Exclusive Interview – Ashish Kapoor

Your vision of how the telecom sector will pan out in India over the next couple of years.

I would like to begin by quoting The future of telecom is not telecom. The future of telecom is that of an enabler of services that redefine the way we live, work, and play. Though the telecom sector is under tremendous stress, but there are some key technological changes which will shape up the networks in the next couple of years.

The future holds many opportunities for creating new revenue streams, and this will happen not only through simple connectivity provision but through cross-industry alliances between the telecom industry and other industries, such as entertainment, automotive, manufacturing, healthcare, the signs of which are already there in the market today.

Adoption and rollout of new technologies, such as Open RAN, Het-Nets 5G, and IOT, will result in new value chains and business models that will spur the growth of the sector.

Challenges and opportunities in the Indian market.

There are no challenges, only opportunities, is what I believe in. Telecom services have always been a business of scale; however, rarely have the cost pressures been so strong.

The opportunity to be able to enhance revenues in both B2B and B2C segment requires a favorable regulatory and business environment and large-scale investments. In emerging countries, low-cost markets require constant innovation to ensure they provide customers with affordable plans.

Beyond industry consolidation, mergers and acquisitions, these cost pressures also imply the need for streamlining and reinventing the current processes and systems. Telcos have to be more agile in adopting new technologies, like the Cloud, AR/VR, which are blurring the borders between telecom service providers and technology vendors and new service delivery models using real-time process management with new-generation OSS/BSS and business-process automation.

The positive side of this blurring is that it opens up a plethora of opportunities that a telco could not have imagined a decade ago. There is a need to continue to build up the infrastructure, especially optical fiber to be able to monetize the opportunities that the next generation of technologies are presenting.

Please share Vedang’s plan and strategy for 2019-20.

Our plan for Vedang is to be the largest and preferred services partner to our customers, which are both the OEMs and the operators. Transformational growth is what we are looking at for ourselves not only in FY 2019-20 but beyond also. The requirements from a services provider like us are changing in line with the evolving technologies and trends and we are embracing these changes.

The focus in our business is to be able to scale up in a manner that supports the business viability. This is going to be enabled by adopting new technologies and platforms and a new business model that enhances the value proposition for our customers.

Apart from this, we are also focusing on forming strategic partnerships and alliances with leading global suppliers to rollout new technologies and solutions.

Vedang has been the go-to-partner for all its customers and stands tall in its commitments of project planning and delivery and execution capabilities.

Moving forward, considering the huge volume of existing sites which will be upgraded to 5G technologies, there exists a huge business potential with all operators and equipment manufacturers. What role do you see for your company in the 5G revolution?

Introduction of 5G networks, coupled with mature solutions across NFV/SDN, cloud automation, and IoT networks, is likely to drive more agile and future-oriented networks to support the unrealized business case of existing 4G networks.

The network upgrades give us huge opportunity to build numbers to our existing business portfolio and the diverse service portfolios in 5G and IoT will be the key diversification model and the step up has a promising potential.

Anything else you may like to add.

In today’s age, disruption leads the way toward innovation and evolution.

At the cusp of evolution, what any industry needs to do is have a vision of the future, and adapt instead of getting rolled over.

As more and more technology changes and digital transformations get adopted, the end of 2020 promises to be a period of vast opportunities for the industry.