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At the Accelerating Business Success with Digital Operations Transformation Forum held on DAY0 during MWC Shanghai 2021, Dr. Li Bing, Head of TMT Industry at Roland Berger China, delivered a speech titled “Focusing on Value-Driven and Unleash the Potential of Digital Technology”.

In the speech, Dr. Li remarked: "Maturing new technologies have now entered the commercialization phase. Digitalization is no longer simply the nice-to-have option, but rather a must-have approach for industries. To better meet the digital requirements of industries, carriers must strengthen their vertical industry solutions, partner ecosystem, and E2E service capabilities. In addition, they must integrate digital technology into daily operations, build an open and trusted platform, and instill digitalization into the production process in order to improve the production environment and generate new value for enterprises."

As new technologies such as cloud computing, IoT, big data, and AI begin to mature, digitalization becomes a key driver for enterprises seeking to transform their management, services, and business models. These mature new technologies enable digital transformation for enterprises in terms of digital interfaces, ubiquitous connections, intelligent data, and automation. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of digitalization in the global context. Enterprise activities that are closely related to the value chain, such as collaboration between employees, online transactions between enterprises and customers, and acquisition of sales leads, all depend on digitalization. As Dr. Li Bing – Head of TMT industry at Roland Berger China – explained at the Accelerating Business Success with Digital Operations Transformation Forum held during MWC Shanghai 2021: "Today, digitalization is no longer just a nice-to-have option for vertical industries, but a must-have."

Dr. Li Bing, Head of TMT Industry of Roland Berger China

However, according to a survey conducted by Roland Berger, digitalization has yet to yield the expected value for enterprises. A survey on DAX 30 companies in Germany found that a total of 50 billion euros was wasted each year on digital transformation projects that did not meet original expectations, while the CXOs of the companies surveyed believe that 70% of the projects failed due to insufficient integration of digital innovations with their daily business operations. 

Based on our research and findings, the key reason behind the failure of many digital transformation projects is their inability to help enterprises solve actual business problems. This begs the question, what are the core requirements of enterprises as they pursue digitalization? In general, digital solution would serve one of the following purposes:

1. By deploying digital systems and applying digital projects, enterprises hope to improve their products and services in order to build unique competitive strengths. 

2. Through digital implementation, enterprises hope to improve their operational efficiency and lower costs. 

 

3. Using digital applications, enterprises wish to innovate their offerings and redefine industry business models to some extent. 

To meet the digital transformation requirements of enterprises, carriers need to strengthen their capabilities while also performing their own digital transformation.
 
1. Carriers must think from a holistic point of view. Digital transformation is not only the responsibility of IT departments — it also requires corresponding software and hardware capabilities, data analysis capability, as well as application reconstruction and maintenance capabilities. On top of that, corresponding organizational, process, performance, incentive, and data governance mechanism are also necessary to support digital transformation. 
 
2. Carriers must cooperate with partners to provide enterprises with integrated solutions capable of addressing industry pain points, an open, trusted data platform, as well as E2E services from design to O&M. In this regard, carriers must first develop vertical industry solutions, increase the understanding of vertical industry sub-scenario requirements, organize lighthouse cases, and form standard/semi-standard solutions. Second, carriers should work to build a partner ecosystem, closely cooperating with ICT equipment suppliers, application providers, cloud service vendors, and consulting service providers to jointly deliver complete solutions for customers. Last but not least, they should provide E2E service capabilities by comprehensively enhancing the design, integration, delivery, operation and maintenance capabilities of 5G network construction.
 
Digitalization is an irreversible trend. Driven by business and service value, carriers, telecom vendors, and partners should work together to integrate services, platforms, technologies and ecosystems to jointly deliver solutions capable of addressing actual industry pain points. We must formulate implementable digitalization plans that comply with enterprise strategies and operation demands, and execute them in an appropriate and scientific manner. We must also create a true functional digital ecosystem. We hope that through digital transformation, both the telecom and vertical industries can maximize the value of their data and system assets, thereby delivering improved service experience and generating additional value. Together, let’s usher in an exciting future of digitalization. 

 

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