A year ago, I became a part of the Oracle Communications Global Business Unit. Here is what I’ve seen and what I think is on the horizon.
This has been a year of change for me, professionally and personally. I joined Oracle Communications after a 25-year career in telecommunications, with the last 20 being on the operator side of the industry. My tenure consisted of 10 years with Vodafone (through its Cable and Wireless acquisition) and 10 years at Telstra before that. These companies were headquartered in the United Kingdom and Australia, respectively, so my move to Oracle also represented my first time working for an American-headquartered company since the early, early days of my career at NYNEX Meridian Systems.
Initially, when I met Mike Sicilia and other top executives from the Oracle family, I wondered if I’d feel a bit out of place after so many years immersed in the carrier culture. But that’s exactly why I was brought in—to give the operator perspective, especially important as the industry transitions to 5G. Our industry has talked about “transformation” for years, but this is no longer pie-in-the-sky stuff. In the past ten months alone, COVID-19 has managed to truly change the trajectory of 5G. I feel even more inspired now than the day I started as so much of what I felt has been reinforced by the impact we have had on society with our solutions: connecting people to loved ones, keeping businesses running, and transferring information to where it’s needed most.
I have always been a major advocate of remote work, but to see it on such a large scale has been a huge eye opener. The impacts will be felt for years to come, and we are in a good position to further develop new ways of working through an expansion of our existing portfolio into adjacent areas that will drive growth from legacy networks. As CSPs and businesses move to the cloud, we will further partner across Oracle to increase the breadth and depth of our best-of- breed solutions—always with security and quality as key pillars in our strategy.
There is so much opportunity. And, there is so much at stake. Our customers have to both compete against and collaborate with hyperscale cloud companies and others that now realize communications is a critical industry underpinning all others. The pandemic elevated the role of communications, and CSPs rose to the challenge almost flawlessly. They now know the extent to which they can exact meaningful change, as long as they continue to tap into their customers’ changing perspectives, whether they be consumers, businesses, institutions, governments, municipalities or societies.
CSPs are reimagining 5G, the IoT, legacy IT integration, governance, data privacy, security and so much more. They are looking at what they sell and resell today, and what unique capabilities they possess to change business models, enable digital marketplaces and participate in expanding ecosystems.
The enterprise space in particular represents the biggest area of growth for CSPs, especially in industrial use cases like manufacturing, construction, oil and gas, energy, automotive and utilities. My main focus this year will be leveraging the vertical application experience of Oracle and combining it with our expertise in communications networks to expand our solutions in the IoT space. This is really exciting; it’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.
With 5G trials becoming 5G deployments, and with CSPs’ initial consumer focus now balancing more with an enterprise focus, there are new questions to ask. What will be the new lines of business? Will it be private 5G networks or dedicated networks and services provided to enterprises via network slices? In what cases will CSPs be going it alone or choosing to integrate or partner for end-to-end digital services?
I am happy to see our CSP customers focused as ever on investing in core infrastructure to support the growing need for remote working and learning, and layered on top they are still focusing on 5G, IoT and the future. To differentiate, they will have to bring to their customers and partners a real quality of experience (QoE). In that vein, they will have to abstract the complexity coursing through multicloud and “as-a-service” environments. We continue to work with CSPs to rein in the complexity of 5G, including: the 5G technology (the RAN and core); cloud and virtualization of network functions via cloud native VNFs; converged policy; software-defined networks; and orchestration of networks and services.
We are now scratching the surface of what’s imaginable and even unimaginable, seeing what used to be pie-in-the-sky dreaming come closer to reality. CSPs are now going to be the enablers and the common thread throughout all industries as the cocreators of services, network slices and mobile edge computing/multi-access edge.
Capitalizing on this opportunity for change will not only take the right technology but also people. People are our most important asset as the greatest technology innovation doesn’t mean a thing without the right people. That’s why I’ve started an Employee Engagement Council in the Oracle Communications Global Business Unit to create a continuous feedback loop and encourage diversity of thought. I want people to express what they really feel as opposed to what they perceive others want to hear. Getting diverse opinions heard and counted is the way to advance culture. The level of expertise, development work and support that goes into our solutions is astounding, so furthering people’s skills and beliefs in themselves will help them continue to move forward in their careers.
I welcome any feedback, so please comment below or reach out to me on LinkedIn.
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