Last week’s 4th edition of the RoamsysNext Connectivity Innovation Forum was dedicated to the consequences of disruption caused by the global Covid-19 crisis. Billions of people living and working within the confines of their homes induced quite a waking call for the industry’s global digital strategy.
The fourth webinar of the RoamsysNext Connectivity Innovation Forum (CIF) started with Ema Proda’s, Business consultant at RoamsysNext, analysis how the current situation of crisis is impacting our business concerning retail markets with drastically decreasing roaming figures such as eighty-five per cent only in Europe. Nevertheless, the industry quickly stabilised networks with regard to patterns change management, offering data and speed upgrades and undisrupted service as well as fast responses for all the at-home students, home office workers and people seeking entertainment from home. It became clear how the shortage of vital elements such as human resources, revenues and investments will demand new concepts of running the business after the time of crisis, and being prepared for various scenarios in the following quarters of the year 2020 and 2021. An integral thought addressed network fraud: prime time for fraudsters who tirelessly exploit human nature in these times of fragility whereas the industry is facing low manpower to filter attacks and whip out attackers.
© Ema Proda, RoamsysNext
Proactivity and automation
Randall Peterson, Union Wireless, IDS Chair, took on discussing the worth of a proactive approach to digital strategy to be prepared for situations of crisis: how to cope with abruptly increasing demands on bandwidth, how to work through home visits by service technicians, last but not least: how about security, i.e. CPI Fraud. Following a fast but reactive strategy does not deliver best results. Instead, Randall made a case for proactively implementing automation to be able to focus on more important tasks that benefit the company and the industry. By removing non essential manual work and implementing the right technology, automation will maximise benefits not only in the long run. Remarkable outcomes might show by implementing chat bots for customer service, for example. The costly workforce of service representatives can already be saved for intricate and smart responses whereas the chat bot takes over simple questions and gives well worded answers. Kathleen Leach, CTO Sprint and WAS chair GSMA, agreed upon the savings point elaborating on an example of her company: by combining multiple databases into a single report these kinds of improvements boasted a considerable ROI.
Being innovative and future-focussed
Shamit Bhat made a big leap into the future by showing a clip from a futuristic TV-series: multiple sensors and devices operated on a young woman were enabling her to see, feel and multitask the upmost amount of information across the world. Shamit pointed out the need for proactive future-oriented thinking, especially for the telecom industry that is at the heart of each development. Imagining a future process map with new entities such as medical staff of clinics that are able to perform these types of operations and turn the body to a device. But also the need for defining new processes to support the new ecosystem, just imagine roaming across borders with a chip in the body.
After the presentations, Kathleen Leach took the opportunity to share the WAS Update April 2020. Since WAS#11 in Cape Town has been moved to March 2021, several session options were presented with the opportunity to register for 21 and 22 April 2020. As usual, the Connectivity Innovation Forum is a perfect place to get insights without needing to travel.
A date for the next webinar is planned for mid-May, the agenda is currently up for discussion and will be announced, soon.
If you want to be a part of shaping new stands and want to belong to an innovation-driven think tank, too, we are always looking forward to new members: join and participate in the Connectivity Innovation Forum. Register at forum@roamsys-next.com
