In conjunction with the ongoing MWC Barcelona 2022, Tara Neal, Executive Editor of The Fast Mode spoke to Angus Ward, CEO of Beyond Now on the company's plans and showcases for this year's event.
Tara: What do you think MWC 2022 will be all about? And what are your MWC 2022 plans?
Angus: MWC will be the first major global gathering since 2019 and since then, the industry has experienced a multitude of major changes in the last three years, including:
- Announcements, deals and acquisitions - The hyperscalers now all have substantial telecoms-focused business units and are pushing heavily on public cloud and edge. This is not just about IT transformation; rather, the hyperscalers are getting a foothold in the network. Microsoft announced acquisitions of Affirmed in March 2020 and Metaswitch in May 2020, along with a high-profile network deal at AT&T in June 2021. In between these deals and acquisitions, in Nov 2020 Huawei network equipment started to be banned in some countries. April 2021 also saw AWS building a cloud native, fully virtualized software-based network at Dish. Google has also made clear its intent with a series of high-profile deals such as TELUS in February 2021.
- Traditional and new players - In addition to the traditional players such as network equipment providers (NEPs) Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei, we found new players like DELL Technologies breaking in to the O-RAN market in 2021, as well as announcing the launch of their incredibly powerful ecosystem of partners for the co-creation of communication solutions.
- O-RAN on the scene creating an opportunity to innovate and combine - In the years prior to COVID, boiling the industry down to a handful of very large network equipment vendors hindered innovation. Cloud native, fully virtualized and cloud-based software combining Open RAN is an opportunity for all kinds of different organizations (from hyperscalers to startups) to innovate and add/combine their offerings through a digital marketplace to create solutions.
- 5G and private networks to be in the spotlight - 5G and Mobile Edge Compute (MEC) will gather a pace in 2022. With the conversation focused primarily on private 5G networks, we expect many of the case examples used by the enterprise to again be the result of applying edge within their campus networks on their core manufacturing, warehousing and mining processes.
Tara: How has the pandemic impacted the operational and business landscape of the tech segment you are operating in?
Angus:
- COVID-19: an accelerator and distractor - In many ways, COVID-19 has been described as the great accelerator, in that the pandemic has accelerated and magnified trends that were already in motion. Sadly, it has also distracted many CSPs from making the deeper changes that are well overdue. Despite all the spending on working from home, the S&P Telecom Industry Index shows a -4.43% share price decline since January 2021 with activist investors parked on leading lawns such as BT, Liberty Global and Vodafone.Continued broadening of CSPs’ mission towards tech comms - Expect the pressure for change to ramp up with M&A transition used to rationalize sprawling portfolios and to reduce CSPs’ enormous debt pile and cost cutting to buy runway short term. There’s money to be made in 5G, especially with the abundance of new technologies it enables such as MEC and IoT. Expect the continued broadening of CSPs’ mission towards tech communication. To retain customers, grow revenue and monetize massive 5G network investments, CSPs need a slice of the enterprise comms pie.
- The power of co-creation and ecosystem orchestration - With limited capabilities to play in tech comms - both in connectivity solutions with O-RAN and OTT solutions - CSPs will be forced to recognize partners and the power of co-creation. Ecosystem orchestration with zero touch end-to-end automation of partners is key to removing complexity and reducing costs. In fact, 95% of businesses believe that building a partner ecosystem to deliver solutions that better fit their needs is more important than IoT or 5G technology. The competitive threat also now comes on many fronts from organizations borne digital and with a laser focus on the customer.
- Rediscovery of product management and focus on the customer - Primary among the challenges in moving into this new technology communications space is the wider change. This change involves the rediscovery of product management that delights customers and reorganising in a way that is less focused on selling the customer what the CSP wants to sell, but instead putting greater focus on what the customer wants to buy.
Tara: What emerging trends/technologies have you observed in your tech segment in recent months?
Angus:
- Techco as a pathway for the CSP - During the last two years, many telcos announced plans to spin off either network towers or fibre infrastructure, usually to reduce debt. 2021 also saw telcos announce plans to redefine their mission to capitalize on the opportunity to restructure into technology communications or “techco”. Moving forward, techco provides a pathway for the CSP to improve PE ratios and stock market valuations as they capitalize upon a rapidly growing market in SMB and enterprise for advanced technology solutions that facilitate digital growth and transformation.
- MEC maturing and being monetized - We’ve started seeing use cases for MEC or Edge maturing as it works with most connectivity including fiber and 4G. With immediate value to be realized in 2022, CSPs will switch priority to monetizing Edge use cases and put 5G on a slower development path.
- The value of the SME market - The SME market focused on accelerating its digital transformation journey to aid its recovery in 2021. CSPs have finally started to realize the value of the SME market. Further, SME demand has not only attracted attention from CSPs, but from alternative service providers like large technology companies, hyperscalers and even financials. All are lining up to deliver technology-based solutions and platforms that cater specifically to their needs.
Angus Ward is CEO of Beyond Now, a fast-growing ecosystem orchestration and digital platform provider, powering organizations to launch new services at speed and grow revenue by utilizing our digital platform, digital marketplace and SaaS BSS.
