The emerging economies in South Asia and South-East Asia are witnessing a phenomenal transformation in how people live, interact and consume services in recent times. There is hardly a sector that the digitalization revolution has not impacted.

While the region was already witnessing a growth in its digital economy, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this transformation. As the lockdowns and social distancing norms changed the normal way of living and working, people started using digital platforms for shopping, banking and learning. The burgeoning digital economy led the overall revival of the region’s economy after the pandemic.

Thanks to the ongoing digital shake-up, employees and consumers are more empowered today than ever. Online solutions have soared to scales never achieved before. From logistics, education, banking, healthcare, agriculture, and transport, the region has seen unprecedented digital startups and investments. As a result, more and more sectors are witnessing hybrid ways of working.

Increased adoption of social media, mobile, and e-commerce has become all-pervasive and ushering in new and exciting opportunities for organizations of all scales. While most enterprises focused on surviving through the new normal at the start of the pandemic, as the pandemic raged on, they had to reinvent their processes and business models to scale and deliver exceptional user experiences.

And this is just the beginning! More and more people are likely to get on the digital journey in the next few years, pushing the need to fortify digital infrastructure.

Need for an intelligent network architecture

Over the next few years, South Asia and the South-East Asia region are expected to witness unprecedented growth in data consumption due to the rapidly growing internet user base. More than 60 million digital consumers have joined the internet economy since the start of the pandemic in South-East Asia, and the region’s digital economy is all set to touch $1 trillion by 2030. In India alone, the internet user base is likely to touch 900 million in 2025, up from 622 million in 2020, according to IAMAI. The popularity of OTT platforms, e-sports, virtual gaming, fantasy sports, remote healthcare, m-education, and video collaboration, among others, are likely to witness a significant jump.

The region is also home to burgeoning technology startups. South East Asia’s technology startups boasted of a combined valuation of $340 billion in 2020, and this is likely to grow by more than three times by 2025, according to Jungle Ventures.

This also means the proliferation of a massive amount of data – both structured and unstructured – enabling enterprises to leverage technologies such as IoT, AR/VR, and automation to disrupt traditional business models and create new opportunities.

While the acceleration of digital technologies has enabled enterprises to engage better with the customers, provide flexible ways of working, and build their unique business models, it has also created new challenges that they had never faced before. For any organization, its long-term success depends on how seamlessly they connect with its customers and provide them dynamic services as per their unique needs.

To achieve a true digital ecosystem, the enterprises in the region need a network designed specifically for their needs. The legacy networks, which were built for retail wireless consumers, are not geared to address the needs of new-age digital enterprises. The enterprises have moved beyond the requirements of just basic connectivity. Today, they demand greater transparency, agility and control. This is also crucial to drive new efficiencies to deliver a truly exceptional customer experience.

A network that can deliver greater value to its stakeholders and respond to market situations in a dynamic and resilient way without impacting the customer experience is one of the key ingredients to achieving success in today’s transformative age. If an organization’s network architecture is not equipped to scale appropriately as per increased demand, even with the best of services, it can not appeal to consumers in the long run.

Gaining Business Edge With Robust Network Designed For Enterprises

In this enterprise transformation journey, telecom service providers play a critical role in powering the next phase of digital transformation. However, bringing new digital services needs a robust, low latency, and automated network that is intelligent enough to dynamically adapt and scale – an area where traditional telecom operators need to do a lot of catch-ups. Especially because worldwide, telecom operators are already carrying up to 65% more data than before on their networks.

As we adapt to the changing environment, customers’ preferences continue to evolve, with businesses finding it tough to meet them with conventional network architectures.

Today’s growing digital cloud ecosystem needs to be supported well by an always-on hyperscale network infrastructure that is stable, able to preempt and resolve service disruptions, and is also cost-effective. To manage diverse bandwidth needs for the end customers, the enterprises need a technology partner that is able to support them in their diverse and evolving needs and enables them to deliver real-time intelligence in a very secure manner.

The time is right for the South Asian and South-East Asian enterprises to leapfrog in the digital ecosystem to hyperscale the economy for the region’s overall economic and social growth. This is possible only with the foundation of robust, agile, scalable and programmable networks built especially for them.