With the mix of glorious buildings, winding alleys, year-round sunshine and attractive seaside, Nice is a must-see for every visitor. Thousands of people from the telecom industry descend on Nice for TM Forum Live! each May, networking and sharing what is happening in the industry.
ZTEsoft held its 5th annual summit under the theme of “Together” on May 18 in Chateau de Cremat, Nice, gathering executives and experts from major communication service providers (CSPs), partners and industry analysts from around the world to explore the future.
For players in the telecom industry, what are the hot subjects when we meet? It is all about Digital Transformation from every aspect, maybe we can simply name it FUTURE.
Flexibility. The approaches to IT system planning and construction, be it silo stack model for each business, or function-based and vertical systems for all line of business, fall short of supporting future business forms – more dynamic, ever changing business models and ever-expanding customer base with the exponential growth of connected things. In the future, the IT architecture will be cloud-enabled, platform-based and service-oriented to support elastic scalability.
Understanding. Systems are more than tools, they are expected to perceive customers’ behaviour, or even feelings. Therefore, systems should be built based on understanding and have the capability to change dynamically for personalisation. Instead of simply providing functions on demand, systems will be smart virtual assistants to offer immediate and targeted guidance.
Telco platform. The Platform business model is the core strategy for internet companies, and also an imperative initiative for telcos. Embracing a platform business model provides a new way to grow and increase value in the fast expanding digital economy. Telcos will need a “platform + application” architecture to dynamically reach to various function centres; In terms of the business level, the platform is the core model based to develop content applications and one-stop information services.
Ubiquitous Intelligence. It is indisputable that the world will must be filled with intelligence and smart X. When it comes to smart operation, it’s about building an end-to-end framework covering customers, businesses, networks, IT operation and maintenance, etc., rather than scattered re-construction. The intelligence should be embedded in every aspect from the architecture, business processes to operational experience and design philosophies to complete comprehensive capability upgrades, and sustainable optimisations.
Reliability & openness. Openness has become an inevitable trend for service providers’ business development, unlocking value and new revenue streams through new business models. While when we enjoy the benefits openness brings, we also need to focus on the uncertainties, for example, unpredictable performance, and data breaches. To construct reliability, it may cover multi-dimension including data security, channel planning, sandbox, flow control, visual scheduling, and graceful degradation.
Ecosystem. Our life will be more dimensional with an ecosystem surrounding the platform. In this ecosystem, analytics is the core technology to realise business innovation; partners share their capabilities, technologies and expand investments; End-users enjoy full range of digital services on a single platform with unified accounts. The access of varied types of partners, more centralised product catalog, and highly complex business forms will continue to bring impact on operational support.
The world in the future will be an exciting, creative, and dynamic place with adequate flexibility, tacit understanding, real-time insight capture, ubiquitous intelligence and more. ZTEsoft sees the world in the future as “Internet of Digital Community”, where the power of Internet will make the digitally connected community together, and diverse and innovative partnership models make life easier via intelligent platforms with just one click away. To materialize the “Internet of Digital Community”, industry players need the imagination, the leadership, the confidence, the engagement, and the spirit of always questioning in new ways.
