Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:05):
So we're in Sunny Copenhagen for DTW Ignite. It's the annual TM Forum Conference. I'm here with Campbell McLean, he's chief architect at BT Digital Campbell. Thanks very much for joining us. Good to see you here

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (00:19):
Today. Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to this.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:22):
So you've been around the industry for a while, but you are just coming sort of back to BT in a way. Can you just tell us what your role is as chief architect at BT Digital?

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (00:33):
Yeah, so I'm Chief architect BT Digital. My role is I kind of think we have a well articulated strategy, well articulated in the market and we're kind of halfway through that. I think my role is to really accelerate that, do the common things once, expose them as highly consumable, get our data lined up correctly so that when we land everything we've done, we've done once and really used our investment well.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:01):
So in 2024 then, as you come into this role, what is it that you are looking to achieve this year? What's keeping you busy right now in terms of the trajectory of what BT Digital is doing?

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (01:16):
So the key foundational stuff that we're well on the way to is a single data fabric. So how do we see everything related to a customer or product? Everything we see is in real time. So we can become highly predictive and really understand the customer experience at that point in time. I think that that's one of the key foundations. The second piece is a really composable architecture. So we can bring AI in to bear at any point on any journey to really maximize all of that return and investment and use AI really gear what we do. Small input, big output and we're thinking that through. But I think the building blocks put in place by my predecessor and the strategy we're there, we just need to double down on the execution, really focus on the execution of the common things.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (02:10):
So I mean composable, it sort of blocks is something that this industry, in particularly at the TM Forum conference has been talked about for years. Is that a reality now where you can start to build stacks and what does that mean for the data and how you can use and collect the, because there's lots of different types of data you have to bring together

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (02:35):
Huge amounts of data with tructure structured, unstructured static dynamic. So I think the pivot that TM forum took driven by Nick and George Glass to ODA, I think has really underpinned as an industry what the challenges are, but also how we fix them. And I think the ODA canvas, it really gives us a great landing zone. As for what we want to do in the future, the composable microservice and how that's done will be everybody's flavor. So what we do, others will do differently. So which Databus choice do you make? Postgres, Oracle, whatever that is, the code base, the swagger file, how that's described or the yam, however that is described. That will be for individuals. But for me to have a landing zone to target everything we want to do, I think is invaluable. Taking the very spaghetti like legacy we have and understanding where we want to get it to is a huge aid in driving great architecture and great engineering. I think engineering has become so much more important for us to do what we need to do.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (03:50):
And that sort of data management, I mean is that going to be a very long journey that doesn't sound something that you can fix as quickly as maybe as some of the other bits because it must be really, really difficult to get that sort of common view of all that data?

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (04:09):
It's not easy. I think we have really struggled, telco has really struggled to understand the data picture so large and it's so diverse. That particular challenge I think is exactly what AI is. Spectacularly good at very high volume, very high speed drive insight. If we take SID and we take ODA and we take the capabilities and have that structure, I think that will really allow AI to bring an understanding that we gain insight from and we are on that journey. I think having a single fabric for a telco is very important so that whatever you do with whatever hyperscaler on-prem or SaaS with your partners now, I think that single fabric is going to become very important.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (05:06):
And just to clarify, ODA, that's the open digital architecture and BT is like a big supporter of this, right? I think

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (05:14):
It's hard to find anybody in telco that's not a big supporter of it. I think it crystallizes where we want to get to and it gives us a structure that enables us to have a target. So if I want to look at legacy and I want to take 14 things, I can understand where they will end up in the future and how we get there I think will be different for each telco, but I think it will help us all end in the same place.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (05:43):
So how does a company like BT adapt to working with composable IT and platforms like ODA and ai? Because that's a big shift in operations and way of working.

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (05:58):
So I don't think it's as big a shift as we could have expected it to be. So when I look at the BT digital population, a lot of really great engineering skills, like great engineering skills and how you build new things. I think that, and guys not all quite as old as I am, but the telco guys of this is what we do with the engineering of this is how we could do it. I think those foundations are in place, particularly in BT and they're strong. I think the kind of wave of AI that's coming in, understanding how an LLM works is very important. Being able to build, one's a different thing, but understanding the right LLM or right small language model or visual model, I think we're learning very fast, but they're very easy to consume, understand the output from within the context of engineering and architecture. I think we're getting good at that and we're learning that. And the insights are relatively available and are very consumable. It has become much more consumable for everybody. And I think the basic skills, knowledge and experience within the BT community is readily accepts this stuff, right? We've been moving at pace for years. We just got to put another two inches in our step and just move that a little bit faster and we are moving to do that.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (07:38):
Okay. Now of course, as in all organizations, things need to be driven and led from above and within telcos there's always been a CTO and A CIO and very often there was A CSO in charge of security. What does that mean for those management levels? Are they all coming together? Is the role of the CIO changing?

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (08:02):
I think the role of the CIO has changed. I think it's much more engineering led. When I look at the next generation coming through, they almost all have a pretty strong engineering background. I think our network colleagues have always had that, a different kind of engineering, but absolutely applicable. I think the conversations we have today, and there's always kind of been the running gag about the gap between network and it, but I think today talking about the engineering, understanding the challenges, it's much more of a mathematical conversation than it is kind of an OD conversation. And the challenge is that I have in providing an engineering platform for digital to deploy great services exactly the same as my network colleagues have in an engineering platform for them to deploy great services. And I think the world's evolving. I think if we look at 5G and making that consumable really consumable to our customer, I think in the old days you would've kind of seen customer IT network in the old terms. I think it brings the network very close to the customer and makes us all much more relevant together. Security has to be embedded in everything. I think it's making the conversations more productive closer and maths engineering based.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (09:39):
So great discussions about the industry and where BT is going, but getting to the most critical question now for you today, Campbell, what is your favorite film of all time? I need to know this.

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (09:52):
So thankfully you've given a little bit of warning about this, but I think the third man encapsulates everything. A great movie should be. Just great story, great acting, great dialogue, wonderful location, and the atmosphere within the movie. I could watch that movie just on the tr. I love it. Great

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (10:13):
Movie. And there's a little tune we can take around with us for the rest of the day. Now that is the,

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (10:19):
I have the zither playing in the back of my head for the rest, thank you for my Earworm

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (10:24):
Campbell, great to talk to you today. Thanks Andrew.

Campbell McLean, BT Digital (10:26):
Real pleasure. Thank you very much.