I recently had an opportunity to speak with Nik Willetts, chief digital officer for the TM Forum organization about its vision for the digital business landscape. If you aren’t familiar with the TM Forum, it is a nonprofit industry association focused on working with its member companies as they go about digital transformations. There are currently more than 900 member companies made up of service providers, technology suppliers, systems integrators and global enterprises.
Starting with the topic of digital business, we discussed the basics of how, what and when. According to Willetts, “a digital business is one where everything in that business is connected digitally. From the supply chain all the way through to the customer.” It seems this topic has been discussed for a while in the telecommunications industry and now is becoming a reality with scalable solutions to meet end-to-end customer needs. For example, cloud computing and storage solutions have become challenged due to the increase in customer needs for their data to be properly managed. This has come about due to the increased need of data – big data – required in a digital business. Smart cities are also an example of a digital business – if you consider a city as a business – with everything connected between the citizens and the city infrastructure.
This vision does not come without challenges. A truly digital business cannot be achieved alone and will require collaboration among industry players that are likely competitors on some level. This “coopertition” can enable a more agile innovation cycle vs. getting bogged down in too much process. However, many players might not be comfortable with this type of partnering as it may not culturally be their way of working. Information sharing and processes to enable cross-industry cooperation will be required.
The “Internet of Things” is an area in which the TM Forum sees the opportunity for the concept of digital business to come to life. This is also a great example of the challenges mentioned above. Willetts’ view is that “The challenge with IoT is not about the technology. The technology is there. The challenge is about the culture of working together and managing this at scale.” In industrial applications you can see this working today, but beyond this segment, IoT is still a challenge. Smart cities are also strong candidates for IoT to become real sooner vs. later.
I look forward to seeing the demonstrations and presentations of companies working to bring this concept to life at the upcoming TMForum Live event June 1-4 in Nice. Stay tuned for updates from the event.
NikWilletts Willetts has been working in the high-tech market for over 10 years and is currently chief digital officer for TM Forum. In this capacity, Willetts is responsible for driving the Forum’s success and value-delivery across a broad range of competencies, including digital services. Previously, Willetts held a number of executive positions within the Forum, including responsibility for marketing and communications, global events and IT. Prior to joining TM Forum, Willetts ran a successful consulting business working with multinational companies including BT, WestLB and The Carphone Warehouse.
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Claudia Bacco, Managing Director – EMEA for RCR Wireless News, has spent her entire career in telecom, IT and security. Having experience as an operator, software and hardware vendor and as a well-known industry analyst, she has many opinions on the market. She’ll be sharing those opinions along with ongoing trend analysis for RCR Wireless News.
