Huawei Urges Telcos To Embrace Digitalization

The Chinese vendor said operators embracing digital technologies are better positioned to capture growth opportunities.

Huawei suggested that telecommunications operators should speed up the process to digitalize their processes and operations in order to improve efficiency and obtain additional revenue growth opportunities, the company’s board chairman Hua Liang said during a keynote presentation at Huawei’s Operations Transformation Forum (OTF) 2018, being held in Munich.

“Telecom operators can improve the speed and efficiency of business processes and legacy IT, deliver new capabilities and services, and better capture new digital opportunities. These are the benefits of ‘going digital’ for the telecom industry,” the executive said.

The executive also differentiated between businesses which have digitized processes, and those which have fully implemented digital technology.

“When you are digitized, you get the efficiency, the reliability and the cost savings. When you are digital, you achieve revenue generation and growth,” he said. “There are three major reasons to go digital. First, you can improve the efficiency and speed of the business processes and IT. Second, you can deliver new capabilities and services. Third, you can better capture digital opportunities.”

The executive also said that the world is seeing exponential growth in digital technology, driving the digital transformation of all industries. As 5G will be the next major opportunity for the telecom industry, operators aiming to deploy this technology need more precise network deployment and maintenance, and to enable the development of vertical industries. These areas represent key market demand for the telecom industry moving forward, he said.

“The process of digital transformation isn’t easy,” Hua Liang said. “In most cases, it takes at least 18 months to get through the toughest period. In 18 months from now, 5G technology will be mature.”

To better support operators’ digital transformation, Huawei has opened a Digital Transformation Practice Center (DTPC), which allows operators to practice and build digital transformation capabilities. Huawei will also build a common digital platform, initially applied in Huawei’s internal applications, which will serve customers once it reaches maturity.

“This digital platform must have the following features: align with business process and be integrated in business process, unify data model and exchange data smoothly, cloud native and open capability, intelligent-enabled. Based on the platform, we can get the best solutions to fulfill the requirements quickly through collaborative innovation with internal and external ecosystem, this is business agility,” said Bill Tang, president of Huawei Global Technical Services. “In the future, Huawei aims to build an autonomous network and service 2.0 to achieve a much higher-level, agile network,” he added.

During the OTF event, Huawei will discuss with analysts and customers how operators can achieve true digital operations aimed at bringing a real-time, on-demand and online experience to users. – RCR Wireless