The Makeover Challenge

Gearing up to play a critical role in driving digital transformation, telcos need to rethink strategy and look beyond their role as a bandwidth provider

- Raj K Sharma

Before the outbreak of COVID-19, various consulting and analyst reports were betting on digital transformation in various aspects of our lives powered by telecom networks. However, the uptake of new-age technologies in India had been slow, even though tremendous efforts have been made by all the stakeholders to propagate the digital transformation roadmap at various forums and levels.

It was the pandemic that forced businesses to look for an alternative, digital methods to stay afloat, venture into newer areas and capture new markets. As unsettling as it may sound, it is the pandemic that will finally end up expediting the digital transformation by many quarters.

This digital transformation can be largely divided into two categories, first are those areas that have already begun their digital journey such as payments, retail, etc., and then there are the new areas which are emerging and are expected to evolve at a much faster pace than initially assumed. Let’s have a quick look at them.

Remote medical care: Telemedicine is presenting itself as the ideal solution to the pandemic woes by limiting patient displacement to hospitals, allocating hospital capacity to important cases, all while curbing the disease’s spread. Today, various digital solutions and their early deployments are under consideration, which includes remote monitoring of patients, connected and digital ambulances, remote check-up, consultations, and remote surgery among others.