In conjunction with the ongoing MWC Barcelona 2022, Tara Neal, Executive Editor of The Fast Mode spoke to Shahid Ahmed, Group EVP, New Ventures and Innovation at NTT Ltd 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?
Shahid: MWC22 will likely be focused around the following 3 themes: Return to IT infrastructure build (e.g. Private 5G) for Enterprises, Sustainability and IoT and Digital Divide and lastly, managing through the post COVID world with new emerging technologies - e.g. Web3, Crypto, Metaverse, AI, and more.
Tara: How has the pandemic impacted the operational and business landscape of the tech segment you are operating in?
Shahid: Across the board, the global pandemic has accelerated technology adoption and digital transformation. Almost overnight, traditional ways of working were disrupted, and businesses shifted towards remote operations. To achieve this, they had to arm their workforce with heavily cloud-based productivity, collaboration tools and applications, so becoming digital was essential.
In this regard, Remote and Hybrid workplace will be the norm going forward, and businesses will continue to see talent shortage and retention problems. That will put an even heavier reliance on automation and Cloud/SaaS - to that end, we foresee IT infrastructure spending to only increase. We will also see more digitally native business models emerge in our markets.
Tara: What emerging trends/technologies have you observed in your tech segment in recent months?
Shahid: Private 5G Networks - i.e. P5G - is a big theme across Industrial and manufacturing segments. Web3, decentralized blockchain, and crypto continues to gain momentum, particularly in the financial services markets. However, we will see other verticals also adopt blockchain concepts – e.g. NFT, and Security (Zero Trust and Zero Knowledge). Today, as network perimeters expand, business leaders need to implement connectivity solutions with improved data privacy, security and faster connection speeds if they’re to provide their workforce with a safe and reliable network.
Tara: What is NTT’s involvement in growing the private 5G space?
Shahid: At NTT, we are focused on solving real business problems and process workflows yielding the right business outcomes. We don't want to build P5G network for our clients for the sake of building a cool new technology. This approach is counterproductive for the industry and unfortunately many of our peers and incumbents are taking this position.
On the other hand, NTT is very selective about P5G opportunities – ensuring that there is a business outcome we are solving for. As NTT's P5G platform is a CIO-centric architecture, we are intricately part of our clients’ digital journeys. We believe this is how P5G adoption will meaningfully grow.
