Firstly, thank you for joining us once again as Chair for our EMEA Telecoms CTO Forum. What is it that you find most useful about the marcus evans telecoms CTO Forum?

Very welcome. For me it is always a pleasure to be part of a marcus evans event and especially chairing the EMEA CTO Forum. The format of the forum with the right mix of highly valuable presentations, one to one meetings and networking sessions brings a lot of value to the participants and me.

The takeaways are very valuable for my day to day work. I receive information in a condensed way and have the opportunity for interesting background talks with vendors, top business matter experts and decision makers from the industry.

Your session focuses on the robotics process in operations – what are the main benefits you see AI brings to the sector?

Robotic process automation (RPA) supported with AI is enabling a good value generation in telco's core IT and network operations. With the support of self-learning functions, it has become possible to make better use of problem solving approaches in operations – up to a level where we reach preventive maintenance. 

In telco operations there is no simple way-forward problem solving, but it needs multiple steps, dependencies and several approaches to solve a problem. AI enabled RPA can cope with this complexity and in addition find new ways of problem solving. This factor is key, as robots in operations have the primary task to do the jobs faster and more  effective and not to reduce staff. Supported by AI operators and engineers are enabled to develop their personal virtual team of supporters to do the right things fast and learn from the 24*7 enabled robots. 

Therefore, robotics leverages the efforts to ensure highest quality, shortest delivery and response times at minimal cost. It is a very important addition to the ongoing automation we see in cloud services, SDN and NFV. 

For the telcos sector, robotics and AI brings the major benefit in speed, quality and cost. It will open an excellent opportunity for growth in correlation with new service offerings around IoT respectively 5G.

How do you see the role of robotics developing in the future?

My personal view on robotics is that it will help us to perform tasks, we are not yet able even thinking about. Robotic is an enabler, like the steam engine has been 200 years ago or the development of the microprocessor in the mid of last century – or the smartphone ten years ago.

In the beginning, it was not clear, what was able. There was no one single "killer application". But in the end, we did and do things, we were not even ready to think about when the technology was introduced.

New services such as autonomous driving, health supervision and support systems, digital farming, autonomous and individual logistics and transportation will require new, fast and cost-efficient roll out of networks. These services will require adequate service availability and recovery services. Automation, adaptation to – and learning of – dynamic demand changes require new methods of interaction and learning.

The new virtual team members will enable the experience and technology oriented staff of the telco industries to deliver the new networks and services. The connection to network and technology can be an advantage for telco's ready to go the step in the future.

Robotic will give us the opportunity to enlarge the reach of our capabilities, speed and quality – they will make the jobs, especially in technology near industries such as our sector more attractive and creative.  But it needs to embrace the future and be ready for disruptive change. Looking back will not help to find the way forward.

In disruptive technology changes, there is always a risk, that it will be hyped on the one hand and on the other hand demonised as job killer. Both could be a damage to our sectors industries in EMEA – as in other parts of the world, the new technology is going to be embraced.

We must embrace the future and at the same time focus on what really brings value in short term. Then it will become very advantageous for the telecommunication sector.

What do you believe are the biggest challenges facing the telco sector today?

The biggest challenge for the successful carriers will be to cope with speed of growth of the network and service usage by shrinking revenues on connectivity or bandwidth. The old business models with respect to number of customers or bandwidth are no longer working.

We must rethink what we are offering, when we are talking about IoT and 5G. – But there is the opportunity for growth for the operators who are willing and able to cope with change, speed, cost and quality. Especially with focus on 5G and IoT and with respect to verticals which are still regional such as health care, farming or others it is a telco ready market.

We should think more B2B. But then our sector is best prepared to support the customer needs. We know about network, IT, security, distribution, operation and service – and we are regional present! Robotics and AI will enable the operators, who invest in this direction to cope with the expected load and numbers, and the limited margins – and gain markets and revenue potentials.

The operators who believe it is only about cost saving will not stay in the market, this is my personal believe.