Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:05):
We are in Copenhagen at DTW Ignite 2025. I'm here with Manish Mangal. He is head of the comms business for the Americas at Tech Mahindra. Manish, great to see you again. Thanks very much for joining us.

Manish Mangal, Tech Mahindra (00:18):
Same here, Ray. Very good to see you.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:20):
So from the perspective that you have in the Americas, what are some of the key trends you're seeing in the communication service provider sector, and what are the priorities of the senior C-level executives at those CSPs?

Manish Mangal, Tech Mahindra (00:36):
Well, thanks for asking the question, Ray. I think there are few common priorities that we are seeing, not just in Americas, but they are very applicable to the global trend as well. But particularly as I speak about the Americas, number one is really focused on a drastic cost reduction. The CSPs are really looking across the board in terms of network it, customer care, and every part of the business in terms of how can they really drive a dramatic cost reduction in their operations overall. The second thing is really about future proofing their assets, whether it's a network assets, whether it's IT assets, whether it's their business assets that they use to serve B2B customers. Really looking at the next generation of modernization of the tech stack so that they can future prove their assets. The third is really heavy focus on improving the customer experience.

(01:26):
Now the journey from a customer acquisition to the customer service management, how do you improve that journey overall and really drive a kind of digital customer experience that also actually makes a turn to go significantly down and really customer to have a very different and unique experiences. The fourth is most critical in my mind, is the enablement of new revenue opportunities, new business models, the new ways of making money and the API economy as it's developing is one of the very key factors in there. Also the enterprises, but these four trends, all of them are underpinning by ai. The question is all about what can AI do across all of these four streams to make a much more dramatic impact rather than incremental impact.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (02:11):
Okay. So at this show, the theme of this show is Pathways to Growth. So specifically, how is Tech Mahindra's pathway to growth helping CSP customers?

Manish Mangal, Tech Mahindra (02:23):
Absolutely. The growth comes actually in two vectors. One is serving the existing customer with better experience. So they're more satisfied, they're willing to buy more services from the CSP. So we are really focused around the customer experience journey for our CSPs in helping them actually drive the way the customer acquire services the way they use the services. And how do you manage the customer care and experiences for them on a day-to-day basis? So the journey of customer experience is one area where we are very heavily focused. We have a platform solutions, our tech manager, IEP, and the brand of Comm Viva. We have a lot of deep experience in that space in really driving a unified view of how a customer will experience a service from A CSP. The second is really our ability to take our customers assets, which is network assets, the APIs that they have, and enable them to monetize through Enterprise Connects. So we have a very deep and rich customer base in enterprises. So taking the assets of telecom customers and bundling them as part of our package that we enable for enterprise for digital transformation, that's another way of helping the monetization of the network assets and the IT assets for our customers.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (03:38):
Okay. And what do you think gives Tech Mahindra a competitive edge in these particular areas?

Manish Mangal, Tech Mahindra (03:45):
First of all, we have been in this business for more than three decades. So we have a very, very deep experience and deep rich heritage of working with the telecom operators globally. Second thing is we have very deep domain expertise. Whether you look at the network, whether you look at DSS, whether you look at OSS, you look at customer care, you look at customer design across the board of the telecom ecosystem, we have a very deep domain expertise underpinned by a very high level of AI knowledge base, the software development capabilities. So our value of bringing the software expertise to the telecom and the network together really gives us a huge advantage in helping solve the big block problems for the telecom operators. The third thing, which is really, and I'm very proud to say that in this conference here at DTW, we were awarded by TM Forum as an upskilling partner. So we won the award for the upskilling means that we actually achieved the highest number of certification in the industry. That is another example of how we are building deep domain, deep enriching capabilities, which gives us an edge because at the end of the day, we are able to go and help our customers solve critical problems for them by bringing the domain knowledge, by bringing the deep expertise and a very broad understanding of the business problems that we are really focused on solving for them.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (05:08):
It seems like there's never been another time where there's been so much change in the industry and for the telecom operators in particular. So you mentioned upskilling there. I mean, how important is that to the industry, especially in light of how AI is impacting the sector?

Manish Mangal, Tech Mahindra (05:24):
Supremely important. What AI is really doing is it's forcing us, it's enabling us to reimagine everything, reimagining every part of process, reimagine every part of the technology. And to do that, we not only need the deep technical knowledge, but also a deep understanding of how business process operates today. And this is where we believe that what we have invested in Tech Mahindra, not just in the upscaling program, but also in the consulting business where we are able to work with the customers and build the business models, build the roadmap for them in terms of how do evolve, if I take an example of autonomous operations, we want to achieve a level for autonomy for the industry. As Tech Miner, we are committed to that mission. We are working very heavily and we have great success stories to several customers and operators in that space. What we are doing effectively there is we start with a journey of where you stand today, what level of autonomy you have in your business.

(06:22):
It could be level two, it could be 2.5, wherever it is. And then we can actually envision a roadmap that will be required to achieve the level for autonomy. And that's a model that we are approaching and we are doing it as a partner to our customers where we are taking the risks to help them get there as well. And this is why the change that AI is bringing is very important to, not just from a technology perspective, but really re-imagining how the business will happen. And this is where one of the differentiations that we have, it's also one of the great opportunities that we have to help telecom industry transform into the future of the telecom.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (06:58):
Okay. Well that sounds like a great thing for Tech Mahindra to be focusing on to help your telco customers. So Manish, thanks very much for talking with us today.

Manish Mangal, Tech Mahindra (07:07):
Absolutely Ray, it's a pleasure. Thank you.