Charlotte Kan (00:16):
Good morning and welcome to Extra Shots with me. Charlotte can live from the DSP Leaders Forum in Windsor in a beautiful setting of the Fairmont. I'm delighted to be joined by very prestigious first guests. This morning we have Chris Lewis, managing director at Louis Insight. We've got Susan James, vice President of Innovation and Mobile Connectivity at American Tower and Mark Gilmer, his chief technology Officer at Connectivity three. Welcome to all of you. Thank you for joining us.

Mark Gilmour, ConnectiviTree (00:46):
Nice to be here.

Charlotte Kan (00:47):
So we kicked off the forum this morning with a very rich first session. We had an opening address, Matt Yago, 10 Norio of Vodafone. Then Guy and Ray went through the state of play within the sector. So I was wondering if you could maybe share the key highlights of what really resonated with you to start with and since the event the firm is a yearly gathering, maybe reflect, especially you Chris, because we're here last year on how the conversations have evolved over the last year.

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (01:17):
Well, conversations continually evolve because the moving parts in the industry are continually changing. If you break it down to supply and demand, the demand from the outside is enormous, is growing, exploding the supply side in terms of the industry and how we put together those services that people ultimately consume. Actually the consumers don't really care that much about it and I think that's becoming even more evident in some ways connectivity is becoming more distanced from the technology that we talk about all the time. So I think finding the right place for the connectivity in the telco role in emerging into whatever the future is is the important question. And I thought Gabriela, her comment about working with the ecosystem and getting involved with the ecosystem was what really resonated for me from the opening session that we as telecoms, we do not dictate things end to end anymore.

(02:12):
We did in the past, it was a monopoly and regulated, but we don't dictate the end parts. We contribute to the ecosystem and therefore the relative role of what telcos provide has to be seen in that context. So it's a gradual change in that sense, but it's an education of the telecom industry that we are part of a much broader ecosystem now and we shouldn't spend all of our time thinking about the inner workings of the network. We should think about how we build relationships with the other parties in the ecosystem and following the money. I mean, you talk about the market ultimately, it's about where investment goes, how telecoms relates the return on that investment. And I think we often lose sight of the fact that we are selling a product to consumers and businesses that they into other parts of their activities. So I don't think much has changed from last year, although I suspect we'll come into AI later on as a topic of conversation.

Charlotte Kan (03:07):
Absolutely. Well the next session of extra shots, so let's keep it for that one. Susan, what's your take on the state of play currently in a telecom sector? Challenges and opportunities?

Susan James, American Tower (03:16):
Well, I think the lineup on stage that you participated in was quite an interesting starting point. I think overall the industry is not doing well. So optimistically I put it at a four. But I think the conversation shows that there is a lot of hope in terms of yes, there is a business potential there, particularly in the enterprise segment. Yes, we do think that the telcos can actually play a role in tapping into that, but I think it's how do you innovate in a large company? How do you stop tripping over yourself or how do you stick to your knitting long enough to actually see the results? So I think that's sort of the direction things are going. I do think that there's so many industries out there that are really in need of still digitizing and we saw a big wave during Covid where everyone had to get online that was sort of the front of house interactions if you like, with customers, all the back of house, how you automate things.

(04:20):
There's still a large challenge with logistics in many factories. The volumes of products that need to be done, the understanding, the analytics of all these things and putting those analytics into actions, all of those things need to happen. So I think there is still a huge opportunity and now is the right time really for the telcos working with that larger ecosystem of players to solve those business problems because it's not a connectivity problem. Connectivity is the plumbing that provides the ability to solve the problem. So I think it is going to require the systems integrators, it's going to require those specific applications or number of applications. One application is not going to be enough to create enough value to finance in a private 5G network, for example. So I think there are so many parts that need to come into play and you do start to see the telcos really understanding that this is a broader play. We can't do this alone. We need to have a large varied ecosystem of partners and cloud providers working together to solve these problems.

Charlotte Kan (05:40):
Thank you very much, Susan. A few very valid points here. The fact that we're talking about GAI, we're talking about network automation, we're talking about innovation and yet some sectors, some very traditional sectors. I'm thinking of construction for instance. So healthcare or government are yet to be fully digitalized. And you've talked about collaboration well, which is another valid point. Maybe we can talk about it because we're going to take a very short break just after I speak to Mark, but that's a very important factor. It's all about ecosystems, isn't it? So Mark, going back to the point that Susan made, are you an optimist when it comes to the state of play within the telecom sector right now?

Mark Gilmour, ConnectiviTree (06:14):
I am, yes, just because this industry has been my life, my career, and I love it. But we did joke at the time that, because we both said four, and then Susan went, well, that's an optimistic four from her. But the question was about the industry. And I agree, I think as an industry we are down in that place, but there's pockets that are really much closer to you, Charlotte, on that spectrum. And that's where I think we need to see more industry-wide innovation. And we spoke in the panel that innovation is much broader than just technology development, r and d, it's a much broader topic. We didn't really even have the time to go into that in too greater detail, but business models, approaches, that's as much a part of the innovation cycle that needs to take place as the conversation about ran, which is innovating in the network probably more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think, and we did dwell on that, innovating on the network rather than in the network. We need to continue to innovate in the network. Our bread and butter as telco, that's what we do. But now on the network is vitally important,

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (07:37):
But also the issue about how the industry takes its product to market, because if connectivity is part of the solution that an enterprise is using, they need to think of it from the enterprise point of view. How do they want to purchase and consume those services and they'll be part of it. I think you mentioned on stage, Susan, the integrators, and you mentioned it many times in the past, mark, but actually let's think about how the customers want to consume things rather than how we can't impose it on them anymore. A change in ecosystem.

Charlotte Kan (08:05):
Okay, so we're going to take a break. I think that was part of the plan. Anyway, we're going to carry on talking about innovation and how you go about it. So stay tuned and see minutes.

(08:32):
Welcome back to Extra Shot. We are live at the DSP Leaders Forum in Windsor, and I'm delighted to be joined by Chris Lewis, Susan James and Mark Gilmer. Thank you for joining us and thank you for staying with us actually because we were here before the break and we were discussing innovation. Innovation. Telcos used to be at the forefront of innovation and then they lost the race to the actual tech sector. And it seems harder for the sector to innovate these days. What are the key challenges? Why is it so much harder than it used to be to innovate?

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (09:03):
I think one of the biggest challenges is that telecoms used to be very much national level and the innovation was done within the labs, within the telcos. And that spawned a whole industry group of vendors that, but those vendors have now gone global. So they do the innovation globally and then the IT innovation we know is being done by the cloud vendors and the broader IT community. And so in a sense, it is partly a scale question that telcos have been left behind because they don't have scale. They've retrenched back to be national or multinational operators, whereas the hype scales of this world are global players. So they have the scale that we know, especially from the recent introduction of ai, the scale requirement of power of investment is enormous. I think it's a geopolitical issue partly because on the one hand we have it dictated by some governments in some parts of the world, other places totally open to the open market and the middle ground. It's regulated by let's say market environments that perhaps slow down innovation.

Charlotte Kan (10:03):
Susan, Chris alluded to the fact that innovation tends to happen within the r and d framework. Isn't that what the problem is? I mean, is innovation the same as investing in r and d?

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (10:16):
No,

Susan James, American Tower (10:17):
I don't think so. I mean, you can r and d in r and d and still never achieve anything. Fantastic. So it's more than that. And I think we were discussing where is the success happening? And every organization has pockets of success and usually it's tied to people of vision. So I think that is one of the areas where you need to find those people of vision. You need to attract them, you need to enable them for success. So I think that's part of it. I do think that innovation is global. So I think it's very difficult for the individual MNOs to be able to innovate because they are bound to a large extent by national boundaries where if they are able to go beyond that, they have the ability to address a much larger audience. And the reality is that every single week, we never talk to just people within our own country every single day.

(11:19):
I'm talking to people internationally. So from a business perspective, you need to be able to address that international side of things. So I think that is a challenge for MNOs to look at. And I think that a lot of the things that we've been talking on a network perspective, we're really just tinkering in innovation. Yes, they're coming out with great new ways to make it better, but we're not really solving new problems. And I think that's why I really am very excited to be working on things like direct to device from satellite. We're solving new problems that have never been solved there. So it's a different energy level when you're working on that type of innovation than incremental innovation. So I think there's lots of different things going on there. And I think it's really easy to see why the industry is so excited about things like direct to device because you're literally solving stuff that has never been solved before. And then you can start to work incrementally on top of that.

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (12:15):
But I think there's also another point, Charlotte, which is that the layering of the industry from the physical infrastructure through to the software, there's innovation happening at all those levels. Some of it will be done behind the scenes and some of it'll be done very publicly. And I think part of the problem is where does the telecom entry sit on that, doing things behind the scenes and then wanting to be seen to be advancing. And I think that's the problem.

Charlotte Kan (12:37):
Yeah, and that's a fair point actually. We tend to focus on a more spectacular aspect of innovation. I guess. Mark, what's your take on this? And going back to the point that Susan made, should innovation be a bit more solutions oriented rather than just being about innovation per se?

Mark Gilmour, ConnectiviTree (12:54):
Absolutely. We spoke in the panel about outcome. I raised it a couple of times that it's the outcome that is of interest either to the end end user, the customer, et cetera. And I think to Chris's point about how r and d has changed over time, the r and d that telcos that we did in the past was in that has now been taken over at a global level. So therefore the innovation and the development that telcos can do now is more solution based and localized based to those local, when I say local, I mean local can be the whole of Europe type of thing, but is more focused in on that use case or that particular business problem that your customers are coming to you about. That's where the innovation can focus. And it's not just on the technology infrastructure anymore, it's on how do you approach that, how is that consumed?

(14:01):
What are the ecosystem or the partners or the alliances that need to be brought into that? And then the consumption piece is really interesting because where the automation, we've done a lot of automation in the network or that can be exposed to then allow the automation of services and automation of solutions. But yeah, I think Susan, you made an interesting point and as we were walking across, we were talking about, oh no, you made it on the panel about websites, about our telco websites. And they follow how our services, they are product led, not solution led.

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (14:44):
And I think it's that issue you've mentioned several times, Susan, about what problem are we solving And in the interesting, the split in the industry, by the way, enterprise is about 20% of global revenue. Consumer is 70% with 10% other. So actually when we are changing it, and I thought the point made on stage was very important that for consumer, it's sort of one size fits all. I think you made the point mark, didn't you? Well actually you've got to customize it. And telcos in the past couldn't customize it because the technology didn't allow an MPLS network or even going farther back, the older networks just weren't customizable, weren't flexible, weren't dynamic enough, but now the technology is flexible enough. So listening to what the customer wants, and I think that's the biggest shift that I see, which is that we used to be an inside out industry where we create a technology in those r and d labs and we eventually expose it to the customer. We now need to listen to what's happening outside. So what consumers are trying to do, and we know that's satellite connection for example, or gaming or whatever. All these things coming into shape to demand things of the network and pulling services out of the network rather than, so we're not dictating the way people use the service anymore, the people, the demand is finally, they really are.

Susan James, American Tower (15:51):
They really are. If you go to a website and look at, you can choose this bucket, this bucket, this bucket, this bucket. It's not really that personalized. And I think that is something we certainly could look at doing and saying, well, what suits me and my family, I can have a six line packet from whatever, but why don't we put in, this is what my family consists of, these are my needs. And then I get a personalized packet.

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (16:13):
You need gen AI creating

Charlotte Kan (16:14):
A profile for your customer.

Susan James, American Tower (16:15):
Exactly. So I think we can look at these sorts of things to really say, well, why don't we personalize it? Because if we can do that, surely then we're lifting the value that we're providing

Mark Gilmour, ConnectiviTree (16:24):
In the past. BSS systems just couldn't cope with cope, cope with that.

Susan James, American Tower (16:27):
I know they couldn't, but they've been selling this for years that they can. So this is the time to do it, I think. Absolutely.

Charlotte Kan (16:33):
Susan, we've got one minute left. To go back to the point you were making just before we took a break. It was around collaboration. How can we collaborate further to spur more innovation? What's your take

Susan James, American Tower (16:44):
On this? But I think it is happening. I mean the focus has really pivoted to working with systems integrators. I think most telcos have realized they can't solve an end-to-end problem and they need help. And you've seen announcements from Verizon and at t and a number of other telcos in the last few weeks where they started to work more closely with systems integrators that can provide the end-to-end solution to a business problem. So I think we start to see that already.

Charlotte Kan (17:13):
Fantastic. One more thing from you dear guests actually to maybe find the one word that according to you, describes or is more aligned with the need to innovate in the telecom sector. What do we need to do more of to innovate one word?

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (17:30):
Listen,

Charlotte Kan (17:32):
I knew you'd say that.

Susan James, American Tower (17:33):
Collaborate.

Charlotte Kan (17:34):
Collaborate.

Mark Gilmour, ConnectiviTree (17:36):
You've both taken what I was going to say.

Charlotte Kan (17:39):
But listen. Listen and collaborate.

Mark Gilmour, ConnectiviTree (17:40):
To the end user.

Charlotte Kan (17:42):
To the end user

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (17:43):
And the ecosystem. Yeah.

Charlotte Kan (17:45):
Okay. But listening, indeed, that's the keyword of the conversation we've just been having. Thank you so much for joining us, Chris, Susan and Mark, stay with us. We're back at 12 30, 35. In fact, for more extra shots with me, Charlotte can to discuss and dissect the conversations happening on stage here at the DSD Leaders Forum live from Windsor. Thank you for watching.