In just a few months, the COVID-19 crisis has brought about years of change in the way companies in all sectors and regions do business. The rapid migration to digital technologies driven by the pandemic is expected to continue into the recovery period and beyond.
While digital transformation features prominently on all CEOs’ agendas today, NXN’s chief executive is also tasked with empowering other businesses to accelerate their digital journey. Telecom Review spoke with Ghazi Atallah to discuss the importance of implementing an organization’s digital capabilities and leveraging data in order to keep pace.
As an expert in the field, how has NXN been helping customers through their digital transformation journey in recent months?
Our emphasis has been on the digitization of business transactions and processes. We bring our planning expertise to help customers answer the questions of what it is that you need to digitize, why it needs to be done, and what the expected benefit is. These are not easy questions to answer; it requires us to engage with our customers to clearly layout a roadmap for transformation.
Once a clear roadmap is laid out then we move into execution mode with our customers.
This is when we start thinking about the integration of digital assets and physical assets, integration of systems, and of data – leveraging DNX, our digital platform, to accelerate this process. In parallel, we start working on orchestrating and organizing customer data required for the digitization roadmap. Finally, we put it all together with our agile custom development of digital services identified in the roadmap. The idea is to simplify and accelerate the delivery of the transformation roadmap for our customers.
Do you think the changes brought about by COVID-19, such as remote working, will continue for the foreseeable future?
I definitely think that the changes will continue to be there in the post-COVID workplace. In many ways it has been a forced cultural shift, but I think it is going to continue and be maintained. There has been a shift not only within a particular company, but also in how companies interact with one another.
The more important change and cultural shift is how we interact with our customers; this is where the amalgamation of the physical and digital realm has paved a new path of customer interaction. We have to be ready not only to support this new way of interaction but embrace it so we can further innovate in delivering customer experience.
You have spoken before about leveraging digital technology and managing data to optimize and disrupt business. Can you explain why this is important?
Over the last few years, data has increasingly become like a precious commodity essential to achieving growth, defining businesses, and giving competitive advantage to companies. The potential possibilities it yields are endless and limitless. Your data plays a significant role in the move to enhance your business abilities – which in turn results in making better and more intelligent strategic decisions.
Data can grow exponentially and it is important that organizations know how to harness its potential – the ability to manage and leverage your data will build the foundation of the future. The power of your data lies in a well-defined data strategy that also includes the digital platform and data science technology that you need.
It is so important that this is done right to enable disruption of business models and/or optimization of business processes that are anchored in analyzing the right data and delivering the right business insights.
