This week's podcast guests are
Join them in this two-parter, with this week's podcast discussing leveraging data to differentiate your enterprises, and specifically with telcos, how they play a key role in driving emerging technologies like generative AI, LLM, and AI/ML models. A unique perspective from two of the largest telecommunication companies in the region!
This week's podcast guests are
Join them in this two-parter, with this week's podcast discussing leveraging data to differentiate your enterprises, and specifically with telcos, how they play a key role in driving emerging technologies like generative AI, LLM, and AI/ML models. A unique perspective from two of the largest telecommunication companies in the region!
0.24
Hello and welcome to the AIBP ASEAN b2b growth podcast where we sit down with individuals who are responsible for driving growth of businesses in the region, specifically within the southeast Asia region. And Southeast Asia is a very interesting area. Very interesting region. When you look at the largest companies globally, when you look at the largest companies in the US, you'll see a lot of tech companies. What most people don't realise is that when you look at the Southeast Asian markets, the largest companies in this part of the world are dominated by two types of companies. One obviously would be banking BFSI companies, so the top five companies in Southeast Asia, all our banks, spoiling a close second would be your infrastructure and your telco players and today, we're very happy to have with us AIS from Thailand as well as Globe from the Philippines. And also we have Sanjay who represents Snowflake,who will. And we will all be talking about how telecommunication companies have actually evolved in the last 5,10-15 years, how they're using data themselves and how they are enabling more importantly, how you're enabling your enterprise customers to do the same. As always, I always like my guests to introduce themselves, because I believe they know themselves a little bit better than I do. So without further ado, could Tanapong from AIS, would you mind kindly introducing yourself, please?
1.45
Sure. Thanks, Irza. Hi. My name is Tanapong here. Actually, I am running the enterprise business for AIS, and I have 30 years experience in the telecom and also ICT as well, you know, driving a lot of the enterprise customers. Previously, you know, I ran the enterprise business for IBM for more than 24 years and also Microsoft, and recently before I joined AIS from Schneider Electric which is an energy company, it’s always exciting joining a telecom company. Right now, I’m about two and a half years here. So a lot of things that we can bring onto the table in terms of how you can leverage the swing of telecom to drive the digital transformation for Thailand enterprise. Maybe give a little bit background, AIS, you know, we are the leading in terms of the telecom provider and digital provider in Thailand. You know, more than 46 million subscribers that we have right now. You know, broadband is also growing in the high double digit, and also leading the growth for the company as well. And in 5 years, we will be part of the business in driving good growth. Last year, to grow 26% year on year, which is expected to run the same way this year as well.
2.59
Thank you, Tanapong. Next up we have Warner who is dialling in from the Philippines, representing Globe. Warner. Hello, introduce yourself. Hello.
3.07
Sure, sure. Hello, everyone. So I'm Warren Brian Tan. I'm the director at the head of data and analytics products from Globe Telecom. I've been with the company for the last five years with my previous roles in the area of strategy and operations, enterprise reports, as well as big data infrastructure and platform management. My 23 year career spans across finance, IT services, manufacturing, and of course, the telecommunications industry, all of which were spent in the area of data and analytics. Happy to be here.
3.47
Perfect. Warner, can you just give us an overview of Globe as a telco you know its presence in the Philippines as well.
3.54
Sure, sure.. So, Globe is the largest and I will say leading digital platform provider in the Philippines. We've strategically pivoted from being a traditional telecommunications company into what is now a full fledged tech enterprise with major interests in venture capital, venture building, health tech, e-commerce, digital marketing and shared services. So we serve about 87 million mobile subscribers, and about 2.6 million home broadband customers in the country. As one of the biggest ICT service providers in the country, we have an expansive portfolio of offerings across cloud, cybersecurity, enterprise applications and solutions. Data and Analytics is a critical and core function of enterprises and serves as a key element within our portfolio as well
4.50
Thank you, Warner. And as you heard from Warner, globe is actually the largest telco in the Philippines, which is actually the second largest market in Southeast Asia by population just behind Indonesia. I think a lot of people miss that out. Right. When people think of Southeast Asia, they usually think of Singapore with advanced infrastructure and Indonesia with close to 300 million people. I think in the Philippines, it's now 110-120 million people population wise. So definitely, it's great to have you here with us. Last and definitely not least, we have Sanjay, Sanjay represents snowflake, not a telco obviously. Sanjay, would you like to introduce yourself?
5.26
Right, thanks. Hi, everyone. This is Sanjay Deshmukh here from Snowflake, really excited to be here. In my role, I'm responsible for the snowflake business in Southeast Asia and India. I would say the great part of my role is that I get to partner with companies or organisations and to help them become data driven enterprises and also to help them unlock the true value of data. Personally, in my career, I remember, the very first time I've ever had a conversation around this concept of leveraging data in supporting decisions was almost 25 years ago. This was a time when the technology was at a nascent stage. And the concept was more in terms of business intelligence in terms of using data for supporting decisions. So I have to say that I have seen this category evolve in my long career. And to go from data being used for tactical decisions or operational decisions to today, where data is the lifeblood of an enterprise, where data is, is driving not just operational, or tactical or strategic decisions. But data is truly driving innovations for companies and it has become a strategic differentiator. So I'm very fortunate to see this, this, see this category, mature and grow. And see this journey of data going from being a tactical asset to a strategic asset. So really excited to be part of snowflake, because here with all the innovation that snowflake has done, it gives me an opportunity to partner with companies and help them truly become data driven enterprises. In terms of Snowflake, as a company, we were founded 10 years ago, and with a very simple yet profound mission of mobilising the world's data. We leverage the power of cloud, we harnessed the power of cloud and built a data platform, which disrupted the analytics data analytics as a category. And we truly helped customers break down all the silos and start building the single version of truth so that they could truly democratise data. So that's what we did on our first phase of the journey. In the second phase of the journey, we disrupted data collaboration, because we absolutely believe that every enterprise should have an opportunity to collaborate with their ecosystem partners and customers with data. And that's how they can derive better business value. And that's when we created innovations like the marketplace and others. And we'll talk more about that in the coming conversation. And last but not the least, in the last 12 months, we have been focused around disrupting how customers build analytical applications. And that's where we have seen the impact of AI and machine learning. And that's where we have started innovating and building capabilities to help our customers build, you know, AI driven applications, right. So that's really where we are. So really excited to be part of this conversation and look forward to this productive discussion. Thank you.
8.16
Thank you, Sanjay. As Sanjay mentioned, you know, data, he set the tone for what we're going to discuss today, a lot of it will revolve, obviously, around data. And obviously, the second thing is ecosystems and partnerships. And when you talk about ecosystems and partnerships, nobody has a bigger or larger ecosystem and partnership than telcos. Because every business that operates locally in each country, I mean, has to have some form of business with the telcos. Speaking about that, let's first talk about the different telcos in this case, maybe we can go to you first Warner, how exactly is globe leveraging on data to differentiate yourself? How are you using it as a strategic asset within the Philippines?
8.57
At the end of the day, I think we really want to strengthen and deepen our relationship with our customers, right? And in order to do that one of the most important initiatives is to build a customer, customer portrait. So we can truly understand our customers and know what is in their best interest and sentiments as well. So a lot of these initiatives are actually centred around this, this concept. And they have led to improved customer satisfaction and Net Promoter Score ratings.
9.32
Khun Tanapong, as well for yourself, when you look internally, how do you actually leverage on the data that you see on AIS at the centre of, with regards to actually building you know, better products, better solutions and differentiating yourself from maybe your competitors.
9.49
Yes, in our view, data is a new, it just fundamental, the information but but more importantly, is the insight that we can gain out of the data, there are several angle that the leverage data internally, the first one is how we can you know, understand the customer better, broad consumer and commercial in terms of you know, their insight, their behaviour whatsoever, then we can come up with the right product, the right solution, you know, that provide us to move in a different way compared to the competitors. Secondly, is the ecosystem. Right now, we are talking about, you know, the ecosystem economies, which mean, you know, we are not the one who just, you know, do something alone, but we can partnering with our customer, our partner, you know, or even government or any agency, you know, and how we collapse it to make a new thing, to Thailand. Early, it's about you know, how we leverage the data. Add to more deeper insight internally for the research and development or innovate, the new thing, a new product that we can come up. I believe that, in the world,, well you know, you don't know what you don't know. And we need to keep discovering more insight and more innovation, you know, and lastly on how we can, you know, drive our people, our culture to become a more data driven organisation. This is very important in how we can construct and make data, more value and leverage, you know, internally for AIS
11.29
Perfect. I'd like to build on that Khun Tanapong if you don't mind. I think telcos in this part of the world in Southeast Asia, a lot of people also forget that the average GDP per capita here in Southeast Asia stands at around roughly 5000 I believe in the Philippines is roughly four in Thailand and seven or eight. Telcos play a big role as Khun Tanapong mentioned, as well, in working with government agencies to upskill or to provide digital infrastructure for companies which are looking to digitalize. In a recent announcement, I believe we saw somewhere that AIS is partnering with the Federation of Thai industries FDI to unlock the Thai manufacturing industry with the rise of 5g and IoT technologies. And there's been so much interest, you know, everybody's been excited about chatGPT. We just came back from Malaysia and the Philippines over the last two weeks. And there's been a lot of interest with generative AI. So what role, Khun Tanapong do telcos play, you know, in leveraging emerging technologies like AI to drive innovation for your customers, or the businesses that you speak with?
12.33
Yeah, that's a great question. And actually, we have a framework on how to drive the collaboration, you know, with the customer or partner right. On one hand, we are the one who will lead the technology partner, both from the telco side 5g, and so on and so forth while we also collaborate with the outdoors technology partner to bring in data analytics, AI, chat gpt to be part of it tentatively. Imagine if AIBP wants technology then we’ll pull in, you know, to see how we can maximise the benefit with that technology partner. On the other hand, it's about the industry knowledge or customers that run day to day on their business, they know what are their challenges and also the pain points, are things that they want to swap in the business. And then we create a framework of how we can be in this to get to this current and after they understand more on the technology side, and we also understand more on the business pain, you can come up with a new innovation or the core innovation on the solution side, right? chatGPT will be part of the technology that we use to replicate how how this technology can augmented human or people to do more, I don't think everything can replace the people you know, human, but those can make us do the more productive those who have had to be doing more, you know, faster and more agile in terms of the way they can move on.
So that will be the technology to be augmented to move faster and better, why not be the thing that this thing can help, right? Because, you know, that is what training by the data.
16.00
So, you're already looking at some pilots with the utilisation of generative AI? Yep, you don't have to be specific, but can you just give us some ideas about how companies in Thailand are actually structuring this pilot? What are they hoping to aim? What are they hoping to achieve by doing this?
16.32
Yeah, I think I think to achieve by doing this there can you know getting more insight and also having the the better way to engage both internally and external customers, for example, internally if you are the HR department, you have a lot of things that will respond to your own employee inquiry whatsoever, you know, this can help you speed up and use you know,the resource to respond that. For customer services and for customers you know, outside as well right, we can apply the knowledge in organisation plus information outside and we can co-create this thing, you know, to support the business. So, you know, the use case will be applied to in many, many several areas that I think that will be the potential future that we move forward and and this will be the way to, to exploit the data that we has as well, which I will say not only the customer information, but right now you can see the machine to machine data, data was generated from the device equipment. That's why we are really focusing on the robust pieces of infrastructure that you can provide to the customer. And that will be a big base, you know, sort of data that we can leverage, you know, together with the customer information as well.
So I think now a lot of technology come in to be more mature and I do see it to be a big change for the future in terms of data monetization
Data monetization that you mentioned, the maturity of technologies. Sanjay, earlier, you mentioned, you know, you've seen this evolve over the last 25 years. And interestingly enough, I think it was in a Snowflake summit I saw and I think it was in the New York Times. Funnily enough, your CEO plus Jensen Wang, onstage together talking about the partnership between Nvidia and snowflake? Can you just maybe walk us through what and how snowflake is actually supporting telcos in this data journey?
Absolutely. So if you, you know, if you when we talk to our telco customers globally, we see that they are all transitioning from the telcos to tech-cos. I think Warner also mentioned that briefly in his introduction, and, and, as all the telecom companies are transforming themselves into the technology companies, and are investing in these new areas of 5g, ai and IoT and others, you can imagine that data will become a foundational pillar for them in this transformation. So we believe that we have a great opportunity at snowflake to help. All of these telco companies accelerate their transformation, from telcos to tech-cos.In terms of an opportunity than area for areas for us to help telcos as they are transforming to becoming a tech cos, I would say our first is, as the telecom companies have grown over the past 10-15 years, there have been a lot of silos that have been created in their business. And these are data silos. And they have been created either because the business has evolved over a period of time, or because of the limitation of the technologies that they've used in the past, either the technology has not supported all types of data or users, or this has been created specifically in certain functions. So whatever is the reason for them to, you know, to have created the silos. The first area for us to help the telcos is to break down the silos and create a single version of truth for them in the enterprise. And that in our view, becomes foundational for anything and everything that they want to do with the data, whether they want to use the data for building an analytical application, whether they want to use data to drive innovation, or they want to use the data and training a model and leverage, you know, innovative technologies like AI, LLM, and machine learning models, and so on, so forth, right, whatever the end outcome that they're trying to derive the first step, which in our view, is very, very foundational, is to create the single version of the truth by breaking down all the silos and bringing everything together into one platform. And that's the fundamental area where snowflake partners with telcos, we you know, we had the great opportunity of partnering with Warner and Globe Telecom to help them do that. And that in our view is the foundational step. Once that is done, then you could start focusing on building innovative business applications. Many telcos we have seen, have focused on multiple areas, the first one obviously becoming customers, because they want to drive more mindshare wallet share market share with the customers. And I believe the simplest thing, what data allows them to do that in that space is, is to do hyper personalization. Right? Traditionally telcos have been marketing to their customers, not as an audience of one but but to a broader segment of customers. But today, the need of the hour is for them to deploy hyper personalization, so that they are able to understand the customer's needs better. And they're able to bring their services to the customer, where they need it, and how much they need it. Right. And I think that's what data can enable, that can enable them to understand the customers better and bring these services to them. And that will result in better experience and of course, more revenue.I think that's the first and the most obvious area where a lot of telcos have leveraged this, the single version of the truth in driving hyper personalization.I would say the second area becomes more on the network side because with the 5g deployment And there is a need for telcos to bring in a lot of intelligence in terms of how they're rolling out the 5g, 5g deployment and not do it in a very traditional way. Right, they have to bring the 5g network to where the opportunity is, and where, you know, to where the businesses are, who need this kind of technology. And I think data can play a very critical role there. We have helped telcos worldwide, you know, with many examples where we help them, you know, design their 5g network rollout in a smarter way, by leveraging data that comes from within. But also more importantly, by by leveraging data that comes from outside, right, so they can leverage data that comes from the snowflake marketplace, whether it is about the demographic, or whether it is about the population density or where the opportunities are, and then decide the 5g rollout, targeting specific population where there is potential there is.There is an opportunity for telcos to leverage data in in building applications or preventive maintenance, while there is a cost involved in maintaining and managing a lot of these infrastructure. So there are I would say, multiple business use cases that can be built and delivered.But as I said, right in the beginning of the foundational step to get started, is to create a single version of truth, bring everything together, and then start building this innovative business application on top of that.
21.13
Thank you Sanjay, Warner and Khun Tanapong. That’s part 1 of our podcast, and there’s quite a bit of information to digest over the past 25 minutes. Join us next week for the second part of this fireside chat with AIS, Globe Telecom and Snowflake, where we will discuss about the adoption of data-driven strategies by telecommunication companies in the ASEAN region, how they are helping local enterprises effectively build a data strategy and the highly anticipated discussion around monetisation of enterprise data.