It's time the telecom sector went digital
- By Yogesh Malik
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China Daily, February 1, 2016
|
|
|
A China Telecom stand at an information industry expo in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. [Photo/China Daily] |
Digital transformation has become a buzzword, especially within the telecommunications industry that is in real need of change. While many sectors, including banking, airlines and even furniture and clothing, went digital long ago, telecom, despite being one with a significant technological advantage, stands still. It's time for us (the tech sector) to move too and shift into the digital gear. And the time is now.
While the need to transform and improve not only the services telecom companies provide, but the way they do business, is obvious, providers need to understand what they are doing and why. They need to establish what digital transformation means, embrace this vision and let it drive changes in the sector and empower the customer.
Looking at the fundamentals, digital transformation is dramatically changing the paradigm of "typical" way of working for telecom companies with three key dimensions driving this change: purpose, mindset and culture.
Purpose can be defined in one word－the customer. The customer should be the central component and driver of the change in the industry. There is an ongoing debate over virtualization and digitalization while the industry is stuck in outdated mentalities, and struggles to create disruptive innovations that answer customers' truly digital needs. Systems are layered over systems, and the valuable customer and application data lie somewhere buried below.
Telecom providers need to build an interface to free up that "customer data flow" which will allow them to tap into customers' digital universe. Take the network for example－it could be 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi－the customer doesn't care if providers combine bandwidth or switch to an available channel, as long as their experience is seamless.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)