Importance of IT and Telecom Collaboration

Every wave of innovation in telecoms begins with a simple truth: no one builds alone. Having spent over two decades in this space, I’ve seen the industry evolve from copper lines and tower rollouts to cloud-native networks and AI-powered infrastructure. But one thing hasn’t changed: progress always depends on partnership. As data, AI, and cloud redefine the foundations of digital infrastructure, collaboration is no longer optional. It’s smart strategy. Across the region, we’re seeing this shift in motion. Ooredoo Qatar’s partnership with Iron Mountain will expand AI-ready data centres across MENA, while e& UAE’s deployment of Microsoft’s Azure Operator Nexus enables intelligent, zero-touch networks. A growing number of telcos are joining forces with hyperscalers to unlock scale, speed, and security. For years, operators viewed cloud and AI players with caution, considering them potential disruptors rather than partners. That mindset is changing. The most forward-looking players are embracing open ecosystems, multi-cloud architectures, and AI co-development. Faster networks and lower latency still matter, but so too do agility, resilience, and shared innovation. It’s about building the digital backbone of economies ready for the age of intelligence. The telecoms sector’s next growth cycle won’t come from spectrum auctions or subscriber counts. It will come from partnerships that turn infrastructure into intelligence.

AI Agents Need Networks That Can Think in Real Time The conversation around AI is rapidly evolving from models to agents. AI agents won’t simply generate answers—they will coordinate workflows, negotiate with other agents, consume APIs, make decisions, and orchestrate business processes across multiple organizations. That changes the demands we place on connectivity. Static, manually provisioned networks were never designed for this world. As AI agents become active participants in business operations, they will increasingly require networks that can respond dynamically to changing intent. They will need to discover available services, evaluate policy and performance requirements, request connectivity, adapt to changing conditions, and automate lifecycle management—all without introducing unnecessary operational friction. This is where standardized Network as a Service becomes increasingly important. Open, interoperable APIs enable service providers to expose network capabilities in a consistent way, allowing automation to extend beyond individual domains into a broader ecosystem. Looking ahead, AI agents can leverage these standardized interfaces to orchestrate connectivity across multiple providers, clouds, and digital infrastructure partners. No single organization can build this future alone. The real opportunity lies in collaboration—where carriers, cloud providers, Internet exchanges, technology vendors, enterprises, and standards organizations work together to create an open, federated ecosystem that accelerates innovation for everyone. At Mplify, we’re proud to contribute to that journey by helping advance standardized LSO APIs and industry collaboration that simplify how networks interconnect and automate. The destination isn’t simply more automation—it’s an ecosystem where intelligent services can securely collaborate across organizational boundaries. The AI era won’t be defined solely by smarter models. It will also be defined by smarter, more connected networks. What capabilities do you believe will be most critical as AI agents begin orchestrating connectivity across multiple providers and platforms? #AI #AgenticAI #NetworkAsAService #NaaS #Telecom #TelecomAutomation #LSO #APIs #Federation #CloudNetworking #DigitalInfrastructure #Mplify

How European Telecom Companies Are Powering Startup Innovation Europe's telecom sector is a great example of how collaboration between large telecom players and startups can lead to groundbreaking innovations. Unlike many regions, where the relationship between telecom giants and startups is limited, European companies are actively investing in, mentoring, and partnering with emerging startups to drive the industry forward. 🌍🚀 🔍 Key Examples of Empowerment: 1. Bouygues Telecom (France) Bouygues Telecom’s “Initiatives” incubator program has been a game-changer for startups, facilitating collaboration and co-development across areas like IoT, cybersecurity, and customer experience. Through this initiative, Bouygues has helped over 100 startups, many of which have gone on to form successful partnerships. 2. Orange Group (France) Orange goes beyond just financial support—they offer startups mentoring, networking, and even investment opportunities. Their robust ecosystem allows emerging businesses to grow and scale in a dynamic environment, helping push the boundaries of telecom innovation. 3. Deutsche Telekom (Germany) T-Labs, Deutsche Telekom’s R&D arm, collaborates with startups and academic institutions, focusing on areas like decentralized systems and spatial computing. Their commitment to open innovation has led to the creation of spin-offs and new technologies that are shaping the future of telecom. 4. Telefónica Germany Telefónica Germany is working on groundbreaking projects like quantum technology and future 6G networks, in collaboration with startups and academic partners like AWS. These initiatives promise to reshape mobile tower placements and secure telecom networks. 5. Telecom Italia (Italy) Telecom Italia supports the Startup Europe Partnership, helping connect large telecom companies with startups in the digital space. This open approach fosters innovation and collaboration, benefiting both established players and new entrants. 🌐 Why This Matters: These European examples highlight how telecom companies can thrive by empowering startups. By sharing resources, offering funding, and actively working together, they help nurture the next wave of technological advances. This creates a win-win ecosystem where innovation flourishes and the telecom industry remains at the forefront of technological development. It’s time for India to follow suit. We need a telecom ecosystem where collaboration, not just competition, drives growth. Startups should be given the support they need to innovate and disrupt the status quo. In India this responsibility has been taken by BSNL in working with startups, a clear policy towards the same is helping drive innovation. Any other Indian Telco working towards empowering the startup eco system?? Let’s embrace open innovation and pave the way for a brighter, more dynamic telecom future! 💡📶 #TelecomInnovation #StartupSupport #EuropeanTelecom #OpenInnovation #FutureOfTelecom #TechCollaboration

The $22,000 a minute opportunity for the Telecom Industry Analysts report that unplanned downtime can cost cars manufacturers up to $22,000 per minute, with the average factory experiencing 800 hours of downtime per year. That’s over 15 hours a week, resulting in billions of dollars lost annually. For many manufacturers, connectivity is still a best-effort service, making their digital transformation efforts vulnerable despite automation and robotics. The reality is, no matter how advanced your Industry 4.0 plans are, your systems will only go as fast as your weakest link: connectivity. This is where telecom industry can play a pivotal role. By providing deterministic, reliable, high-speed, and low-latency networks, telecom can ensure that factories run without disruptions. However, this opportunity goes beyond selling connectivity—it requires a partnership model. Unlike traditional telco services, this opportunity demands collaboration with ecosystem partners. Connectivity is just one piece of a larger puzzle that includes Robotics, Devices, applications, and more. Tech giants like Cisco, Microsoft, and AWS have proven the power of partnerships. Now, it’s time for telecom to embrace this model to unlock the next industrial revolution. https://lnkd.in/gQ8EfgWG

What Do ITIL 4 and TM Forum Have in Common? 1️⃣ Focus on Value Creation Both ITIL 4 and TM Forum prioritize delivering value to customers. ITIL 4 utilizes the Service Value System (SVS) to stress co-creating value, while TM Forum centers on its Business Process Framework (eTOM) to outline processes that enhance customer outcomes. 2️⃣ End-to-End Processes ITIL 4 emphasizes value streams, ensuring seamless workflows across the organization. TM Forum’s eTOM focuses on end-to-end process flows in operations, strategy, and customer management. 3️⃣ Flexibility and Modern Practices Both frameworks integrate Agile, Lean, and DevOps methodologies. ITIL 4 promotes adaptability through its guiding principles, while TM Forum fosters innovation with its Open Digital Architecture (ODA). 4️⃣ Customer-Centric Approach ITIL 4’s core “Focus on Value” principle aligns with TM Forum’s commitment to enhancing customer experiences through standardized frameworks. 5️⃣ Global Standards for Collaboration Both ITIL 4 and TM Forum establish a common language for their industries, enhancing collaboration between teams and organizations. How They Complement Each Other ITIL 4 is optimal for managing IT services across various industries, while TM Forum specializes in revolutionizing telecom operations, focusing on digital services. Together, they offer a roadmap for organizations to enhance operations, foster collaboration, and deliver exceptional customer experiences. 💡 Key Takeaway: Despite catering to different sectors, the shared emphasis on value creation, end-to-end processes, and customer-centricity makes ITIL 4 and TM Forum valuable partners in modern service management. Are you leveraging ITIL 4 or TM Forum in your organization? How do you perceive the alignment of these frameworks? Let’s engage in discussion! 🚀 #ITIL4 #TMForum #ServiceManagement #TelecomTransformation #

Built Separately Stronger Together! The telecom industry has a structural problem. No operator can realistically solve the next wave of challenges alone. AI, data centers, and digital infrastructure are moving too fast and too large. This is where Big Tech comparison becomes uncomfortable. A single operator cannot respond with equal financial or technological strength. Even telecom’s combined innovation power often feels fragmented beside the scale, speed, and ecosystem control of Big Tech and hyperscalers. That is why fragmentation is no longer just a market reality. It is a strategic weakness. 🔹 separate investments 🔹 separate technology paths 🔹 separate innovation agendas 🔹 separate responses to the same threat Meanwhile, telecom keeps building networks, carrying traffic, and enabling AI and digital services. But enabling growth is not the same as capturing value. If operators keep acting separately, telecom risks becoming a utility layer beneath AI platforms and hyperscalers. If operators collaborate more, innovate together, and move with greater alignment, telecom can strengthen its role, improve margins, and claim a fairer share of the value it helps create. Can telecom act together strongly enough to shape the next era, or will it remain the foundation of someone else’s success?

In every telco transformation I’ve seen, success comes down to one thing: alignment. When IT and business finally start speaking the same language, complexity turns into clarity and transformation stops being a buzzword and starts delivering real value. But the pace of change for telcos has made IT and digital transformation a core part of how companies compete and grow. In Africa, that often means modernizing technology built in the early 2000s while finding new ways for IT to drive growth and resilience. This new BCG Platinion article looks at where telcos can begin on this journey. Too often, leaders rush to fix immediate pain points like customer service or product delivery, without first agreeing on what the transformation is actually meant to achieve. The result is effort that looks busy but rarely moves the dial. The framework described here by Eike Kock, Dr. Marvin Lamberjohann, and Dr. Oliver Budde offers a way through that noise. Defining priorities early and connecting business goals to IT capabilities helps teams work with structure and purpose. That discipline might not be the most glamorous part of transformation, but it’s the part that makes everything else possible. https://lnkd.in/e62JDsF7 #DigitalTransformation #Telcos #ITLeadership

Today, I had the privilege of delivering a lightning talk on a crucial challenge in OT/ICS environments: the communication gap between IT and OT teams. Choosing this topic was driven by my observations and research in the field, as well as insights from OT/ICS professionals. A recent LinkedIn poll I conducted highlighted this communication gap as the biggest challenge, with 34% of professionals identifying it as their top concern. This gap often arises due to the different priorities of these teams IT focuses on data safety and security, while OT prioritizes keeping machines running and operations safe. During my talk, I highlighted several strategies to bridge this gap: 📍Joint Training Programs: Regular training sessions that include both IT and OT teams to understand each other’s work and practice responding to cyber threats together. 📍Clear Communication Channels: Establishing regular meetings and shared communication tools to discuss ongoing projects and potential security threats. 📍Unified Incident Response Plans:Developing incident response plans that clearly outline the roles and responsibilities of both IT and OT teams, and practicing these plans regularly. 📍Cross-Functional Teams: Forming teams with members from both IT and OT to work on specific projects, ensuring that both perspectives are considered. By implementing these strategies, we can enhance collaboration and improve our incident response and threat intelligence strategies, ultimately strengthening our overall cybersecurity posture. I want to extend my gratitude to Resilience for providing this platform to discuss such important topics. #cybersecurity #OT #ICS #IT #collaboration #incidentresponse #threatintelligence #communication #Vision2030

Buyers and sellers negotiate across the table. That’s how procurement typically works: price, specs, timeline, risk management - often with an “us vs. them” mindset. Established players with more resources nearly always win. Deals for earlier stage tech often die, especially when the risk appetite of the buyer is low. What if, well ahead of the procurement phase, they worked around the table instead? That question led to the formation of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) when I was at Meta more than a decade ago. Telecom infrastructure innovation moved slowly, and startups struggled against entrenched players. Procurement cycles sometimes dragged on for years, burning most if not all of the capital of uncountable start-ups. Inspired by the success of the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP) in data center tech, TIP brought telecom ecosystem players together to collaborate well before procurement began. Vodafone, Telefónica, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, AT&T and other large global operators, small and large infrastructure providers, innovators building new approaches — all under the moniker “Together We Build”. We created project groups — or “mini ecosystems” — for every part of the telecom infrastructure stack. These groups defined specs collaboratively. Buyers and sellers across hundreds of different companies aligned on what solutions needed to achieve. Tech was validated together instead of through separate evaluation processes. That framing shift mattered enormously. Corporate partners became collaborators solving shared infrastructure challenges, not buyers evaluating vendor proposals. This new mindset opened dialogues that bilateral negotiations could never produce. Some TIP initiatives succeeded. Others went nowhere. Many are still charging ahead. But the effort accelerated innovation across the space because community collaboration drives progress in ways transactional relationships simply cannot. I use that model at Gigascale Capital now, bringing portfolio companies and corporate partners together early — especially during the discovery stage. Framing discussions around learnings and collaboration instead of immediately jumping into sales pitches and negotiations. Building relationships around the table, where new technologies can advance together. Ensuring that the playing field for innovation to thrive is set up for success.

𝗜𝗧/𝗢𝗧 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 -- 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝘀𝘂𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 The separation between the #IT and #OT domains is diminishing. IT, traditionally focused on #DataManagement, #analytics, and enterprise-level operations, is converging with OT, which is responsible for physical processes and equipment. The benefit? The breakdown of #data silos for better interoperability and scalability. 𝗘𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 -#EdgeComputing, thanks to its localized data processing, reduces the reliance on external #cloud connections for critical functions, assuring that operations can continue even during disruptions. -#SCADA systems act as intermediaries, harmonizing data from multiple OT sources before flowing to enterprise systems. -#IIoT platforms streamline data sharing across locations and systems, promoting centralized monitoring. Integrating edge computing with IIoT platforms helps manufacturers scale operations without overloading central systems, ensuring effective data-driven decisions as the volume of operational data grows. 𝗗𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗦𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘀 One of the direct benefits of IT/OT integration is interoperability across different systems and processes. Legacy OT systems, once isolated, are now capable of communicating with IT infrastructure through protocols like #OPC UA and #MQTT, addressing the problem of data silos, which have historically hindered collaboration between both domains. With the use of analytics and #AI, manufacturers can gather insights from previously inaccessible data streams. For example, combining data from OT systems with AI-driven software opens the door for #PredictiveMaintenance strategies to improve overall #Asset Management. 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗙𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 Scalability is a critical factor. As industries grow, the need for integrated, scalable solutions becomes imperative. Unified network infrastructures, common management platforms, and standardized equipment ensure that IT and OT systems can scale without compromising performance. Cloud platforms and #virtualization technologies are essential to this scaling effort. For instance, virtual controllers offer flexibility by decoupling control software from the underlying hardware, facilitating the remote update and management of systems, and reducing costs associated with hardware dependencies. In addition to scalability, these architectures enable greater flexibility in managing assets and resources; i.e., businesses are able to scale their IT/OT infrastructure in response to production needs while maintaining system reliability and uptime. Source: https://shorturl.at/brwGe ***** ▪ Enjoy this content? Follow me and ring the 🔔 to stay current on #IndustrialAutomation, #IndustrialSoftware, #SmartManufacturing, and #Industry40 Tech Trends & Market Insights!