Sponsored: Openserve harnesses digitalisation to drive its business forward
Digital transformation has changed the way telcos interact, both with their external partners and internally, with their own people.
01 October 2024
Digital transformation has changed the way telcos interact, both with their external partners and internally, with their own people. It has been the catalyst in improving many aspects of how telcos do business, while also opening an avenue for growth within the larger ecosystem that leverages telcos’ networks. Pushkar Gokhale, Chief Digital and Strategy Officer at Openserve, the country’s largest wholesale fixed network, discusses the changes and improvements digital transformation is bringing to this sector.
Q: How has digital transformation impacted the broader telco ecosystem?
A: Digital transformation has really changed the way we interact with our partners, customers, and employees, and has also impacted how we look at our processes and applications.
There is no doubt that digital plays an important role in economic growth for any country. Now, with the larger ecosystem playing in the over-the-top (OTT) space, the demand for connectivity has risen and the consumption patterns have changed. In turn, the consumption mediums have changed.
Q: How do you see digital transformation?
A: I view digital from four perspectives. Firstly, I think it is about re-imagining the ecosystem in totality, but also, re-imagining your own business using digital as an ecosystem within that. Secondly, it’s about how you reconnect that value chain using digital artifacts. This has given an opportunity for telcos to re-imagine their businesses and how they can bring new products to market using digital as a medium. Finally, it’s not only about changing the way they interact with other businesses and consumers, but also about improving internal interactions with employees.
Q: Describe Openserve’s own move from a traditional Telco to what could be called a ‘Techco’?
A: It’s important for any company to ask: how do we use digital to change and how do we re-imagine our business to improve and reconnect our value chains? The answer is by becoming a commercially driven customer-oriented organisation, that remains true to its strategic drivers. We firmly believe that technology rides on top of the core, which is our connectivity business. Therefore, to become a ‘Techco’, companies must determine how to utilise technology to bring new products to market, and to synthesise the experience that the employee or the customer or the client is experiencing.
Q: How are digital services playing a role in the company’s core business as a wholesaler of infrastructure services?
A: As a wholesaler, our go to market is always a B2B2X (Business to Business to Everything), which means our job is to enable our partners and clients to bring the right kind of products to market using connectivity. The digital services may be provided by our partners to the end customer, which may be a business, government enterprise or consumer. However, services drive recurring consumption, and that is what drives consumption on our connectivity.
Connectivity is here to stay, so the future lies in how we utilise that connectivity to drive new products, and this is the opportunity Openserve hopes to explore, moving forward.
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We also had to evaluate how we bring new products to market, which are digitally enabled and can be consumed through different digital artifacts and really understand how we utilise digital artifacts to improve the experience of our customers and clients that interface with us.
Q: Can you explain the impact of digital transformation on Openserve’s go-to-market approach?
A: As a wholesaler, we undertook a very exciting and successful transformative programme, launching one of the world’s first consumer apps – the Openserve Connect app. This provides a lot of self-service capabilities to the consumer, allowing them to interact with the network from which they are consuming. The app allows customers to check their network, and to interface directly with it. This enables them to test their line, as well as recreate and selfheal it.
Q: What has been the role of skills in Openserve’s digital transformation journey?
A: When it comes to skills, it’s a fine balance between nurturing talent and getting certain talent from the market that you need, at a certain point. Openserve will continue to strike that balance, but we are in a fortunate position, because we have great and experienced skills in South Africa that we can utilise as leaders. These skills need to be nurtured carefully, as they are not only necessary from an operational point of view, but also help in driving the digital transformation across the rest of the organisation.
Q: What does the near future in this digital world hold for Openserve?
A: Connectivity is so entrenched and is so intertwined in our lives as social beings, that it will be the defining focus for the future. Connectivity is here to stay, so the future lies in how we utilise that connectivity to drive new products, and this is the opportunity Openserve hopes to explore, moving forward.