An exclusive interview with telecom expert, Andy MacLeod.

Hello, my name is Steve Tongish and I'm the chief marketing officer at IQGEO. Today I have with me via video conference Andy MacLeod. Andy's a board member of IQGEO, but more importantly for today's conversation, we'd really like to tap into Andy's experience as a senior technical leader in the telecoms industry. Hello, Andy. Welcome. Steve, it's a pleasure. I'm sorry I can't be with you. We do this in the same room, but you know, circumstances are what they are. In this session, Andy, I'd like to ask you to share your insights into the challenges facing the telecoms industry. And since your experience is so relevant to the conversation, it'd be great if you could start by giving us a little bit of a background on your past roles and responsibilities. I've got 40 years in telecoms, last 20 years of which was at CXO level in fairly low large organizations. And the last 10 years, I was the chief networks officer for Vodafone group. And then I retired from Vodafone for about 18 months ago. And I, or at least I retired from corporate life. And I do non-exec work and advisory work now. And I'm, as Steve said, a board member on IQGEO. Well, it sounds like an absolutely fascinating career. And you've certainly been involved in the industry during some really seismic changes. I'd like to start by talking about the commoditization of telecom services driven by some of the disintermediation players like Facebook and Netflix. How has this commoditization impacted both the profits and business strategy of network operators? So the commoditization has kind of, you know, come from two areas. One is the natural market that the traditional players all have where we complete and there's lots of pressure there. But the other one, as you mentioned, is from the fangs, really, the sort of Amazon, Netflix, Google, particularly Facebook, and also actually from the terminal suppliers, the handset suppliers like Apple and Samsung, who have done services on the top. And really what this has driven is a lot of pressure on cost control. So automation is a big thing, cost to serve. Then customer service. And that's really around sort of the ease to access the service, how easy it is for the customers to, you know, get the service that they need and the resulting churn when it's not and controlling that. And then third one's around new services where, you know, 5G is part of that, but trying to create things in the industry, which, you know, create a premium for the consumers and therefore hopefully can be priced that way and grow new revenue. I mean, that's the, you know, that's the sort of the key pressures that are on the guys at the top. Business KPIs for the telecom industry. Yeah, I mean, it's very high on their priority list. And I think, you know, one of the challenges for phone companies, particularly fixed phone companies and cable companies, is that a lot of that is generated by the work that's done in the field. Field is the most complicated and not very glamorous part of those operations. But it's the one that probably generates more issues in the customer service zone, whether it's in provisioning, providing the service or in fixing an operation of the service. And that's an area that is really crucial for the customer service aspect of the companies. And interestingly, you know, it's an area where the fangs themselves have struggled to be very good. And I think anything that, you know, makes that an easier and slicker and more precise and more manageable process, the process of working the field, taking data out of the field is, you know, very important for making this sort of customer service environment work. And, you know, one of the things that the IQGEO platform does is precisely work on that problem, which, you know, I think makes it a very important tool potentially for telcos looking to become more digital, to move into digital competition and to get a slicker, cleaner, easier environment for their customers. Another related area is around staff productivity. And as you said, if you can improve productivity, you can drive down costs and improve margins. The telecom industry has a huge investment in field engineering, and they're not always as productive as they could be. What role do you see accurate current geospatial data playing in improving productivity and ultimately better profitability? Clean data has been a challenge for many, many years. And it's, you know, knowing where the network is reliably and that data about it, you know, being consistent and reliable and constant, even when you've got people doing moves, ads and changes and tinkering with the network on a regular basis is extremely important. And it is at the root of a lot of the problems that I've just talked about in terms of customer service. And I think it's hugely important that, you know, people concentrate on the cleanliness and the continued cleanliness of the data that's in their system. And that's something that's really, really important, really difficult to do. And again, you know, I think that, I mean, it comes down to the sort of garbage in, garbage out. If you're trying to automate, and that's a big part of what digital, you know, brings to the cost base of a business and also to the customer service aspect of a business, then, you know, that becomes even more important because, you know, what goes in, you know, will come out. And it doesn't have the ability to be mediated by something terribly clever like a person. And so, you know, that ability to get very clean data, to be able to have an easy way of gathering that, which is reliable and sense people to collect data correctly and be able to spread it through the organization in a consistent and reliable way to all the users is super important. And that's something I think that the platform that we have does really very well. You mentioned digital transformation, and this term is used widely in the telecoms industry, as it is in other industries as well. What is your definition of digital transformation? And more importantly, what benefits do you think it'll bring to network operators? It's about, you know, changing the default in the business from being people, right, to being machines. So, you know, moving from, you know, shops to websites, from call centers full of people to bots and frequently asked questions, to having, I don't know, catalogs and brochures, to having a website or some sort of VR. And I think, you know, to become digital, you know, you need to firstly, I think, redesign processes and products and propositions, you know, so that they can be easily done in a digital way. It's not enough just to take what you've got and attempt to digitize it straight away. It doesn't really work. I think then you need to have a simple, intuitive, easy ways of allowing your customers and actually your workforce to interact with the machines so that it's easy, it's instinctive for them to do that and that they'll want to do that and it'll get adopted easily, right? And then thirdly, I think you've got to have lots and lots of clean data. And that's the challenge. And I think, you know, that's where, again, you know, platforms like we've got at IQGEO can really help with the digital transformation that all the telcos are having to go to. I have to say, I think it's an existential problem. And if they don't, you know, really bad things will happen. Thank you, Andy. I've been asking all the questions so far, but let me give you a chance to raise any issues you'd like to discuss about the challenges or opportunities facing the telecoms industry. This whole world of agile and this intimate ability to have users inside of the design of the processes, irrespective of what that process is. It's not just about product. It's also really, really key. And I think the third one is that, you know, traditionally we've done long cycle plans and we've tried to put plans in place that were terribly detailed and told us, you know, month by month and quarter by quarter exactly where we would come to. And actually, that's not really the way that these digital responsive businesses work. It's more about experimentation. It's about knowing what the objective is, but not what the journey is. And I think that all of those things need to get embedded into the culture of phone companies and other businesses that are wishing to become digital in the future. It's a big journey. It's a very big change. It's probably the biggest change I think that there has been for the industry I've been in, in the time I've been in it. Let's explore your comment about cultural change just a little bit more. Can you explain how this translates into tactical corporate initiatives? What does it actually mean on the ground? I think it's not enough to just, you know, have a website and, you know, some digital overlay, a smear of digital on top of an analog business, as somebody once described it to me. Because, you know, fundamentally, the cost base that is being generated by the now competing businesses, particularly for telcos, but it's true of retail, it's true of banking, you know, are fundamentally different and are based on fundamentally different technologies and approaches to solving the problems that users have and creating value for those users. And if you don't go right into that sort of fundamental texture of the way that the business runs, you don't end up being able to compete in the medium term. You might be able to do some stuff in the short term. You'll be able to cost some cuts, cost cuts, some stuff here and there, make a fundamental transformation. You won't be a digital business. You'll be an analog business with a digital wrapper. My final question is about IQGEO. You clearly have a huge amount of industry experience and your time is absolutely at a premium. So why are you investing some of this precious time with IQGEO? When I owned a mobile network for the first time, I realized just what a liberation it was not to have wires, capillary wires into every customer endpoint, all of the challenges were. And I think that, you know, the technology that has been applied by the industry to that area, to managing that area, rather than what they've done with the individual wires themselves, like DSL or fiber or whatever, but managing that capillary network and understanding how to operate it cleanly, quickly, has been very low. There's been not a lot of technology added in that area at all. Many of the systems that are in place now are systems that have been there for 20 years. Or more. And the processes that the people use to plan those kinds of activities and engineer them and design them are, again, you know, very legacy. When I saw the IQGEO product and the proposition, I thought this was genuinely different. It was trying to bring, you know, something that was inherently digital to the area. So it was that kind of newness, the application of the new technology, the freshness of the approach around the graphical UI, customer-centric, user-centric approach that I liked a lot. And I think it brings something completely new to that space, which nobody else, as far as I can see, is doing. Well, this has been a very interesting and informative session. Thank you so much for your insight, Andy. Steve, it's a pleasure. I'm sorry I can't be with you. We can do this in the same room. But, you know, circumstances are what they are. While these are challenging times, they also create opportunities. And I think I can speak on behalf of the IQGEO team when I say we are actually very excited about the value that we can bring to both the telecoms and utility industries with our unique geospatial software. I wish we had more time to explore some of these questions. But if you'd like to go into any more depth, simply fill out the contact form on our website, and I'll put you in touch with Andy. Thank you very much, and keep safe.