5G will open up new business opportunities for telecoms operators, enabling them to offer new digital services enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, blockchain, and IoT.
But to be able to deliver these services to their customers and vertical segments, operators need to be “modernized” and continue to scale their business, improve speed and efficiency, said Huawei chairman Liang Hua.
“In the 4G era, digital services can been seen as optional. But in the 5G era, where everything is in the cloud, digital services is not optional- it will be a must,” Liang said in a keynote speech kicking off the company’s Operations Transformation Forum in Munich on Monday.
By 2025, digital services will contribute more than 20% of operators’ revenues, he said, adding that telcos need to go digital in order to monetize digital services.
Citing MIT research, Liang highlighted the key benefits of going digital and the difference between being digitalized and becoming digital.
“When you are digitized, you can get higher efficiency, reliability, and cost savings; when you are digital, you can achieve revenue generation and growth,” he said.
“There are three major reasons for operators to go digital. First, you can improve the efficiency and speed of the business processes and [legacy] IT. Second, you can deliver new capabilities and services. Third, you can better capture digital opportunities.”
To better capture the digital opportunities, he noted, operators need to shift towards “intelligent operations”, so they will be able to deliver digital services to every person, home and organization.
He said that "automation is fundamental for intelligent operations" and the combination of AI technologies and data analytics could enable the introduction of zero-touch orchestration.
“Data is the most important asset for operators,” he said. “Operators should use AI tools and data analytics to identify and push value added services to customers at the right time.”
Liang said that “the process of digital transformation isn’t easy” and Huawei is working to bring “AIOps" to telcos with aims to help them reduce time to market from 18 months to weeks.
And to successfully transform their operations, Liang said operators should “pick a scenario, start small, think big, align business and IT and scale fast.”
As part of its efforts to support operators’ digital transformation, Huawei has teamed with HKT to set up a digital transformation practice center (DTPC) in Hong Kong, which enables operators to practice and build digital transformation capabilities.
Bill Tang, president of Huawei Global Technical Services, said Huawei will also build a “common digital platform” that will initially be applied in the company’s internal applications, and then roll out to its customers when it’s mature.