Hello everyone.
Thanks for joining this fireside chat session.
Today, our topic of discussion is around how CSPs
or telco companies can shape the future of industrial IoT.
Today, we have a fantastic panel of experts with us.
They're going to share their thoughts and expertise.
So I'm going to ask Ajay to introduce himself
and then we'll move.
Go ahead Ajay, thanks.
So first of all, thank you Hadi for inviting me.
It's my pleasure to be here.
My name is Ajay Rane.
I lead global business development for the Telco BU
focused on working with our global CSP customers,
helping them move up the value chain.
So whether it's in the smart home or it's industrial IoT
or even looking at marketplaces
as a mechanism to monetize the future.
So happy to be here.
Thanks for joining.
Suzanne.
Suzanne Zmenak, I'm the Global Account Manager for TELUS,
so I lead the overall team for AWS.
Thanks for being here.
Hi Hadi, Hanif Datoo.
I'm the VP of Business Development over
in our industry solutions group at TELUS.
I'm very pleased to be here.
Thank you.
So let's start with you, Suzanne,
about this new announcement.
We hear all this great news about
the strategy partnership between TELUS and AWS
but even we go deeper into that topic
and also get to our topic of industrial IoT.
I think our audience would like to know more
about the history of relationship between TELUS and AWS
so if you can provide us that overview.
Sure, absolutely.
So I've been working with the TELUS team
for almost two and a half years now.
And when I joined the team
we were really focused more on smaller workloads.
A lot of them resided within the health space
and we were not getting the traction
of a more strategic relationship.
So it was quite a journey
over the last two years to get us
to a more strategic partnership.
That was a great point you mentioned Suzanne.
So, then what would be the next opportunities
that you see are available there
through this strategic partnership with TELUS?
Well, TELUS is unique in the industry
that they have TELUS Health as well as TELUS Agriculture,
both very large businesses for TELUS.
And I believe that Smart Home Application
has so many opportunities within those two areas
as well as extending it to the enterprise
so that TELUS can enable their customers.
Great, great.
And the thing that we see these days
with telcos or communication service providers, Hanif,
is it's about that they're going beyond
only providing connectivity services to the customers.
Because for having a reliable IoT service
you need reliable connectivity.
And that's where the core competency
and unique value proposition that telcos can offer.
But, what other value add services TELUS is offering,
what is your strategy and vision around that
and how do you think cloud can enable you
to achieve that vision and strategy?
Thank you.
So I'd start with getting beyond connectivity
as a core proposition of what we're doing
in TELUS' business solutions.
We've set up a separate group called Industry Solutions
to specifically tackle the issues
that our business partners have.
So our thesis is we want to look
at things like private networks.
We're looking at things like, in our automotive sector,
traffic as a core competency that we would add
in addition to our connectivity for vehicles,
we're looking at applications like Connected Worker
to help loan workers in challenging environments
and bringing that to bear on our private networks.
And we're also looking at intelligent spaces
and how we would deal with smart buildings,
our base stations, saving money
is never a bad thing for a telco.
And considering how we bring that all together
it has to be foundational on the Cloud.
And that's why, you know, whether it's Mobile Edge Compute,
whether it's the Cloud compute,
all of these aspects need an underlay of Cloud.
And if they're going to talk to each other
where we think the real data benefits will happen
that's where we need deep understanding
of Cloud propositions as well as data.
Oh, amazing.
And in that case, you mentioned Cloud application
or capabilities that Cloud provide you
to provide that vision.
And now Ajay, what do you think the current initiatives
and existing collaborations that AWS have around IoT?
And I specifically mentioned multiple industries
and now industrial IoT here?
Absolutely.
So no, industrial IOT is just one
of the areas that Hanif mentioned.
And you know, at AWS
we are providing the undifferentiated heavy lifting
so that our partners can create solutions
that can be scaled very quickly
and go to market very quickly.
So when our CSP customers like TELUS
want to launch new products and services,
we have a large ecosystem of partners
who we work with to develop solutions
for industrial IoT, for healthcare, for automotive
and be able to offer that at scale
and have a vast ecosystem of partners
who will now take advantage of some of the AWS IoT services
that we have for whether it's for industrial IoT
such as TwinMaker, for example.
on a factory floor or another industrial setting.
So those are some examples of what we do.
And then everything is also related to
making sure that this connectivity is secure.
So building on a secure Cloud platform
and be able to scale it globally and be available.
So, great.
So it seems, based on what you just said
this relationship that exists now
between AWS and TELUS is going
beyond being a customer, TELUS being a customer
and AWS being a technology provider.
Now it's gone to the next level
of collaboration and innovation.
So Suzanne, what's your point of view
on this transformation of relationship?
Well, like many telcos,
TELUS has a stated intent to be multi-Cloud
and they have strong partnerships
and relationships with other Cloud providers.
So my strategy was to look at areas
that we could help TELUS grow revenue
outside of their core competencies,
leveraging the strong relationships
that they have with the consumer.
And so our most recent announcement
is around collaboration in smart home,
where we are bringing a whole new level
of ubiquitous control to the smart home in one application.
So it's very exciting and once we launch in Canada,
we will jointly go to market globally to other CSPs
and bring this same solution platform
as a service to these CSPs.
Amazing.
And Hanif, what's your point
of view in this new relationship?
So I got to see the connected home here
that got created in consumer.
I immediately started thinking of ideas
how I could take that to automotive
and create automotive experiences
around that connected home.
Wouldn't it be nice if I could turn on my heating
as I'm driving home, you know
turn it up because I'm frugal.
And so this made me very jealous
and I was very excited about what we could do here.
And I think you basically start a trend
and now we can take that to our OEM partners
and bring that into their vehicles
and create that experience that engages them
in a meaningful way, in something
that is been here, like impossible to do.
Great, because now you mentioned connected home,
now we're talking about connected car
and how we can connect these two together.
So, in that case then, how do you think this
could help you to provide better impact to your customer?
And specifically around automated industry,
what trends do you see and again
that collaboration that both companies
can have together to innovate and create something new,
to provide that superior user experience?
I think there are so many problems
that automotive companies are going through right now
as they think about moving towards connected
and autonomous vehicles that they have to stage the problems
that they're going to tackle.
But that user experience is foundational to the whole thing.
So getting that right from the beginning is critical.
But also as the vehicles move towards software defined,
that creates opportunities for many parties
in the ecosystem to really collaborate.
And I think creating that amazing user experience,
we've seen what that can do in the vehicle industry
and we're pretty excited about, you know,
how we could shape that as we go forward.
Both, whether that be through traffic,
whether that be through the infotainment systems,
and of course making sure that we keep emissions down,
keep people safe.
Basically we're talking about smarter cars, safer cars
as well as more efficient cars, right?
In that case, Ajay,
so what do you think are opportunities and collaborations
between TELUS and AWS to innovate new features
capabilities and offer to the customers?
Yep, so as Hanif said, there are many opportunities
and many challenges that automakers face today.
And we are addressing them, not just TELUS
as a customer of ours, but also as a partner.
The commitment that TELUS has made
to being a part of the ecosystem
as an ISV in some cases, for example, in the smart home.
And similarly, you know, the discussions that we are having
around the automotive space,
whether it is looking at traffic as a solution
but also looking at automotive manufacturing.
And that's a very large industrial use case.
So bringing all those technologies together,
taking advantage of the services that we have
in the telco space for CSPs, for automotive,
I think that's going to make a huge impact
and could be transformational.
So just to give you a few examples, you know,
you look at network functions.
So TELUS as an operator, has several different
network functions that could be used by automakers,
whether it's for hyper precise location services
and offering them to automakers around the world
or in the manufacturing space, creating digital twins
of an automotive manufacturing facility,
offering connectivity, you know
whether it's private networks and maybe have multiple levels
of private network, you know, not just cellular
but could be Wi-Fi and then others, and offering
that integrated experience and bringing that to market
for automakers as manufacturers
but also as auto EMS and offering that to consumers.
So I think TELUS has covered the breadth of that industry
by participating in the different parts of that ecosystem
both as an operator as well as a partner and a provider
of solutions for that technology.
So that's why we are super excited about our collaboration
with TELUS and we're grateful for the partnership.
Great, because as Ajay mentioned,
now we're seeing transformation in two areas,
of impact of IoT in automated industry.
One on the manufacturing side,
so better transformation of manufacturing
and designing of the calls, and also transformation
of user experience, as you mentioned,
by having the user being able to drive
and use voice assistance to make changes
through the connection to the home
and take the garage door open, make the garage door open
or turn on lights off on and off.
So in that case, what do you think the next steps
are, that you have in your roadmap,
and what do you think and foresee in terms of the impact
in your growth and your strategy?
Sure, I mean, first there's so much we're trying to do, but
I'm just going to focus on one aspect that Ajay mentioned,
which is the next thing that I'd really like to look at
is that hyper-precise location vehicles are going to need
this as they kind of move through.
So in Canada, we will be building out
a hyper-precise location network
across the footprint to enable
a lot of the automotive use cases in addition
to the customer experiences connectivity
but I think location is addictive,
whether that be in the factory
or whether that be outside of the factory.
And combining the indoor and outdoor positioning
becomes a challenge that we're going to have to get through
over the next period as well.
Amazing.
So great opportunities there
for both companies to collaborate and innovate.
So great conversation.
Thank you for joining and I'll hope to see you next time.
[Ajay] Thank you.
[Suzanne] Thank you. [Hanif ] Thank you.