Welcome to the Tech Arena, featuring authentic
discussions between tech's leading innovators
and our host, Alison Klein. Now let's step into
the arena. Welcome in the arena. My name is Alison
Klein. And today, we are very excited to be joined
by two business leaders that are making waves
in the tech sector. Andrea Cesarini, Accenture
Oracle Business Group EMEA lead, and Andrew De
La Torre, Group Vice President of Technology.
Welcome to the program, Andrea and Andrew. How
are you doing? Very well. Thanks for having us
today with you. Yep. Same here, Alison. It's
great to be here. Thank you. So why don't we
just start with introductions about your roles
and how you fit into the broader purview of each
of your respective companies. Andrea, why don't
we start with you? Always a pleasure to start.
So Andres Isarini, I'm actually joining Accenture
27 years now. And I think that I started from
understand consulting and the majority of my
career has been in the telco industry, been in
the telco industry around 23 years, working always
abroad, which is an interesting, because I've
been almost everywhere and always in a transformation
where Oracle has had an important role. Four
years ago, I took the role of the Oracle lead
for EMEA and I'm also the Oracle Global CTO looking
after the strategy and the roadmap and the way
we invest jointly together with Oracle in order
to address the client needs. And Andrew? My name
is Andrew Doherty. I'm also on the wrong side
of 25 years in this industry, so I've been around
quite a while. I've done a variety of roles in
the communications sector from strategy roles
into chief technology officer roles. Here at
Oracle now, I'm a group vice president of technology.
I'm responsible for the product strategy of the
communications business. Oracle Communications
is a part of Oracle, which is one of our industry
-specific business units, and we're focused on
the communications sector. I was really excited
for this industry because both of your companies
have such an incredible impact on the industry,
and I really wanted to hear what you were doing
in the telco arena. And Andrea, we have witnessed
a complete transformation of telco in the last
decade, and this transformation is based on an
ongoing pursuit as telco operators leverage compute
to deliver cloud -like control and agility to
their networks and open up new monetization streams
and efficiency for themselves. Where are we on
this journey in your estimation? I think, Alison,
the telco industry, it has been an incredible
industry, always been at the forefront of innovation
and technology. But I think I like let's say,
to shape the answer according to three different
phases, what was pre -pandemic, during the pandemic
and post -pandemic, just to highlight the key
role of telco in this place. I think there was
an important transformation already started.
During the pandemic, I think the telco demonstrated
to be the backbone of every other industry. And
now I think that the disruption is happening
even more because, of course, it's clear how
much is important the connectivity and how the
telco can become. more important in enabling
also the adhesion industry. If you look at what
happened... In Europe, but actually in EMEA,
if you like, what I see is that there has been
multiple trends that were involving about monetizing
the network, because I think one of the most
important subjects after having invested massively
in 5G was to try to separate the network for
the SelfCo, so the service company. I think that
there is still a cost optimization, because I
think this is an industry that has been caught
in a commoditization conundrum with... growth.
Nonetheless, I think that again remain the most
important industry because it's where you can
exploit the new technology. I think that we will
discuss, I believe later about the importance
of generative AI and also about the importance
of cloud. So I think that there is a lot of potential
to express. I think it's important that we continue
to invest further the network and also to explore
what is behind the connectivity, like becoming,
I think this was a subject discussed while it
was about the telco at the forefront to become
a modern orchestrator of B2B services providing
the 5G connectivity, but also helping all the
other enterprises to digitize and adopt data
and AI. Andrew, Oracle made a surprising announcement
recently with a major product innovation for
BSS automation that really caught my attention.
I always think of Oracle about enterprise, and
this introduced me as a first -time observer
into the telco arena. Can you tell me what you've
delivered? I'm glad we've managed to surprise
you, Alison. That's always a prime ambition.
What we've recently announced is a new digital
business experience solution. Now this is basically
an all -in -one digital BSS solution for service
providers. It's really designed to allow them
to manage their experiences and their revenue
across the entire customer journey, so all the
way from concept to cash to care. Now with this
solution, the idea is really that we can actually
allow service providers to capitalize on the
kind of new emerging enterprise opportunities,
because it will allow them to really easily sort
of design these differentiated offers and be
able to do really rapid order capture and fulfillment.
And obviously have very comprehensive revenue
management capabilities. But importantly, this
particular solution also allows them to continue
to service a very complex and demanding consumer
base that they have in their business today.
So this is really a kind of multi -channel. future
proof solution for them. When we spoke to a lot
of our service provider customers, they really
told us that they needed a very sophisticated
set of solutions to be able to give them the
necessary control and flexibility that they want
over all the aspects of their business in this
space. What we really tried to do with this experience
was to give them something that allows them to
meet the needs of the emerging industry opportunities
but also their existing markets and so the focus
was very much on something that was a full featured
solution giving all the benefits around the pre
integrated solution stack and giving them access
to product ties to configurable. capabilities
already within there. And I think importantly,
and Andrea touched on this point, it unlocks
that ability to take that journey into the cloud
as well. So this is a fully cloud native solution.
It can be deployed anywhere. It can be on premise.
It can be in public cloud, but it's really giving
them the scalability and the operational efficiencies
of the cloud. But more importantly, as Andrea
mentioned, giving them access to those really
significant technical innovations that we're
now seeing in the cloud, such as AI. If I may
add something, just because I'm so interested
in this subject and with Andrew, sorry if I interrupt
a bit of the flow, but back to the original story.
I think if you look at the evolution of the telco
from business and how this has been matched by
an architecture, I think that you can acknowledge
a bit of three, four phases. And this is just
why I like the importance of VB now. So if you
go back prior to 2000, was everything was about
billing. And billing was the only channel that
the telco user to communicate with customer,
providing a single invoice was actually the best
way to interact. I think then there has been
around 10 years where it was all about CRM and
CRM to enable the assisted channel. I think that
in the last seven, eight years, I think the full
attention was deserved to the only channel capability.
and this has been further accelerated during
the pandemic with the need to digitize. I think
now DBE is addressing a specific point which
is for me critically important is the digital
core. And the digital core is what we were using
in the past to call system of record and core
transactional system. What DBE is great at is
a modern core system. and for modern being cloud
-native, which is providing a central set of
data with the secure access to the artificial
intelligence. And the idea is to provide this
suite from CNRAM to the billing to the order
management in order to provide the client with
adaptability, being cloud -native, designed to
run on cloud, speed and resiliency. I think that
what is important for Tavco to rethink back about
combining all these elements that historically
were considered as important, so RAM, billing,
and now for the management from an influence
standpoint, so that they could become the primary
source of competitive advantage. Thanks for that.
One question that I have about that, Andrew,
is how does that fit into Oracle's broader cloud
first business strategy and your engagement across
different businesses. To double click on the
topic of cloud, the first thing I would probably
highlight is the journey for the service providers
into the cloud is way more than just a technology
adoption challenge. It is fundamental to their
operating model and to the way that they run
their businesses. It is an extremely challenging
journey to take to be able to move into cloud
adoption across all of the different technical
components of the stack that they run. Now with
digital business experience, what we wanted to
do was provide as much flexibility as possible
so that a given service provider can almost tailor
that journey that they go on in line with their
business strategy in the broader sense, but also
their ability to transform their organization
and to make those operating changes. So when
you look at what we've done with digital business
experience, I mentioned already that it's extremely
flexible in terms of the deployment configurations
that you can have. You can run it in on -prem
environments. You can run it in public clouds.
But more importantly, what we've done is we've
connected it to Oracle's core strategy around
really embracing and allowing hybrid or multi
-cloud environments as well. So the ability to
be able to efficiently interconnect into other
third -party infrastructure. And so if you look
at some of the strategic partnerships that Oracle's
already announced with Azure, with Google, more
recently with AWS, these kind of highly secure
connections between the cloud, they're really
unlocking the ability for the service providers
to be able to move data around those different
cloud environments in line with however they've
chosen to deploy their various solutions. So
their front office, their back office, whatever.
And the point here is that it's this data alignment
that's really key to unlocking how you can then
access the latest generation of insights that
you can get from the AI capabilities in the cloud.
So the ability to bring this data together and
to get. really good information and insights
from it is what drives the opportunities. So
for many of our customers, the CX has always
really been a priority and it's viewed very often
as this low -hanging fruit in terms of AI adoption.
Looking at use cases like summarization or sentiment
analysis or real -time transcript, I mean, all
of these kind of capabilities you can get by
having access to your data in a uniform way.
And then being able to use these large language
models to use these AI engines to be able to
deliver those insights. So again, to kind of
wrap it up, the point here is that we've tried
to provide as much flexibility as possible for
the customers because the cloud journey is not
a simple one. It is one where we know that they're
going to have to have different solutions from
different providers. But what we've tried to
do is make sure that they have a vehicle to be
able to re -bring the data together, which is
where all the magic starts. Now Andrea, it's
really obvious that these two teams are collaborating
deeply. Can you provide some context for the
collaboration between the two companies? Let
me say that, honestly, I've been involved in
this project even before it started. Also, I
think the collaboration with Oracle in communication,
especially about me, is a historical collaboration.
I think the two companies have been collaborating
for 30 years. I believe I started working on
the same subject together with Oracle along the
pendulum that was set before that. I started
from billing, and when Oracle acquired PortAdditionNet
and moved to Siebel, then it became the standard
de facto. for the CRM in all the possible countries,
the opportunity and the luckiness to work with.
And then in the past, I think we had also another
collaboration of Rodod that we can consider a
bit of the father of what DB is today. I think
that the collaboration is quite high. I think
two points that to me are very relevant. I think
one, building on what Andrew said, the fact that
cloud is becoming the admission ticket for a
modern enterprise and that Elko is no different
from the others. So I think that the evolutionary
path taken by DB to become cloud native and enable
a SaaS -like operation is a critical point for
all the telco. The second point, I think this
is strongly supported by the Oracle strategy
of multi -cloud. If you remind a couple of Oracle
cloud work ago, Larry Ellison introduced the
concept of the internet of cloud and he was introducing
his pitch saying, no wallet gardener are tumbling
down. and from that I think many things happen
and honestly I think the strategy is so strong
acknowledging that there is no workload equal
to the other and every workload requires a specific
cloud and the specificity of Oracle is that Oracle
is the best cloud supporting high transactional
capability and back to the Telco and back to
the BSS and OSS is the place where you have the
customer that you have the order data, you have
the product data, the billing data. So I think
having a solution that is cloud native, designed
to run on cloud, is a big value for the customer.
So in terms of partnership, we will continue
in the major client where we are developing this
opportunity. And of course, in designing the
roadmap together of the client in alignment with
the benefit from that. Another, to me, critical
point is how the client will transform. We say
that this is an industry always at the forefront
of the innovation, but is also an industry that
supports all the other industries, but is also
an industry that has been disrupted massively.
with a lot of investment because it's a capital
intensive if you consider the amount of money
that Tesco plays on 4G, then 5G and then very
soon with the 6G and some of them already started.
So I think that what I think is important when
we speak about DBE that we can help the client
to transform themselves but with an evolutionary
path as opposite of a revolutionary path. So
you are using all the great technology, but building
on what the client has or they can take, or having
any historical data like SIDBEL, like BRM, like
OSM and COM. So I think that this will help a
lot because in a disrupted industry and in a
disrupted world, I think having the possibility
to design your evolutionary path, to transform
yourself, to reinvent yourself with the assurance
that you are basing this... to transformation
that is evolutionary is a kind of assurance that
the client should adopt. And honestly, with this
level of partnership knowledge, I think we are
best suited to partner together and to get the
client to where they want to be in the future.
Now, why was this the right moment to target
BSS? And what does this open up for monetization
of services like what we discussed before? If
I may, I believe that as I say, there is a pendulum
and also like Andrew, we are a long time in the
industry. And I think that the recent happening,
fortunate or unfortunate, I think that pushed
some priority to the tech. So I think that during
the pandemic, a lot of customer experience, a
lot of infrastructure job in order to save money,
reinvest the capital in the area that were more
urgent to save. I think that today there is another
big event from the industry, from the market,
which is the availability of generative AI, artificial
intelligence in general, that for the people
that did engineer like me, something that I did
30 years ago at the university, but there were
at the time no computational power, no storage,
and both of them were incredible price and cost.
Today is a technology that is available for everyone,
so I think that refocusing on where the critical
data of the 10 core aside is really strategic.
And that's why I think we speak about the digital
core. For me, the D is a digital core for the
10 core, and we are... helping the client to
refocus on where the critical data is because
then you can leverage of the new technology coming
from artificial intelligence and generative AI
to improve the customer experience or to improve
the sentiment that he can do, mention a few of
them, summarization, but also improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of the billing, tracking the
order, the service request, the level of services.
So it's really the right moment. It's just an
alignment of planets in the view. Now, Andrew,
what has the customer response been to this announcement
since you delivered it earlier this year? I'd
start probably by saying that this business experience
was actually born from listening to our customers
and actually working with our strategic partners
like Accenture and actually paying attention
to what the needs of the market were. And somewhat
unsurprisingly, the response has obviously been
very overwhelmingly positive because what we're
trying to do here is really to give the market
what it's telling us it needs. I would probably
bucket those four needs into maybe four core
categories. And so the first one and the first
message that came across loud and clear is we
need a solution that's going to help us to accelerate
and move to the cloud and ultimately to get access
to that latest generation of cloud services that
then unlocks and Andrea there was talking about.
once again, all those different ways in which
you can use AI to be able to augment and support
what you do with customer experiences as an example.
The second sort of message that came loud and
clear was that they really wanted a fully digital
solution. And so again, Andrea is referring to
this digital core and the criticality of that
as a vehicle to be able to unlock. new market
opportunities that are coming from the enterprise
vertical service space and so that was a very
clear requirement as well. The third one was
really around trying to ease the adoption and
the implementation and so the message there was
really around bring us a pre -integrated offering
bring us something that has a rich set of. Out
of the box product models and predefined journeys
and can allow us to things just one click publishing
to all the downstream applications and this is
really around how we reduce time to market how
do i get a solution that allows me to be fast
and agile in the market but i'm trying to chase.
I'm in fourth and i think probably most critically
there was a really strong message around. make
sure that this thing is super feature rich, right?
There was no willingness to compromise on the
need to be able to continue to service the existing
business that they have. And so moving into new
business spaces is really critical for the future
of the industry, but you can't walk away from
what you have today. And communications has an
incredibly complex and rich set of products and
journeys and experiences that are locked into
the customer base. And so the message really
there was loud and clear, which is we make no
compromise on the capabilities of the platform.
It has to be future proofed, but it has to do
everything that we need it to do today. And so,
you know, what we've done with digital business
experience is really creates and I can quite
unique because It manages to combine all of these
kind of four requirements, these four attributes
in a way that's genuinely best in class. And
to come to the core of the question, the response
really from the industry as a whole, from customers,
from analysts, from our strategic partners like
Accenture, it really has been super positive
because they can see the ambition of trying to
really create something that can really help
the customers win in the market. Now, Andrea,
can you just take that? perspective that Andrew
just laid out and talk to us about how customers
actually implement the solution from the decision
to deploy to full throttle activation. I think
there are just two ways. Now, one is Greenfield
and the other one is Brownfield. Those are the
two approaches that I see. Brownfield is the
one that is taking the majority of the value
of an evolutionary path. And this is actually
cool because you can just update your solution,
adding some component if you like, you'll get
it to the end. Greenfield is when you want to
be a bit, let's say, a revolutionary in this
evolutionary path, creating a new instance and
then migrate what you have in the house into
the new patch. The other point of the decision
is when you want to get the value from the cloud,
if you want to get from the beginning or migrating
later, but the solution is already designed for
that. And in case you migrate with some of our
joint clients, with Andrew, that client that
decided to embrace the dedicated region Cloud
.Customer, I think that we also observed an incredible
improvement of the performance of the processes
from the end to end standpoint. So I think that
the fact that we are speaking about the solution
that is full cloud native that give you the possibility
to decide whether you want to embrace the private
cloud or the public cloud in the moment that
you like, in the right moment in time. And this
is the strategy to meet the client where they
are and to accompany them in their evolutionary
journey next to them to get to where they want
to be. And, Andrew, when you look at this deployment,
what do you see as the benefit to your telco
customers? This is really about investing in
their future. It's really about investing in
the next wave of market opportunity that is open
to them. By deploying digital business experience,
what the customers are actually really achieving
is they're putting the foundations in to be able
to monetize APIs, to be able to present themselves
into the market as that kind of telco as a platform
concept. And so this digital core is really the
start of that journey into the world beyond consumer
the world beyond the current enterprise and being
able to carve out a path to revenue growth so
that really is the whole raison d 'etre of why
they go down this path and why they're investing
it's about allowing them to have something that
keeps them. highly competitive still in their
existing markets so that they can continue to
generate the revenues that are fueling their
businesses today, but have this digital platform
that's going to unlock entirely new revenue streams
as they move forward in the future. That's really
important effectively to set the path forward
as it were for them to grow and to be successful.
And Andrea, when you think about what you've
accomplished here with Oracle, what's next on
the roadmap for the two companies working together?
I think that we should continue to design together
the roadmap and I think the way we can help is
that Oracle is an incredible company when it's
about data engineering solutions. Accent should
complement Oracle with the industry knowledge
and the function expertise. So I think that the
idea is really to make sure that the roadmap
continues to be sound and innovative, addressing
the industry concern and the functional concern.
with the capability and I think Andrew and I
were always talking about enabling at scale,
low code, no code, generative AI addressing one
of the two, three cases that are more important
for the client in addition to always working
together with our client because this is actually
what is giving us the insight and the direction
where we want to go because we really want to
help the client to succeed and to transform themselves.
If I could add to that, Alison, because I really
would like to reinforce why I think the relationship
between Oracle and Accenture is so powerful.
Through digital experience, we're bringing an
incredibly powerful toolkit to the customers.
But then there's still the question of learning
to use that in the most effective way. And the
beauty of Accenture is that they have such an
intimate and close knowledge of the customer's
businesses, the challenges they have, and what
they're trying to achieve, that they're really
well positioned to be able to take. something
like digital business experience and realize
the full potential with those customers. So I
think such a symbiotic relationship really between
the two businesses here. Fantastic. And one final
question for you, Andrew. Where can folks find
out more about the solutions discussed today?
The go -to place is always oracle .com, so go
to our website, click on industries, click on
communications and you'll find our microsite
there and you'll be able to see our latest press
release. There's a really great data sheet as
well on digital business experience where you
can learn all the fundamentals. So take a look
at the website and please reach out to us if
you need more. Guys, it's been a pleasure. Really
impressive collaboration and really impressive
in how you're delivering value to your customers.
I can't wait to hear more. Thank you so much
for being on the show today. Hey, Phallusen.
Good evening, guys. Always a pleasure. Thanks
for joining the Tech Arena. Subscribe and engage
at our website, thetecharena .net. All content
is copyrighted by the Tech Arena.