendors and operators, been able to capture fully, opportunities in the gaming industry, media, automotive and smart cities? What type of platform-based business models would be effective to meet such future demands?
Ericsson participated in two award winning TM Forum Catalyst projects: Skynet and Digital Twins. In this video Vodafone and Orange are interviewed together with Ericsson about the project
Both are examples of powerful use cases that our ecosystem is capable of when we work together.
It isn’t only about setting digital KPIs
As digital and cloud native providers emerge in our industry with innovative offerings, e.g., fully online or AI driven customer care, so do new business opportunities. What we learnt at DTW 2019, is that setting clear business objectives and executive sponsorship is essential to embarking on a journey towards digital transformation. Success doesn’t need to be overwhelmed by defining a new set of digital key performance indicators (KPIs). Rather, we need to focus on how we could improve customer experience and gain further efficiencies.
Let’s keep customer centricity as the main focus and consider digitalization as a means to reach our objectives. This is essential for healthy collaboration and building an exciting digital ecosystem for our industry.
To learn more about what top global telecom operators see as key priorities when planning to operationalize 5G, check out the MIT Tech Review Insights report on Network automation
To learn more about TM Forum Catalysts, find more information here:
