How To Build An AI-Driven Telco Organization

Building an AI-Driven Telco Organization

The business terrain for telcos is getting rougher by the day with shrinking margins, pressure from regulators, shareholders, and competitors, and increased expectations of service and experience from customers. They need novel ways to survive these challenges and maintain a sustainable and profitable business within the competitive telco environment. Natali Delic, a senior telco executive with 20 years of telco experience, believes that building AI-driven telco organizations is how to do that. In her words, "it is essential to take into account all of that AI as a new technology can bring to us in, in order to build not only an efficient, but more innovative telco business."

On the one hand, we have the steady adoption of 5G networks across the world that introduces a new level of complexity to network management and service provision. On the other hand, telcos cannot afford to disregard the covid situation because it has shown how critical telco infrastructure is. Across the world, we saw demand for telco services skyrocket as companies moved their operations online. Work, health services, socializing, and entertainment went remote, leaving telcos with no choice but to step up to meet increasing demands.

The significant role that telcos and their infrastructure play emphasizes the need for them "to ensure that it works reliably and performantly at all times," Natali says. Ensuring that telco infrastructure is always available requires substantial investments. By using AI and building AI-driven firms, telcos can make smarter investments and run more efficient operations for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Devising an AI Strategy

Devising an AI strategy for a telco organization is not something to jump into without precise planning. There are prerequisites to implementing AI strategy, and according to Natali, it is "all about the data." According to her, three elements form the basis of an efficient and successful AI implementation. One of them is building a data culture. Another is having a data strategy and governance. Lastly, telcos need to have critical IT and data infrastructure to support their data strategy.

In Natali's experience, one of the difficult tasks for telcos is collecting clean and useful data to use for AI strategies and solution implementations. This challenge arises from the lack of data culture in most telco firms. In most cases, Natalie notes that people are not knowledgeable about where the data comes from, how to treat each source, where to store it, and how to process it. Therefore it is vital to focus on teaching people how to deal with the data.

In the case of data strategy and governance, telcos need to have proper ways of gathering, processing, and data storage that are compliant with regulatory policies and ethical concerns. They need to appoint data owners. The data owners should be people on the business side - people who interface with the customers and understand the implication of dealing with their data.

Lastly, telcos "need to have the proper technology to store processes, talk to store and process data," Natali adds. Having the right technology becomes ever increasingly important because of the complexities of the 5G network and IoT technologies they will be managing. They might have to run their algorithms close to their customers at other services at the edge of the network, and this will require data infrastructure as well as edge and cloud capabilities.

Other pillars of an efficient AI strategy in Natali's experience include business value, stakeholder management, team and competencies, responsible and ethical AI implementations, and technology. Telcos need to look at how they define business value and connect it to AI strategy. They also need to take note of change management. Also, because this is a novel area, they need what Natali calls "agility of mindset" and research and development.

The Connection between Creating Business Value and Developing an AI Strategy

"You cannot implement technologies for the sake of implementation of technologies," Natali says. "You really need to think about business value," she adds. With AI, it can be tough to define the value it will create. Therefore, telcos need to critically examine the areas where they can apply AI technology, determine if they have sufficient data in those areas to write algorithms for those use cases. They also need to how AI technology will stimulate business growth for the foreseeable future. Armed with this information, top-level management in telcos can see how it fits into the long term organizational goals of the business and create an appropriate AI strategy and implement it. Without these considerations in place, any AI implementation projects they take "will be unsuccessful" in Natali's words.

The Role of Stakeholder Management in AI Strategy Formulation

Apart from top-level management, telcos need to consider the other different groups of stakeholders. For shareholders, you need proper change management to "communicate why you need more investment in AI," Natali says. Telcos also want to pay attention to middle-level management because they are dealing with both new technology and handling the reaction of the people they manage to the transformation associated with it. There is this 'fear of change' present in telcos described by Natali. They fear the loss of their jobs and the engineers fear the transition into AI development and machine learning roles. Telcos need stakeholder management to allay these fears. In the case of customers, stakeholder management, telcos need to communicate effectively to reassure them of the ethical use of their data. At all these levels, "top management has to be very active and very involved," Natali adds.

AI Strategy and Ensuring Ethical Usage of AI.

In the process of using AI to help people, we want to be careful not to make or use biased AI algorithms that can potentially favor one set of people while discriminating against others because of their different backgrounds and affinities. In Natali's words, it is "why we need to build transparency and explainability of the algorithms" used in communicating with customers through chatbots and virtual assistants. As part of their AI strategy, telcos need to continuously evaluate the usage of AI and data in their organization by setting up ethics committees. These ethics committees will assess the systems and check bias before it happens.

Lastly, ethics is "part of the social contract," says Natali. Corporations need to find a balance between pushing for fiscal growth and the morality of their actions, especially concerning people and the environment.

Advantages of building an AI-driven Organization.

When telcos follow an AI-driven approach to business management, they can expect advantages related to managing the complexity of 5G networks and services. With 5G, telcos will have to deal with network slicing and thousands of IoT devices connected to the network, and they cannot manage this environment in traditional ways. Pursuing traditional ways would demand more people, and that is not sustainable. Thus, smarter tools with AI will provide needed help.

An AI-driven organization will be able to reduce costs and investments while increasing operational efficiency, service performance, and availability. With AI, telcos can do predictive maintenance which is necessary as you not only want to solve problems but predict their occurrence and prevent it from happening.

The impact of an AI-driven strategy on customer service will also be positive. AI can provide a better customer experience by improving the quality of processes such as complaint and dispute resolution, customer care, information sharing, and brand awareness of offers.

Lastly, with time freed up by using AI implementations, telcos can encourage innovation and creativity from their employees through "building new solutions, products, and business lines," says Natali.

"That is how you create a sustainable business of the future," she concludes.

In conclusion, by developing an AI strategy through building a data culture, having a data strategy, and proper IT and data infrastructure, and appropriate stakeholder management to handle the transition, telcos can cope with the increasing challenges of their industry and build sustainable businesses.

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Leo Clifford is the founder of the Telco Global Forum and Ramp Up Talent