How should operators go digital?

Leveraging technology is fundamental to digital transformation but understanding customers and serving them exceptionally is at the heart of digital business. The TM Forum lists the following as the strategic pillars of digital business - business agility and rapid innovation, operational agility and effectiveness, IT and data-centricity, and customer-centricity. Keith Willetts, TM Forum Founder and board member, provides a glimpse of his digital vision for telco. Beginning would be a good start Communicate: How should operators transform into digital businesses? Keith Willetts: First they have to start. A lot of operators are still thinking, “We’ve got time.” And the process of transformation, especially when you talk about cultural transformation, about the kind of people you employ, about how you promote and reward them, about how you treat them; these take time. In terms of getting your business more innovative, really figuring out the business you’re in, changing from long-term strategic planning to more of an experimentation kind of mindset, these things don’t happen overnight. The problem is markets can change overnight.   Getting the transformation timeline and the business defense or offense strategies in line are challenges most operators have. Go too fast and you are there before the market and end up spending lot of money. Get there too late and you don’t have a business.  Most of the CEO’s that I talk to are really grappling with, “How do I make change fast enough and how do I not get caught unawares by the likes of Whatsapp taking billions of dollars out of my business every year?&rdquo…