The entire gamut of business went through turmoil as soon as the pandemic hit the globe. However, amidst all these, the business world has also undergone some remarkable, unseen, and positive changes. Entrepreneurship picked up, remote work culture became the new normal, E-commerce scaled newer heights and what not! And all these have been possible due to the huge digital transformation that has been happening over the last few decades or basis the need that evolved due to the recent pandemic.

Well, when it’s about digital transformation, the telecom industry proved to be one sector that not only sparked the revolution, but has also been the flag bearer since long time now. To note here, telecom industry has almost become a synonym to this digital shift.

But then, this trajectory shift in digital space is the outcome of facing unknown or unheard challenges, overcoming them, and finally building robust technologies to bring in a digital revolution. In this blog, let’s have a look at some of the greatest challenges faced by the telecom industry and how it overcame them while maneuvering this remarkable digital transformation in real-time.

Challenges of Implementing Digital Transformation in Telecom Industry:

Challenge #1: Super Fast and Responsive Customer Service

While customers don’t like to wait in queues, customer service providers were not able to handle or respond to the large volumes of calls they received. Attending such humungous amount of calls and responding to them required large number of human resources, which again made the process cost-ineffective.

Solution #1: Putting Artificial Intelligence (AI) Into Customer Service

As a technology, AI has been developing competencies in telecoms. AI has changed the old school ways of attending customers, handling their queries, resolving them, and boosts customer engagement.

These days, businesses are focusing more to become an omni-channel contact centre platform software platform. Telecom industry is putting AI into customer service and engagement to make this happen across all levels. Virtual customer assistant, chatbots, and other AI powered tools are best examples of how telecom industry is making digital transformation a reality in today’s world.

Challenge #2: Handle Complex Business Processes

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Business processes usually get more complex with the high influx of data. As the data flowing in spike up, processing them or extracting information out of them gets more complex. With only human computing abilities, handling this enormous amount of data is near to impossible. And once data is lost, businesses start losing their growth and revenue.

Solution #2: Machine Learning to Automate Businesses

Automating businesses was one of the greatest digital transformations in telecom industry. Here, Machine Learning (ML) initiated developing competencies in telecoms by empowering machines to learn on their own over time and process massive amount of data in no time. Furthermore, by developing advanced ML algorithms, telecom industry brought in a new digital transformation.

Challenge #3: Rise in Remote Working Culture

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Remote working is the new normal and there is no denial about this! However, with the advent of this new normal, organizations started facing a new set of challenge – how to build a centralized work model wherein data can be made accessible to every employees, how to stay in sync with the employees sitting across different locations, or how to build a connection between employees and their devices.

Solution#3: Introducing Cloud Hosted Telephony Solutions

With these cloud hosted telephony solutions, organizations can now easily build a centralized data storage that can be managed and accessed from anywhere in world. Also, since data is stored in the cloud, it became easier for organizations to build a seamless human-device connection. By investing more on this cloud-hosted telephony solutions, service providers are bringing in a massive digital transformation in the telecom market.

Challenge #4: Rise of OTT (Over the Top) Platforms

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OTT platforms started growing exponentially since last decade, thanks to the smart phone revolution! The arrival of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Netflix, and others have affected the telecom sector in infinites ways. As a result, revenue generation in telecom market started dipping largely.

Solution#4: Develop Advanced Digital Content Delivery Network

Another milestone digital transformation in telecom market is the development of networks to deliver digital content. Telcos adhered to the rise of OTT platforms and started building cloud hosted telephony solutions through which digital content be distributed via high-speed broadband or Wi-Fi, or even through mobile data packs.

Challenge #5: Old School Legacy Systems

Legacy systems are traditional systems are either outdated or can no longer support the objectives of a business. Legacy systems proved to be one of the most challenging factors in the overall digital transformation of businesses. You can read more Legacy Systems

Solution#5: Modernizing Legacy Systems

The modernization of legacy systems is yet another remarkable digital transformation in telecom industry. The process requires reviewing and updating business requirements, which leads to assessing all the existing codes. Following this, advanced systems are developed to optimize overall operation and performance of a business. Even though this is quite a complex process, it ensures a high ROI to businesses.

How Reeshatech Can Enable Telecom Clients Globally in Digital Transformation?

Well, these are just few pointers on how organizations in telecom industry are contributing to digital transformation in today’s era. In our next series of blogs, we would discuss more on this. However, if your business or organization is looking out for reliable, secured, and cost-effective telecom services, you must get in touch with United Infotech to hire some of the best industry experts. And while you get in touch with them, you can have a look at one of their recent case studies mentioned below:

• Service Industry Sector: Telecommunications and Network Services
• Client Requirement:

1. Solid or proven business consultation and planning.
2. Information architecture for website and mobile applications.
3. Compelling experience design that can fulfill customers’ needs.
4. Web development services to offer seamless user experience.

Challenges Faced By Client

Client wanted to develop a highly interactive website that would serve as a single touch point to cater to lead generation, validation of sales, and boost customer engagement. However, there were number of bottlenecks that were challenging the entire development process.

• Though the client had a decent visibility in the online market, their site was not an interactive one. It lacked all the aesthetics of designing with no branding elements in place. Hence, they had a high bouncing rate, and due to which their lead generation was getting negatively impacted.
• The user experience was quite outdated and failed tragically to keep the users or visitors engaged.
• Prospective customers find the website not worthy enough since there was a lack of navigational or structural integrity.

Solutions We Delivered

For all the projects we have handled so far, we first bifurcate the project so that we can walk into both organization’s and customer’s shoes. Following this, our team had a discussion with the client, and our core team started storyboarding followed by our ways of market research and creating discovery strategies. Competitor analysis was given higher priority to analyze the trend and get market insights, understand customers’ requirements to figure out the best practices to keep customers glued to the site.

• The site required functional information architecture – we addressed this as required.
• As we walk in the shoes of customers, we understand their pain points better. While beginning with the development process, we also considered the mental model guideline of the users along with organizational schema and structure. Following this, we developed accurate labeling & structure that will solve the problem of inconvenient navigation.
• Client had a highly exponential website. Hence, we had to make sure that the new platform we were building the site on should be scalable. And we achieved this we took leverage of an advanced third-party technology.
• Our next goal was to boost on-page traffic through standard SEO practices. As a result, there was an exponential increase in user engagement along with lead generation.
• The last step we followed was the trial and error check. As we approached towards the end, the client got established as one of the reputed telecom service providers.

The Final Outcome

• Being associated with United Infotech, client achieved more than 50% increase in user engagement.
• Lead generation skyrocketed to a greater height; credit goes to the upgraded navigation and information architecture.
• Our SEO and Schema strategies delivered a remarkable growth in web traffic for the client’s site.

The post Challenges in Digital Transformation appeared first on Reeshatech.

Is it something like this picture-

If it is then don’t worry. A lot of people imagine the days of the first industrial revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries as well.

We don’t even stop to consider the silent revolution that has been happening in the last decade. And this revolution can be attributed to the rapid improvement in technology.

The latest improvements in the manufacturing industry, a.k.a industry 4.0 has changed the way the manufacturing industry works entirely. The improved production and complete automation of the processes are a few results of this new revolution. But no improvement comes without challenges.

The digitalization of the manufacturing sector has given rise to major challenges. But it is only digital transformation that can save it. So let’s take a look at three of the major challenges and how digital transformation in manufacturing can solve it.

Data Analytics: The First Challenge To Plague Manufacturing

At this point, data is indeed the king. Industries across the world, are generating huge amounts of data regularly. And despite the possibility, the size, and character of the data present the industry with its first major challenge.

There are three earmarks of big data that generate serious issues for the manufacturing industries. And these are-

Volume: the size of the data, too large to analyze and deposit it in the traditional way.

Velocity: the rapid speed of data generation that makes it impossible to respond to it in real-time,

Variety: data recorded in various formats, all bunched together when collected.

These characteristics have made it quite problematic for the manufacturing industry to handle big data.

Needless to say that the big data challenge has been introduced by the advancements in technology. To manufacture a digital transformation roadmap, industries are using technology like IoT, and AI. This increases the level of Big Data challenge.

But thankfully, the answer to this lies in the digital transformation in manufacturing itself. Here are a few solutions. for the manufacturing industry to deal with the big data challenges they might be facing.

1. Solution One: A Unified System For Data Management

The first solution needed is a smart manufacturing model to handle data coming in from various sources.

As we all know, data comes from various sources. And the legacy systems still in use are not competent enough to handle this huge amount of data. The developers did not design these systems to handle the modern data flow in an intuitive way. And that’s why it can exchange data, but it is a manual process and yields no extra results.

In this case, the industry needs to break down the old “transaction-based” system, and implement the unified data-sharing system.

Having one system across the corporations will help the manufacturing companies to function in a unified way. It will also merge the data and manage it all in one place, instead of on multiple platforms.

2. Solution Two: Digitization Of The Old System

The legacy system has turned out to be one of the main roadblocks against the scope of smart manufacturing.

This time the challenge is related to the high amount of demands the industry has to complete daily. This demand puts them under too much pressure to update their systems regularly.

To utilize big data to its full extent, organizations need to break down the legacy systems before integrating new technology. This assimilation of new technology into the old system needs to be efficient. This way the regular production tasks will not be disrupted. The complete renovation of the system will make data handling/analysis easier.

3. Solution Three: Tools To Convert Data

There’s no point in collecting and storing data without proper analytic technology in place. This analysis can be used for measurable actions improving traditional manufacturing techniques.

There is only one main reason for collecting data from numerous sources- to gain a detailed insight into the market. The Multiple Nodes in the data and their analyzed value will determine the variables. This will help professionals to reach a decision on what is good for the business and what is not.

And for this, the first thing that’s necessary is to utilize the right tools and software. We have discussed the integration of a unified data management system.

And now it is time to talk about the right software. There are plenty of open-source tools that will be useful for manufacturing industry organizations to analyze and generate insights.

4. Solution Four: Patching Up Security Holes

The linked network of IoT in the manufacturing industry is the source of most of the manufacturing industry data. This connected network, along with its data has plenty of security issues.

There are specific gateways that connect the industrial internet of things to the internet. And these gateways have limited ability to enforce the proper surveillance measurements. This lack of security and the authentication process makes it quite dangerous to use the un-secure data. It leaves manufacturing industry members vulnerable to various data security issues.

To get rid of the surveillance issues, a partnership with big data service providers is necessary. They can help manufacturing organizations to build robust data collection and security structure. Organizations can also increase their ability to secure IoT connection with the internet.

The Skill Gap: Lack Of Employees Make Industry Barren

Right now there’s a huge skill gap in the manufacturing industry. The majority of the manufacturing workforce is close to retiring age, without anyone to fill their shoes.

According to statistics, the manufacturing industry in the US will have around 2.4 million manufacturing posts to fill up within 2028. This lack of talent could also cause a loss of $454 billion in 2028.

There are many reasons for this skill gap. And one of them is the financial crisis and recession that happen from time to time. And we are going through a pandemic, after which we are all expecting another era of financial crisis and recession. This is the time to get rid of the skills gap in the manufacturing industry.

The digitalization of the manufacturing sector can change this scenario. It will fulfill the major skill gap that has become so apparent in the industry today.

1. Solution One: LMS To The Rescue

LMS is probably one of the best digital transformation technologies for manufacturing. This will bridge the skills gap the industry is facing right now.

The lack of skills among the existing employees raises the need for proper training. And for that, a centralized and custom system is much needed.

With custom software, companies will be able to design custom courses, train the workers, and track the progress. The in-house training gives the organizations more power to leveling up the workers. This also gives the organization control over the kind of skills employees are acquiring. The workers can also learn on their own time without any problems.

2. Solution Two: Early Reach Out Programs At Schools

There are still misconceptions about the manufacturing jobs for being “messy” and “menial”.  This concept results in a huge employment deadlock.

And that is why manufacturing companies need to reach out to the students through collaboration with educational institutions.  This way the industry leaders can administer information on how the industry has changed in the past years. They can talk about various digital transformation technology used in industry, improving the quality of manufacturing jobs.

3. Solution Three: Importance Of Blended Learning

Just the inclusion of an LMS into the system is not going to help solve this issue. In order to truly mitigate the problem, organizations should administer a blended learning environment.

This will train the employees about all the changes such as supply chain digital transformation, digital transformation strategy, etc.

This blended learning method, that includes both LMS learning and classroom teaching, corporation can create a better learning environment. It will encourage both the employees and aspiring students to level up and join the manufacturing industry.

Customer Satisfaction: The Major Challenge Of All

I think we can all agree that the old type of “call-a-representative” customer service model was an absolute nightmare. And now we should be thankful for the self-service options we get today from various organizations.

But sadly enough, the manufacturing industry is still using the old version of consumer service options. And this happens to be the third biggest challenge the manufacturing industry is facing right now.

How is a digital transformation in manufacturing going to solve it? Let’s find out.

1. Solution one: Develop A “USEFUL” Website

This is a given, but still, hear me out.

A good website is incredibly important when it comes to improving liaison with consumers. It is the first interface of direct interaction any client will approach to contact the organization. But having a site is not the type of digital transformation in manufacturing we are going to talk about. It is the development of a useful website we are going to discuss.

A lot of times people don’t pay attention to the usability of the site before designing and developing the site. The lack of usability drives the consumers to pick up the phone and call customer service. The digital solution of this client service fiasco is the existence of a usable site. And that’s why the industry needs to spend more time and thought when developing a website.

2. Solution Two: Customer Portal With Self Service Is The Key

When it comes to consumer service, the industry needs to give importance to the popularity of the self-service option. It is a simple enough option that lets the consumer solve problems without having to call up an expert. And a consumer portal is the perfect kind of technology transformation services for the industry.

The consumer portal will be an open forum of discussion among the consumers. They can talk about the assorted products manufactured by the specific organization, FAQs, and experience. Enabling the clients to solve issues like this will ensure an amicable relationship between the manufacturer and the user base. Additionally, this smart manufacturing experience is going to help the customers find the solutions a lot faster.

3. Solution Three: Integrated Chatbots For The Win

The assimilation of AI chatbots is going to be a part of the self-service approach to consumer service. If unable to find the solution from the forum, clients can connect to the chatbot. It will be a streamlined way of contacting the consumer service department.

The interesting thing about these chatbots is the fact that it collects data to enhance its performance with time. Manufacturing corporations can put this data to use by analyzing it, and determining the major issues customers face commonly. This will easily upgrade industry performance.

Digital Transformation For Manufacturing: The Key To Solving Industry Problems

It is true that these problems have stemmed from the rapid assimilation of new mechanisms into the industry. The blind adaptation of these techniques gave rise to these problems. But thankfully, the considerate application of digital solutions can get rid of these problems.

The key here is to think about the human participants of the industry. Manufacturing corporations need to think about their employees, users, and partners before embracing digital transformation blindly.

Have any questions about the digital transformation in manufacturing? Feel free to contact us. And if you want more information on how we can help you with the digitization of your organization, check out our work process page.

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