VIDEO: Operators need to get right skills in place for virtualisation shift, claims Orange

Getting the right staff in place is arguably operators’ biggest challenge as they move towards virtualisation, Orange’s Senior Vice President, Technology Europe has said in an exclusive video interview.

Christian Luginbuhl, who is also SVP for the Global Performance, Innovation, Marketing and Technologies team, said the priority for the operator was to ensure the right skills are in place, first through training, then through the acquisition of staff with the required skills.

He said: “[Virtualisation] is one of the top priorities which lies ahead of us. It will really change us in the way we do our business, the way we serve our clients and the relationship we have with them, whether it’s B2B or B2C.

“In terms of skills, we need to acquire those. Probably from an HR perspective, it’s probably the biggest challenge.”

At Mobile World Congress in February, Orange demonstrated how NFV and SDN could be delivered in on-demand networks in a demonstration comprising multiple vendors.

Watch the full video interview below. Luginbuhl was speaking at the third annual CTO of the Year dinner. The award was won by Deutsche Telekom’s Bruno Jacobfeuerborn.

Over the coming days, Mobile Europe will publish a range of video interviews with CTOs from operators including Turkcell, Vimpelcom, T-Mobile Czech Republic and with Jacobfeuerborn himself.