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V&D: Telcos are under more pressure than ever before. Despite the moderate growth of traditional revenue streams, Capex and Opex are increasing. How can the telcos efficiently balance both?
Berjesh Chawla: Telcos are facing significant challenges, withslowing wireless growth and shrinking traditional revenue streams. To succeed in the future, telcos need to focus on monetizing their network investments, developing new products, and creating innovative revenue streams, particularly in the B2B2X market. With strategic investments and cost optimization, telcos can prioritize technology led reinvention to enhance both business operations and customer experiences. In fact, with AI, gen AI and cloud, telcos have a unique opportunity to leverage their core assets, reinvent network operations, and create differentiated customer experiences.
V&D: Customer expectations have changed along with markets and methods. How can telcos balance meeting expectationswhile keeping up with the pace of transformation?
Berjesh Chawla: In a hyper-connected world, consumers have similar expectations from their telcos as they have from other consumer companies or service providers.In this context, the right data and insights are keyto offering truly personalised experiences.Providing personalized, omnichannel experiences that are meticulously tailored to individual customer segments, can help telcos establish strong connections and shape a brighter future.For instance, gen AI can be used to reinvent customer care and support which is a huge cost for the industry and has the potential to realize significant monetary benefits.
V&D: What are the most significant barriers for AI and genAI adoption? Now that major telecom companies including Jio and Airtel are adopting AI and gen AI, how can they navigate through these challenges?
Berjesh Chawla: With rapid advancements in AI and genAI, telcos need to adapt to technology led reinvention with investments in three key areas – value-based deployment, skilling, and governance. While telecom companies are exploring the use of AI and generative to improve agility and efficiency, they need to address a few key challenges. First and foremost, telcos need to adopt a phased approach to AI deployment, starting with high-impact programs that demonstrate clear return on investment. This can help build stronger business case for further investments and scaled up initiatives.Another key factor for success with AI and generative AI is ensuring the availability of high-quality, relevant data. Currently, the right data availability and management is a key barrier to AI adoption across enterprises. Data though available in abundance, is not readily accessible or present in usable structure & formats.
The firms also need to focus on skilling across levels and functions to develop AI-ready talent. Increasingly, security is becoming a major concern, but it can be mitigated through robust cybersecurity measures and compliance with regulatory standards. To generate the right value from this transformative technology, telcos will need to work on the responsible design, deployment and usage of AI.
V&D: Talking about energy, AI needs a lot of it. With such rapidly evolving ecosystem, how can CSP's focus on making sustainable investments?
Berjesh Chawla: It is established by now that AI and generative AI have the potential to revolutionize industries and redefine business strategies. AI and generative AI, if developed and used responsibly, have huge potential to accelerate thebusinesses impact on sustainable development. To offset its carbon footprint, the greening of AI and generative AI is the next frontier to retain the huge positive impact it can have in driving the broader sustainability agenda.
The focus on sustainability presents a huge opportunity for communication service providers (CSPs) to play a critical role in achieving global net zero ambitions. With their vast networks of suppliers and customers, CSPs are in a unique position to lead the charge that reaches well beyond emission reductions secured by their own internal operations. By embedding sustainability initiatives while deploying AI use cases, CSPs can not only remain carbon neutral but also lead in terms of growth.
V&D: There are concerns aroundreturn on investments of 5G’s use cases. Your remarks.
Berjesh Chawla: As a platform for new innovations, 5G enables ubiquitous connectivity layers to support the digitization of operations, thereby driving new efficiency, agility and innovation.5G has been a catalyst for building intelligence at the network edge, and with the next phase of 5G underlining the need for end-to-end AI integration, future mobile generations will learn fast, self-orchestrate, and open new possibilities.We are also seeing 5G move beyond use cases or proof of concept discussions to becoming part of large technology led reinvention programs for companies.With wider adoption and economies of scale, 5Gis geared towards unlocking substantial new revenue streams and boosting enterprise efficiency.We expect to see more innovation in the enterprise segment.
V&D: Communications service providers (CSPs) play a key role in a society that is becoming increasingly digital and interconnected. What are the major transformative pathways to profitability?
Berjesh Chawla: With increasing connectivity, telcos have become an essential part of our daily lives in this digital age. This also means that the pressure on telcos has never been greater. However, advancements in technology also provide them a unique opportunity to reinvent connectivity and spur growth. Telcos can reinvent to become leaner and more efficient, while delivering superior services to customers with the right strategic technology investments and cost optimisation efforts. They need to reduce network costs, accelerate time-to-market and scale, and monetize their investments by adding new products and services. Monetising their network investmentsand data assets, building new products and developing new revenue streams such as digital and cloud,can help telcos find new avenues of profitability and innovation.