The telecommunications industry is undergoing a profound metamorphosis: the advent of cloudification. This shift, which involves migrating traditional network functions and services to cloud-based platforms, is revolutionizing the way telcos operate, innovate, and serve their customers. Orange Business is leading the way towards a new world in which the boundaries between rigid hardware and dynamic software dissolve. In doing so, it is introducing agility, scalability, and unprecedented flexibility to the infrastructure services it provides to its customers.
Today, the worlds of Information Technology (IT) and telecommunications have converged into a single digital ecosystem, and the telecommunications industry stands at a crossroads. It has always delivered robust, scalable network infrastructure, but these were often complex and required extended development cycles to accommodate change. Today, telcos are striving to evolve into technology-driven companies – or “techcos” – by embracing cloud-based solutions. This transformation is not merely a technological upgrade; it’s a strategic shift essential to compete effectively in the digital age.
From Telco to Techco
This telco-to-techco shift is primarily a B2B business strategy focused on capturing high-growth enterprise markets. While it also affects consumer services, the primary motivation is to tap into the $400B+ B2B digital service sector by selling advanced services like AI, cloud, cybersecurity, and IoT, rather than just raw connectivity.
According to KPMG, techcos are characterized by their focus on client centricity, digital experience, automation, and data utilization. It claims that telcos that succeed in this transformation are likely to “emerge as leading players in the future of telecommunications 1”.
Benefits of Cloudification
Moving to software-defined solutions marks a fundamental change for network operators. Instead of relying on proprietary hardware, connectivity providers can now run their services on commodity equipment, unlocking greater agility and scalability. This transition is particularly critical for rolling out next-generation services like 5G and edge computing, which demand flexible, high-performance infrastructure. Cloudification offers several compelling business benefits, not the least of which is the fact that the shift to cloud platforms significantly reduces operational costs and frees up resources for innovation.
The shift from connectivity provider to digital service partners also provides numerous advantages for customers. Chief among them is the use of open APIs to enhance integration: this enhances agility and scalability by significantly reducing the time required to create new services. Other significant advantages include autonomous, self-serve capabilities via AI-driven support, and more personalized services.
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APIs are also the essential enablers for agentic AIOPs, acting as the secure bridge that allows AI agents to access, interpret, and manipulate data across disparate platforms. By acting as building blocks for automation, APIs enable AI to move from mere text generation to executing complex, cross-platform actions and automating full workflows.
In Orange Business’s Agentic AI framework, APIs connect large language models with IT infrastructure, enabling AI agents to take real-world actions such as managing networks and interacting with IoT devices. Additionally, APIs simplify intricate IT workflows, allowing AI to handle tasks like troubleshooting and data processing, thereby reducing manual effort and streamlining operations.
Going one step further
Orange Business is in the vanguard of this telco-to-techco transformation, viewing the fusion of AI and networks as a fundamental industry trend. The focus of our journey is on making a strategic shift toward becoming a platform-driven network and digital integrator, focusing on AI, cloud-native architecture, automation, and software-defined networks. This will help us to offer tailored digital services with an enhanced customer experience: by integrating complex, multi-sourced IT environments, we will act as a single point of accountability for managing and securing infrastructure services.
Key to this strategy is Evolution Platform through which Orange Business is applying the cloudification principle to our entire range of infrastructure services. Evolution Platform is a composable platform that adds the convenience of the cloud world to the control of the telco world. This market-leading Network-as-a-Service solution leverages Orange Business’s unique understanding of cloud, connectivity, and cybersecurity to automatically ‘chain’ together all underlying infrastructure services in near real-time.
By completely masking this complexity, customers have unrivalled choice in the vendors they can include as part of their infrastructure stack: they can select any of 25 different services from among the 16 partners whose solutions are embedded on Evolution Platform. If their circumstances change, solutions can be added, altered, or decommissioned almost at will. So, digital infrastructures can now adapt to change at the speed the business demands.
Don’t take our word for it…
The creation of Evolution Platform has achieved widespread recognition from the industry analyst community. The company was ranked as a leader in several reports: by Gartner in its Global WAN Services Magic Quadrant; by GlobalData in its Global WAN Services Competitive Landscape Assessment; ] by IDC in its MarketScape report for Worldwide Managed SASE Services; and by ISG in its Provider Lens™ report covering Enterprise Managed Network Services 2024. The latter concluded that Evolution Platform provided “flexible consumption models and advanced network and security solutions customized to meet businesses' unique demands”.
In the telco-to-techco transformation, Orange Business is therefore consistently rated as being ahead of the pack.
Leading from the front
The transformation from telco to techco is a pivotal moment for the telecommunications industry, with the cloudification of infrastructure services transforming traditional telecom companies into agile, technology-first organizations. By embracing cloudification, automation, and AI-driven solutions, Orange Business is at the forefront of this trend, evolving into an agile, platform-centric organisation that offers tailored digital services and unrivalled flexibility. This strategic shift empowers businesses to innovate rapidly, reduce costs, and adapt to ever-changing demands – cementing Orange Business’s position as an industry leader.