‘Industry is dwindling with hyper competition and regulatory issues’

Over the years, telecom operators have offered a plethora of services--from plain vanila voice services to broadband, fixedline, wireless broadband, mobile money, and many more. Keeping the ICT infrastructure agile and reliable is the role of a CIO and Ashish Pachory, chief information officer, Tata Teleservices, is a master in that. In a conversation with VOICE&DATA, he talks about the growing challenges and his tips on how to maintain a telecom network that is expected to run 24*7 and without fail. Excerpts--

What are the key technology trends in the telecom industry, if we look at it as an enterprise?

A new wave of convergence is taking shape as actionable analytics, cloud computing, web-based social interactions, and enterprise mobility come together. Our ability to ride this wave will define our chances of surviving in the red ocean. A lot has been said and written already on these trends, but in the context of enterprise success, let us take each of these and re-emphasize briefly the role of each.

Analytics: Rate of creation of data is far exceeding the human capacity for assimilation and analysis. Finding relevant information is important, but hard to accomplish. This is where advanced analytics can play a vital role. Advanced analytics will provide the ability to perform analysis and simulation of all business transactions, and present a model which is concise, relevant, and accurate.

Cloud: Cloud computing is finally emerging from the folds of experimentation to becoming a real-world business enabler. For telecom service providers, cloud is a critical enabler in their transformation to next-gen telcos. It is the cloud that makes services, and not devices and connectivity, the true differentiator.

Social: Social Media has been a disruptive trend not just among communities but increasingly in enterprises as well. It was once popular to say that the voice of one disgruntled customer reaches 10 others. Social Media makes it 10 mn others. The wealth of information availability, the unlimited reach, and the ease of use make social media a compelling business tool, which some telecom service providers are very effectively using to stay connected with their customers.

Mobility: The consumerization of smart mobile devices has had a dramatic impact on the enterprise. It is essential to be connected with the business no matter where you are. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is gaining momentum as the need for a seamless experience is gaining ground. These mobile devices have access to the data for supporting business decision making, leading to a more empowered workforce which can deliver at anytime and from anywhere.

What are the business challenges the industry is facing at present?

For the industry as a whole, and also for individual service providers, the biggest challenge today is the widening gap between growth in revenues (defined by ARPU, customer acquisitions) and the growth in cost of providing service at an acceptable price (defined by voice and data traffic). While the former is at a plateau, the latter is growing almost exponentially. Growth in traffic is spurred by the very trends which TSPs strongly promote-viz growing subscriber base and proliferation of smart mobile devices. This trend is unlikely to abate as the internet-of-things (IOT) emerges over the horizon. Obviously, service providers have to find new ways of monetization while reducing the cost of delivering traffic, particularly data traffic.

Hyper competition and an uncertain regulatory environment are the other challenges. Lower than expected adoption of expensively acquired 3G services, possibly due to lack of differentiating applications that subscribers are willing to accept a premium for, contributes further to the travails of the service provider.

What are the technology requirements of your company and who are your vendors taking care of ICT tools?

One of our key requirements is to ensure that our customers get uninterrupted service whenever and wherever they connect. The whole eco-system of network, technology, IT is geared to ensure that the customer gets seamless and secure connectivity. Managing the network inventory and capacity, huge volumes of customer and call data, ensuring an efficient customer service delivery through a network of call centers and ensuring our readiness and capability to meet upcoming regulatory changes define some of the more critical technology requirements.

The system needs to be flexible enough to incorporate the requirements in a secure and timely way at an optimal cost. Vendors that look after ICT tools are Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for systems integration, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Alcatel Lucent, IBM, and others providing necessary software and hardware infrastructure.

How has the telecom industry technologically evolved over the last few years?

The defining evolution in the telecom industry, however, has been the shift from voice to data. While 2G was a voice technology tweaked for data, 4G is a data technology tweaked for voice. Data transfer rates today with enhanced 2G technologies (like Edge) and 3G are a major boost to all segments of business that can now access and transfer data on small screens (SIM cards-mobile phones) and large screens (dongles-laptops). There are several next generation non-voice services that are fast taking shape-like mobile payment platforms, cloud computing, mobile TV, GPS tracking services, mobile surveillance, and a host of other things.