Telecom Review spoke with Karim Benkirane, CCO of du, during GITEX 2022, where he shared his company’s plans and scope of collaboration to expand the digital ecosystem regionally and globally.
du and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) recently teamed up to enhance 5G network revenues. Do you anticipate using F5G as a revenue-generating strategy for 2023 and onwards?
du has made a lot of investment since 2019 when we started our 5G networks rollout. Today, we have started to see new use cases that will help us to monetize the network as a service on top of all the connectivity and by enabling the wireless networks for the enterprise as well as individuals to build on our infrastructure. We are very optimistic on how du will bring secure, wireless connectivity, which is a key enabler of people’s digital lifestyles
What is the best business approach that du employs to offer its clients excellent service over its years of operation?
By leading the network experience, we are taking the customer experience to the next level. du continues to be a pioneer in 5G network solutions. We continue focusing on investment in network technology and innovation. We are proud of the level of digital customer experience we are providing.
du is committed to smart networks transforming individuals’ lives & businesses by delivering the best network experiences across the UAE.
du recently launched the largest digital transformation initiative in the region. Can you briefly explain more about the program's purpose and vision?
The program is the foundation of our digital transformation journey. We are designing a new IT ecosystem models and striving to enable our vision, which is leading the digital telco in the region. This program has started already and is delivering our first technical drop, which is making sure that the systems are talking to one another and building on a lego-style automation operation for the greater customer experience of our clients as well as for their digital transformation journeys. The program is a key enabler for us to realize our vision, and the first signs of the progression are promising; it's going to be a great foundation to build on for the digital future using IoT and other prominent technologies.
What marketing strategy do you envision for this next phase as du prepares to engage in the metaverse?
We are showcasing a few metaverse use cases enabled by our 5G capabilities on our GITEX platform. The digital twin is one of them, and du is going to continue to be the enabler for the metaverse, which will be built on web3 infrastructure. du is helping companies and customers to build an ecosystem around it. du is already advanced and leading in the 5G era, and we believe that this is a great foundation for all the metaverse use cases and the way enterprises and consumers want to contribute to it. We will play a key role in the metaverse, and we are already ahead on this with a lot of our customers exploring some use cases in the metaverse. We are open to partnerships as it will require more collaboration to build an ecosystem around our customers, and this is helping us to partner with lots of strategic stakeholders.
