Huawei: Customer Experience & ICT Evolution driving growth in converged managed services

Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, is anticipating a rapid increase over the next 2-3 years in the region’s demand for outsourcing of converged operations across IT and telecom networks as operators face current market challenges. These include the reduction of their total cost of network ownership, tackling the complexity brought by evolving technologies within the telecommunications industry, and meeting the demand of high bandwidth grouped with superior customer experience expectations.

Joining many of the world’s top vendors, service providers and consultancy firms, emerging opportunities within the ICT Managed Services sector was a key focus of this month’s “6^th Annual Managed Services - Growth Markets” conference organized by Informa Telecoms & Media and hosted in Istanbul, Turkey. Huawei was the Diamond Sponsor of this year’s program which featured senior executives from the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia representing over 32 leading telecom operators such as STC, Mobily, VIVA-Kuwait, Zain-KSA, du, Omantel, Batelco, Turkcell, Vodafone-Turkey, AVEA, Umniah, Tunisiana and Etisalat Afghanistan.

In the opening sessions of this year's forum, Huawei focused on addressing operators’ demand for new services capable of unifying networks where multiple vendors and multiple generations of technology must all coexist—as in the case of many current 3G to 4G mobile broadband transitions. The advancement of new telecom cloud and software-defined networking (SDN) solutions are further driving a spike in the adaptation of ICT managed series which can help operators to more efficiently unify their operational processes and service tools.

“In addition to advancements in telecom infrastructure solutions, we believe that Managed Services are the new frontier when it comes to optimization of an operator’s resources,” said Dr. Leroy G. Blimegger Jr., Vice President of Huawei Global Technical Service and Director of Assurance & Managed Services. “Huawei is already one of the leading Managed Services providers worldwide. Offering local partners access to an unparalleled wealth of global experts and industry-leading tools, moving ahead we see great opportunity for redefining the sector working hand in hand to give operators and their customers an exceptional service experience.”

Managed Services (MS) solutions are utilized by operators to manage specific day-to-day areas of their network and operation. These can be used to assure performance management, spare parts management and management of field operations, and are widely seen as a way to enable operators to focus on their core service offerings while reducing their total operational expenditures.

Huawei is investing in and leading the next generation of MS solutions encompassing the operator’s whole business by supporting revenue growth as well as an improved customer experience. This is done through the transformation of operations from network-centric operations to service-centric operations with the introduction of Service Operation Centers (SOCs).

Attending the forum and leading the Huawei Middle East delegates, Mr. Xia Chaojie, Vice President of Huawei Delivery and Services in the Middle East, noted: “We aim to be a transformation enabler that helps operators to cope with the dynamics of the industry’s value-chain evolution. The adoption of more advanced IP-based telecom networks in maturing markets is in fact changing the overall scope of what MS providers do. This means that Huawei has also had to transform to a next-generation MS provider, and with that we are here at this forum to align and collaborate with our partners, industry stakeholders, and customers to ensure we are offering unparalleled service solutions now and for the future.”

Over the past seven years Huawei has solidified the lion’s share of the Managed Services market within the Middle East by accumulating 58 MS contracts locally backed by the experience of having carried out over 330 MS projects worldwide. The company has also established three unique Middle East resource centers dedicated to Managed Services whilst opening five training centers for sharing best practices with customers and third-parties.

Such investments have seen Huawei recognized by industry peers over the past several years including honors such as Middle East Vendor of the Year by CommsMEA, Managed Services Provider of the Year in Telecoms from Network World Middle East, and a Global Growth & Innovation in Telecom Managed Services award by Frost & Sullivan.