Five key actions to transform your operations to seize 5G opportunities
Demand for 5G applications is on the rise in many industry verticals. To fully capitalize on these opportunities and help recoup the costs of their 5G investments, communications service providers (CSPs) will need the right levels of agility, scalability and flexibility — which may require transformation to achieve.
No transformation journey is alike, but there are common goals and needs. In this blog, we’ll identify key actions technology leaders should take to better compete in the 5G era and expand their potential for monetization.
Go cloud native
Cloud-native environments break down traditional, monolithic applications into microservices that are more manageable, more flexible and fully self-contained. These microservices are faster to update and are fully interoperable with other microservices that use different operating systems.
The result? Service development cycles that are far shorter than the typical one to two years required in traditional network environments. Able to easily stitch together service and network components, CSPs can create new use cases in hours or even minutes. With that kind of agility, they can better respond to emerging demands and pursue more opportunities. Both are key to resolving the significant margin pressures many CSPs are facing with the high expense of 5G transformation.
For this reason and more, cloud-native is the future for CSPs — which makes cloud-native transformation an essential item on any technology leader’s to-do list.
Implement CI/CD
Traditional software integration and deployment approaches involve vendors first developing and testing their software before releasing it to CSPs to do their own integration, testing and deployment. This often means a long wait before CSPs can take advantage of new applications and features.
Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) speeds up this process by enabling closer collaboration between vendors and CSPs. This happens by way of ongoing automation and continuous monitoring throughout application lifecycles: from testing and integration to delivery and deployment. Like cloud-native transformation, implementing CI/CD gives CSPs the flexibility and agility they need to improve their service offerings and meet customer demands.
Introduce automation
CSPs face unprecedented complexity in the 5G era. That complexity will only increase as the number of devices, subscribers, use cases and service-level agreements (SLAs) climbs, as well as network functions across both legacy and 5G technologies.
Attending to every network need manually won’t just become more of a time sink. At some point, it will become infeasible.
Automation is the answer. Eliminating the need to do things manually will reduce costs and time-to-market for new use cases. This is critical in today’s environment and especially when competing with hyperscalers. The more automation is built into the network, the faster customer needs can be addressed and the less it will cost to do so.
Mine and leverage data
As complexity rises, so does the amount of network, performance, and customer data CSPs can mine and use to improve network management, user experience and customer satisfaction. Gleaning the insights required demands that CSPs double their efforts to store, organize, evaluate and take timely action (by humans or through automation) from volumes of data.
CSPs can always turn to experienced telco data consultants for support. Many to efficiently parse vast quantities of data and isolate the most important insights.
Evolve in-house expertise
Adapting to 5G requires more than technological change. CSPs must also build their internal knowledge and skills to implement and make the most of their investments.
The best place to start is with a review of internal capabilities, processes, operations platforms and performance, identifying what’s needed to fully harness new technologies. Then it’s a matter of organizing and evaluating skills gaps and running capacity training to develop skills in key areas, such as managing 5G cloud-native functions.
In the meantime, an expert partner can help bridge any internal skills gaps and guide transformation as required.
An expert transformation partner
Nokia’s Advanced Consulting Services brings broad, real-world experience in 5G, IoT and cloud solution deployment to help you transform your network environment, operations or implement data-insights-driven automation. We have worked with CSPs across the globe and can apply best practices and lessons learned to answer any questions you have, develop your strategy, and guide you in choosing and implementing the best technologies for your business.
Learn more about Nokia Advanced Consulting Services on nokia.com.
