To drive digital transformation and manage connectivity, devices and data on a global basis, the collaborative spirit of the industry is imperative, shares Lucky La Riccia, Vice President and Head of Digital Services at Ericsson Middle East and Africa, in an interview with ITP.net.
Discussing the importance of engagements at MWC 2022, La Riccia said: “MWC provides unique reflections on the digital future, it’s an ecosystem play and that’s the way we view it – interaction with customers, partners and different regulatory collaborators enables digital transformation to be carried out in an efficient way.”
“For us at Ericsson, it was important to showcase these innovations that help service providers drive digital transformation, not only in the consumer business, but also in the enterprises and industries that support our society,” he added.
By 2030, digital technologies will reduce greenhouse gas emissions across industries by 15 percent, according to an Ericsson study, showcasing the countless social economic benefits possible.
Building an ecosystem that links devices, applications, service providers and enterprises — but primarily one that includes partners and customers — is key to IoT development, La Riccia shared.
“When we support transformation of enterprises and consumer spaces in telecom, we do it in a way in which we can provide solutions that deliver effectiveness for solving real world solutions. It’s important that we can also get fast feedback that these real-world solutions will scale, and they’ll be able to operate under many conditions, whether that be the introduction of 5G as an example or securing that we can process data in an efficient manner for a use case” he explained.
On the key trends disrupting the industry, La Riccia said: “I think it’s an industry that is disrupting itself, but the key trends that we’re seeing right now are the introduction of 5G and the enablement platform that it has become supporting elements like high throughput, low latency, and the ability to process massive amounts of data.”
“Artificial intelligence and the introduction of cloud solutions are also other trends…. there are a lot of use cases that would benefit from being processed closer to the end user and for us to be able to do that, the introduction of 5G for example as a platform for innovation, becomes so important,” he added.
Cloud and edge technology are posing solutions for real-world situations that could benefit from systems that rely on processing on the fly, making them more cost-effective and efficient.
Vision and focus
Driven by innovation, Ericsson’s vision imagines a world where limitless connectivity improves lives, redefines business and pioneers a sustainable future.
“At Ericsson it’s all about imagining possibilities – we want to drive the digital transformation of industries and enterprises. In doing so, we want to introduce real world solutions that enable our service providers to execute network modernisation in a cost-efficient manner at the same time introduce cloud computing and edge exposure to allow for new use cases that can benefit from high throughput, low latency, and large amounts of data processing,” said La Riccia.
“We really want to support our service providers to drive digital transformation, both within the consumer business, but also within enterprise engagements,” he added.
With that, Ericsson’s IoT Accelerator is delivering a reliable and secure cellular IoT platform that empowers communications service providers and enterprises worldwide to scale their IoT business across tens of millions of devices, providing enterprises with plug-and-play access to cellular IoT connectivity.
Looking ahead, Ericsson intends to continue supporting and contributing to the global digital transformation, in which La Riccia added: “This means that we’ll be continuing our existing business, supporting service providers in the way that they operate and manage the mobile broadband consumer networks, as well as how they’ll expand and grow revenues through enterprise engagements, and looking at what the introduction of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) and cloud based computing means for enterprises.”
“Edge exposure is one example. Driving the digital transformation of financial services is another, placing focus on our mobile wallet platform and how that will help bank the unbanked right across the African continent and across the wider MEA region. We will also be innovating in the IoT industry 4.0 segment and making it far more efficient for operators to really drive new business segments in this area,” he added.
