Operator partners cloud provider to strengthen its core and create new services
Telenor has appointed Google Cloud to digitise its global operations, Reuters reports.
The Norwegian mobile operator and the public client service arm of Alphabet will digitalise the telco’s infrastructure and explore ways to jointly offer services to customers, the two companies said.
As Google Cloud’s services fine-tune the mobile operator’s IT and network, Telenor’s customers will use more of Google’s digital tools, the respective chief executives said.
Telenor has global reach
Oslo-based Telenor serves 172 million customers with half its revenue coming from Asia and half from the Nordic countries.
The digital project aims to create a massive transformation of Telenor, which helps it fulfil its ambition for new revenue streams, according to Telenor CEO Sigve Brekke.
“The future for telcos is to move beyond connectivity and to create value on top of connecting customers,” said Brekke.
Telecoms is run by software says Google
With networks increasingly reliant on software, Telenor needs to build a cloud-based business, Brekke said. Google’s capacity for data management, machine learning and artificial intelligence makes it a good fit.
“To digitalise our operation is to make it smoother,” Brekke said. “You can predict outages before they happen. When you’re displacing some of your backend processes, you can smooth out customer experiences and make them better,” Brekke added.
Flexible core lets you do more
Digitising the core operations of an operator the size of Telenor is a new challenge for Google Cloud, as will be the joint customer offerings, said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian: “This not just about optimising data centres and moving data centres to the cloud.”
Among the first services promised will be a platform to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) transform their own digital operations. “The work that we’re doing with SMEs [shows] we are not just a technology supplier but building a joint offering to a customer segment,” said Kurian.