Taking Business Past the Edge of Disruption

Today, we’re living in a business environment that’s much different than it was 10, even 5 years ago. As technology accelerates we’re operating in a state of near-constant change.

This has created a business environment where we must all adapt to the disruption around us and lead our own disruption if we expect to succeed in this new world.

For instance, we know the networks of the future will be software-defined and different than what we traditionally offered, which were single-purposed networks designed to connect business to their own applications and data centers.

The networks of the future are software-based, flexible and connect businesses to applications that are located both inside their data centers and outside them in the cloud.

We’re headed firmly down this path at AT&T and are on track to virtualize 75% of our core network functions by 2020. So as businesses, we must create new paths forward even if it’s disruptive to our own businesses.

This week at the AT&T Business Summit near Dallas, we will be exploring how digital disruption is shaping the world around us. And to do this, we’re bringing in the industry’s top minds to share insights on how we can elevate businesses’ abilities to better compete from edge-to-edge in a fast-paced, interconnected world.

We’re evolving our own capabilities and disrupting ourselves every day to ensure we’re ready for the future of business, because we all know that revolutionary technology breakthroughs don’t happen by accident.

That’s why just this last week, we launched a vertical industry-focused space at our AT&T Foundry innovation center in Plano, Texas to showcase our edge-to-edge network capabilities and develop transformative technologies.

Here, engineers, technologists and cybersecurity experts will help us tackle industry-specific challenges to better equip our customers with disruptive solutions.

Our Foundry is skilled at assessing business challenges and rapidly testing, iterating and developing prototypes of network-enabled technologies. Now, we’re taking this model of customer co-creation to our verticals – like manufacturing, retail, finance, healthcare and the public sector.

We’ve created a new physical space that resembles each industry’s actual environment, where we’ll collaborate with businesses to help them take advantage of existing and emerging technologies like 5G, A.I., SDN, IoT and more.

This is important, because it’s easy to imagine how the future of mobility and these technologies will disrupt virtually every business vertical. And with our planned introduction of mobile 5G in parts of 12 cities this year, we’re now standing firmly on the doorstep of launching a mobile network that will change the future for generations to come.

By testing potential 5G solutions at the AT&T Foundry we can explore use cases like – 5G-enabled network slicing in a manufacturing shop floor to create a separate network for operational equipment efficiency or applying AI or machine learning techniques to enhance situational awareness for first responders.

Embracing change can be challenging. However, we often grow the most individually and collectively when we get out of our comfort zones and take smart risks.

We’re taking this mentality and applying it to our innovation ecosystems to disrupt and get to the future first. And I can’t wait to see the ways we collaborate with others across industries to change the world for the better.