Workplaces around the world have long known that collaboration within teams is key to innovation and effective problem-solving. For a large and complex project like digitalization, collaboration between companies and between industries is vital and can help companies make huge leaps toward the future.
Kamal Ballout, Head of Nokia Enterprise, China, India, Middle East & Africa, reflects on how a recent multi-industry global innovation forum underscored the importance of bringing companies and industries together to share knowledge and work toward solving common challenges.
Why is collaboration important to you?
My career has taken me all over the world. I’ve led Nokia’s work in sectors including power utilities, mining, and oil and gas, in the US, China, India, and Middle East Africa (MEA), and it’s always been the opportunity to work closely with customers to help them achieve their business goals that has been most exciting to me. Whether guiding customers through a complex digitalization journey or finding just the right solution to meet a challenge, collaboration is what makes me excited to arrive at work every morning.
The Global Industry Forum hosted at Nokia’s Energy Innovation Center in Texas offered an opportunity to take that collaboration to a new level, facilitating knowledge sharing among peers and industry experts from around the world. We had representatives from power and water utilities, transportation operators, and oil and gas companies.
The leaders shared success stories and best practices and discussed a host of topics affecting the future of their industries, from digital transformation to IP networking for critical industries. The value of this kind of industry-wide, cross-sectoral collaboration to companies’ digitalization journeys cannot be overlooked.
Why are events like these so important for companies in MEA?
We always learn something when we bring customers together, especially when they come from all over the world and from different industries with different priorities. My colleague James Watt, VP of Nokia Optical Networks observed that “a group this diverse brings tremendous depth and breadth of needs, which gives us a fantastic opportunity to learn about their specific technical and business challenges. A deep understanding of where they want to go helps us align our direction to best support them in getting there.”
So an event like this is about giving our customers a space where they can communicate with each other, share experiences, celebrate success and analyze any missteps. This is an extremely valuable way for industries to discover the next phase of digitalization together.
What does the “next phase of digitalization” look like?
The objectives of digital transformation are well explained by my colleague, Dr. Muneer Zuhdi, CTO of Nokia Enterprise MEA when he stated, “Digital transformation harnesses the latest ICT technologies to unlock value across critical business objectives, propelling enhancement in key performance indicators while aligning with the industry’s future vision”
The next phase of digital transformation is a lot more open. Nokia’s vision for 2030 is built on a ubiquitous network that connects people and things around the world so we can take advantage of automation to make day-to-day life more efficient and sustainable. This requires an open and collaborative approach from all stakeholders, especially communication service providers, to ensure no one is left behind.
The vision extends to the industrial metaverse, a fusion of the digital and physical worlds that enables simulations and “what if” scenarios that can improve safety, boost productivity, lower costs and reduce risks. Nokia Bell Labs is currently exploring advanced sensing, high-accuracy localization, edge analytics, industrial monitoring, autonomous systems, and more. Innovations like these will rely on key technologies such as 5G and 6G networks, artificial intelligence and machine learning, blockchain, and extended reality.
Digital twins are among the most significant applications of the industrial metaverse. Industries such as manufacturing and utilities can use digital twins to prototype new products and operating models, testing changes in near real-life environments before implementation, ensuring the desired results are achieved while at the same time reducing risks.
They can support enhanced capacity planning and maintenance operations in transportation, and improved services at lower cost. In the public sector, they can test response scenarios to better prepare for natural disasters and other events too dangerous to simulate in the real world — so if the worst happens, it can be handled more effectively with better outcomes.
How does collaboration drive the innovation needed to accelerate digitalization?
Reflecting on his interactions at the global forum, Vach Kompella, VP and GM of Nokia’s IP Networks business asserted that “for industrial enterprises to harness the full potential of digitalization, their networks have to transcend the traditional boundaries of the OT world and the IT world and have to be compatible with their adoption of cloud technologies. We collaborate closely with our customers and partners to ensure that the nuances of their critical applications and unique requirements are met by our technologies and innovations. You simply can’t get there without collaboration.”
Let’s take the example of one power utility that depends on openness to ensure the resilience of its mission-critical networks. It uses multiple technologies that can work together because of that openness, but the lack of standardization can make it difficult to get the systems integrated and working well together. Utilities in the Middle East have the potential to become regional energy hubs, with networks that even extend and interconnect with those of companies in Mediterranean Europe. But to ensure their technology meets the European standards for resilience and reliability, they need a stronger connectivity solution.
Enterprises need the right partner to guide them along that journey. Someone that can help them with vision and strategy as well as technology and transformation — including the human element of change, which can sometimes be the biggest challenge. The ideal partner would also bring their own set of trusted ecosystem partners with deep industry expertise who can help define and drive the digitalization journey.
When speaking about the opportunity that the global forum presented, Thierry Klein, President, Nokia Bell Labs Solutions Research said, “We’re engaging with many different industries and different stakeholders in the ecosystem. They all speak a different language, and it’s exciting to see how the technologies that we develop can provide value to a variety of different industries.
“And, it’s even more exciting on a personal level to interact with people of different backgrounds and perspectives around the real challenges and real opportunities. You learn a lot, and you feel like you can make a difference with your technology. The technology partnerships, the collaborations, the engagement with the ecosystem is the most exciting part beyond the technologies themselves. Innovation happens more and more at the intersection of different industries.”
What can mission-critical companies in MEA learn from their counterparts in other parts of the world?
The challenges facing utilities in MEA and the US are similar, from managing legacy technologies to dealing with regulatory pressures and meeting decarbonization targets. Addressing these challenges requires digitalization, and that’s where US utilities have an advantage. Most of them are further along in their digitalization journeys than their MEA counterparts.
It is helping them automate their distribution operations and maintain power quality as they incorporate more distributed energy resources, renewables, and battery storage into their grids. This all leads to a more dynamic grid, which requires a more capable field area network.
The lessons learned from US utilities’ greater experience with digitalization can benefit their MEA counterparts. For example, as my colleague Kumeel Alsmail, Energy Segment Lead, MEA, observed, many US companies have found that digital convergence and automation can do a lot to help optimize operating costs.
But they also noted that securing the funding to make these kinds of upgrades requires them to actively lobby for it. Building the business case to do so can be complex and time-consuming, but they agreed that it’s ultimately worth the effort.
Mahmoud el Banna, Nokia Head of Digital Industry Sales – MEA, pointed out that knowledge sharing is not one way. He cited the example of a Middle East utility that implemented a private wireless solution that enabled it to automate its distribution and incorporate various other smart solutions into its operations.
The utility is now using IoT devices to monitor its stations and can solve issues within minutes instead of hours. The company was pleased to share its experiences with peers interested in adopting a similar solution and looking for insights on what to do (and what to avoid) to make their projects successful.
How does Nokia help facilitate the type of collaboration needed to advance enterprises along their digitalization journeys?
It’s becoming increasingly clear that digitalizing the operations environment is mandatory because it offers a strategic competitive advantage no industry can afford to ignore. To do it effectively, it requires collaboration between the industry and the technology provider. That’s where the Nokia Energy Innovation Center (EIC) comes in. The EIC is a lab that includes our award-winning utility telecommunications technology. Partners can work together to test various use cases and integrate multiple technologies in a live communications network. Many utilities in the US have used this facility, and we want to extend an invitation to those in MEA to take advantage of it as well.
At the EIC, companies can leverage Nokia’s own experience to understand the benefits and challenges of different technologies and choose the right technologies for their specific needs. That understanding always forms the basis for our work with clients. Once we get to know them and their needs, we build them a digital platform where they can introduce new use cases that can lower expenditures, incorporate automation, reduce human error, and bring new monetization opportunities.
We provide technologies, but what we really help deliver is the outcomes those technologies enable. Our competitive advantage is the way we listen to and understand our customers’ problems and digitalization dreams — which are ultimately about how they can serve their populations with better public safety, higher quality products, improved efficiency, and lower energy consumption. Technology helps enable that and collaboration takes it to the next level.