DALLAS–“Anything that can be digitalized will be.” That is how Nik Willets, deputy CEO of TM Forum, opened the keynote session titled “Embracing the new digital business reality,” at this year’s TM Forum Innovation inFocus meetup. He gave the digitalization example of our phones, which now hold everything we used to physically carry around. Industries focused on the physical world, like healthcare, are now able to treat elderly people longer, while industrial manufacturing is rapidly changing and impacting our planet and the efficiency of processes.
But digitalization brings on business challenges that are starting to shift the culture of companies, and changing the way they think of business models, and even the fundamental roles of the businesses themselves.
TM Forum is looking to create a digital business transformation, and Willets believes a number of ‘mega trends’ will drive that transformation:
- Information age>sharing economy
- Technology and communication advances>digitalization
- Instant gratification>on-demand, omni-channel
- Consumerism>customer centricity
- Social media>transparency
- De- and re- integrated value chains>platform economy
Digitalization is changing the way humans behave, but not always in the best ways. It is confusing, challenging and looks daunting from the outside in. TM Forum is working to change that.
Connectivity is challenging the dynamics of enterprise business practices. Value is now being created through co-opetition (cooperation and competition) and collaboration. Enterprises now have a role in enabling others in doing business, whereas traditional practices were about making a single enterprise the most money possible. Ego-system is being transformed into eco-system.
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Enterprises need to deliver services in a much more agile, aggressive and automated way that meets the needs of customers as the dynamic ecosystem is shifting dramatically, according to Willets.
According to TM Forum, businesses need to take a different approach with a new set of eyes that gives fresh perspectives on problems:
Six core changes underpinning digital operations are:
- Software at the core
- Cloudify and virtualize
- Applying agile principles
- DevOps for Enterprise
- Stronger governance
- Stronger Foundations enable agility
- Embracing failure
- Dramatic cultural change
- Open innovation
- Open APIs and Ecosystems
- Game changing teams
- Culture and agility trump strategy
TM Forum is addressing these challenges with its own Frameworx blueprint and APIs to bring companies together. Frameworx was built for:
- Internet of Everything (inter-organization)
- Agile Business and IT (intra-organization)
- Customer Centricity and Analytics
- TM Forum Open APIs enable digital business to:
- Enable digital agility
- Enable rapid partnership and innovation