The concept of industry digital transformation has been embraced by major economies since the early 2010s. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to new demands on the transformation. Leading-edge digital technologies are being introduced to help economy to recover from the pandemic. Both South Korea’s Digital New Deal and China’s New Infrastructure Plan aim to lay the foundations for a digital economy and boost sustainable growth. These strategic initiatives suggest that industry digital transformation is entering a new stage.
A comprehensive ICT service is required to implement the transformation. This is a great opportunity for communications service provides (CSPs) to scale up their businesses by promoting Cross-Technology (X-Tech) collaboration. X-Tech Collaboration is the integration of ICT technologies including connectivity, computing, cloud and intelligence with operational technology (OT) to build an end-to-end digital transformation value chain.
The development of 5G and edge computing allows CSPs to provide an integrated infrastructure service for the digital transformation. The integrated connectivity and edge computing infrastructure is the backbone of the transformation. A strong infrastructure can help CSPs develop cloud and intelligence services for industrial applications. Either internal development or collaboration with specialists can help a CSP build a converged network, cloud and intelligence platform and evolve its role to a capability platform provider.
With the industry digital transformation, digital technologies and connectivity are already at the core of an increasing number of assets, control devices and systems. Industries see the benefits of bringing ICT and OT closer together and even converging them. A CSP could leverage their experience in managing complex platforms and relationships with specialist vendors to connect ICT and OT silos. The CSP could further therefore shift its role towards being a Comprehensive ICT Service Provider.
The evolution from an infrastructure service provider to a capability platform provider to a Comprehensive ICT Service Provider can enable CSPs to move to the upstream of the value chain, develop a strong market position and expand the addressable market. X-Tech collaboration will play a key role in the journey. Collaboration between technologies and with partners can help CSPs expand their service portfolios to better respond to industrial market demands. The depth and breadth of its X-Tech collaboration strategy will determine how many opportunities a CSP can capture in the digital transformation market.
The whitepaper analyzes how a CSP can improve its infrastructure, platform, service and integration capabilities to seize the opportunities in the industrial digital transformation market. A few cases are discussed to demonstrate how a CSP can address customer demands in different vertical sectors. An estimate for the long-term market potential and a phased approach to developing the market are given at the end of the whitepaper.
This report is jointly published by Strategy Analytics and Huawei.
Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary 4
2. Requirements and Vision 5
2.1 Industry Digital Transformation Calls for Cross-Technology (X-Tech) Collaboration 5
2.1.1 Industry Digital Transformation Entering a New Stage 5
2.1.2 Common Requirements of Industry Digital Transformation 5
2.2 X-Tech Creates Opportunity for Communications Service Providers to Expand Business Boundaries 9
2.3 From infrastructure service provider to comprehensive ICT service provider 11
3. Improving CSPs’ Capabilities to Seize the Opportunity 13
3.1 Infrastructure Solution 13
3.2 Platform Capability 14
3.3 Service and Integration 14
3.4 X-Tech Collaboration is Key for CSPs Evolution 15
4. Case Studies 17
4.1 Xiangtan Iron & Steel's 5G Smart Plant 17
4.1.1 Requirements 17
4.1.2 Solution 17
4.1.3 Results 18
4.2 Smart Campus for Guangdong Industry Design City 19
4.2.1 Requirements 19
4.2.2 Solution 19
4.2.3 Outlook 21
4.3 5G Applications in Oil and Gas Industry 21
4.4 X-Tech Collaboration Leads to a Successful Digital Transformation 23
5. Outlook 25