5G Talent Talk with Carrie Charles (00:00)
Thank you for joining me today on 5G Talent Talk. I'm Carrie Charles, your host, and I am very excited about this show I have with me today, Raghav Sahgal. He is the president of cloud and network services for Nokia. Raghav is a global leader and entrepreneur in the cloud, software, and communication space, paving the path to the future where networks meet cloud. Thanks for joining me today, Raghav. I'm excited about...

talking to you. It's been a long time coming.

Well, I always start out with finding out about your story. How did you get to your current seat?

I've been in the software business for well over 30 years, 35 years plus. I guess I started out very much, was very intrigued by technology, so I was very keen in developing technology. But as my career evolved, what became really, really important to me is

It was not so much about the technology, but how does these technologies actually solve problems for our customers and how does it create an impact? And that became a little bit of an obsession for me is translating technology into being able to see its impact. So that kind of moved me much more customer facing because you needed to understand customers, their pain points, what they were trying to achieve. And so that led me to many, many customer oriented

roles across the world. then over time, those roles led into managing larger businesses and then onto the position that I hold right now is running the software business for Nokia. And so the journey has really accomplished all the way starting out in my home country, India, as a software developer and to the ranks.

having great opportunities working with great companies and people to currently managing the business at Nokia. So it's been a very interesting road. Well, let's get right into it. We will talk about 5G. In your...

In your view, where is the industry today with 5G after multiple years of deploying this new technology? And also, how is this fitting with market expectations? Yes, I think that's, if you look at 5G, we've been kind of on this journey for five to six years at this point in time.

We actually, 5G came about maybe a year or two earlier than we had anticipated. And part of that was led with China and the US accelerating the deployment of 5G. And as such, if you look at today, we have almost 260 operators that have actually deployed 5G in over 100 countries. And these are GSMA figures that we are coding here.

There are still regions that are still in the midst of deploying 5G and it's markets like Latin America that has just started the deployments of 5G. if you look at the world, it's been kind of a journey where the US and China kind of took the lead and then other markets followed. So in aggregate, if you look at it, the evolution in the United States, there's already been several billions of dollars actually being spent on

5G and like in any G, there's a fast ramp up of spending a lot of investment on 5G and then there comes this little bit of a down curve where you have to, after deploying the technologies, to start to monetize that technology. And so I think we're still early in that curve and ourselves, I think the advantages that 5G will bring are just beyond connectivity.

connectivity will improve significantly, but a lot more of capabilities will be delivered by 5G that can be used by industries and enterprises and consumers across the board, which will enhance the digitalization journey of each of these areas. And so we're still very bullish about 5G. the market expectation, my view is we always have a higher set of expectations.

but there's a reality that these things do take time. And we see traffic growing almost four to 10 times by the end of the decade. So there's a lot of still growth to be had and a lot of use cases to be developed. So I think in some sense we have to be patient, but we believe that there is a very bright future for 5G and R. Okay, that's good news. So I don't have to change the name of my podcast anytime soon.

Right? So let's go a little bit further into monetization. It has been a pain point for operators. What do you see as some key technologies to help operators really drive their 5G monetization efforts forward?

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question, Carrie. You know, as I talk to our customers and their executives, this is top of mind topic because they have deployed, you know, and put in a lot of investment in 5G. And now the next step is to make sure that there's a return on investment and monetization of those assets that actually happens. I think, you know, as you deploy, you know, 5G, data is

new applications and new types of applications get developed. And so the ecosystem is still at its early stages of maturing. And we are seeing the development of these 5G specific applications. But they're still limited, but they're growing at a pretty fast pace. And it takes time to build a broad ecosystem of partners, developers, hardware manufacturers, service providers, all coming together. And this is where we believe that

Network APIs are an important area that the industry now needs to be focused on to move this monetization initiative forward. And specifically what it does is it allows you to open the 5G and the 4G network capabilities that the developers who trying to build these applications can actually start to consume the network much more easily. And we in Nokia have developed, we take this initiative

they're very seriously in Nokia, and we've developed something called the Nokia Network as Code Platform, which allows the developers to actually consume the network in a very simple and elegant way. And there are a lot of initiatives in the industry, like the GSMA Open Gateway, there's the Linux Foundation, there's the Camara Initiative, and these initiatives are also propelling this API monetization effort.

to harmonize that across the operator community and we are very much part of that as Nokia driving this agenda. So I think we've now actually signed over 20 companies including CSPs like British Telecom, Dish and many others and also announced partnerships with Infobip and Google to get a wider range of developer community going such that network APIs can be monetized and so we are playing a big role

here so we're very optimistic about it but we also very realistic about it that this is going to be a journey that will take time ecosystems take time to build and we believe that we are on the right path and the feedback we have that this is the right strategy so we're excited about it but it's a journey that we have to take on.

How do you see the role of enterprise and industrial sectors in 5G moving operators beyond their traditional connectivity services?

That's a great question, Carrie, because if you think about the digitization in enterprises and industries, I would say that the enterprises are far more digitalized than the industries have been. In fact, we've done some internal studies where we believe that the enterprise digitization is, if you looked at it a few years ago, was greater than 70 to 80%. They were getting digitized. If you looked at the industrials, they were at the 30 to 40%.

of levels of digitalization. And one of the things that we saw, you know, in the COVID times, which was not a fun time for any one of us, but one of the things that did happen in that era is that we became much more digital because that was the only way to get things done. And so that unlocked the digital era at a much faster pace that we would have anticipated. In fact, there used to be always this choke around in COVID.

times, know, who's the, COVID was the chief digital officer. And so it was kind of an interesting time where it became very, very clear that the industries needed to digitalize to drive, you know, massive productivity gains. And we saw that opportunity as Nokia as well. And this is why we started to build private networks for the industries themselves, which was going to be very, very relevant.

and we've taken a leadership position in the market on that because that industrial digitalization was very important, but it was just not about connectivity. What was very important for us to realize that this was about bringing an ecosystem, that when you go into an industry, you go into a port or mine, this thing, it's just not about connectivity. That's just a use case. But it is how you bring devices in a mine with the applications, with the people working in the mine, and connect all those pieces together

So we moved a strategy in the industrial side very much to a platform strategy of bringing this ecosystem together to drive the digitization journey. And today, we've actually got almost 760 private net wireless customers that are actually driving this. So it's not only 5G capabilities, but we're delivering 4G capabilities because Wi -Fi did have its limitations of what it could do in terms of giving

deterministic performance. But we also provide the Wi -Fi capabilities in our platform. So it's any access. You could do Wi -Fi, Bluetooth, fixed. You can do 4G, 5G. And depending on the use cases, it uses the appropriate access method. So this is something that we feel is a very key part. And this digitization of industries actually has an economic impact.

countries so we feel very good about the opportunity which is scaling at a pretty fast pace but we also feel good that we are a very strong participant in this journey of digitization.

So how are regulatory developments and 5G spectrum allocation policies impacting the competitive landscape and investment strategies of operators? Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. That's a loaded question. It's a little loaded, for sure. And I have to be very careful that I provide you a balanced view. The regulatory landscape surrounding 5G spectrum is a very critical factor.

We've got to talk about spectrum availability and cost. These directly impact the operator's ability to deploy and scale their 5G. You're putting a lot of money in licenses, so it puts a strain on the financial resources. And it can sometimes even create an uneven environment for the operator, large operators versus smaller ones.

and so on and so forth. So it's essential that allocation policies really are designed to promote a playing field that encourage investment in 5G across the board. So that's number one. I think spectrum distribution, which is making sure that uneven spectrum distribution can sometimes influence market dynamics and service capabilities. so making sure that regulatory framework should provide

fair and equitable spectrum allocation to foster a vibrant 5G ecosystem. And that's an important piece. From a global perspective, we've seen examples around the world where high spectrum costs and uneven distribution can actually cause concerns. So it's crucial for governments to really consider the long -term impact of the spectrum policies as it relates to the broader digital economy.

This is going to play a very big part of driving the digital economy and that impacts the country, it impacts the productivity and the GDP of a country. I think there's an important role to play. From a US perspective, obviously you are quite aware there's a debate in Congress regarding the release of additional 5G spectrum and this thing about net neutrality. And these things have to be, we have to really make sure that we consider

these and make sure that the impact of these are very clearly understood. As a leading provider of 5G technology, we Nokia are really committed to make sure that we work with the governments and industry stakeholders to ensure that these spectrum policies promote a robust and competitive 5G ecosystem. That's important for us. We believe that a well -defined and transparent regulatory framework is really, really

essential for maximizing the benefits of 5G for consumers and businesses and society as a whole. Let's talk a little bit about leadership.

What is your leadership style at a high level and how do you apply it to really to motivate diverse cross -functional teams and also to foster a culture of innovation and resilience? Yeah.

I think it starts with making sure that you have to consider yourself not being an expert in everything and being a person that is always trying to learn. Because we are in a world of technology that is moving very, very fast. Technology developments happen at a pretty rapid pace. And so you've got to have a very learning mindset constantly.

handicap as you get a lot of experience as experience becomes the handicap because you have to kind of shed that and learn new things as you go forward in the markets that we believe in. I think it starts with making sure that you set a very clear strategy and direction and it's important to put out what you're going to do and what you're not going to do and what you're not going to do sometimes is the part that we don't do very well.

because we want to do everything. And being very, very clear of what is not going to be something that is not our core competency so that we don't spend time and allocate resources to that is very, very important. having a strategy where there's clarity of where you have a right to play and a right to win and areas that you should not consider is a very important aspect that you have to get out. And then what you have to be able to do is to be excellent in these.

areas and strive to create an environment where really people feel very open, they feel fearless and you know there's this notion of empowerment and you know when you give empowerment you have to make sure that people understand that they're accountable and so you can't give accountability if you don't give them empowerment but if you give them empowerment you have to ensure that they know that they're accountable for it and people make better decisions.

decisions when they're accountable for it. And we have to trust them with that. second is really I've spent my career in the tech industry and one of the things that as I talked about earlier is the only status quo that I know of is change.

And I encourage that in the organization. We want to make sure that we're agile, we're adaptable, you know, we're constantly trying to understand customers and market movements to make sure that we don't get, you know, we've got to have a very clear strategy, but we've got to make sure that we keep fine tuning that, you know, real time to make sure that we are sensing what is happening in the market to solve problems, et cetera. And I think the inspiration, you know, at the end of the day, know, while you have to be very clear,

you've got to have a very strong innovation mindset. And to me, I'm always inspired by seeing people overcome challenges. so one of the, one really quick example, if I can. Yes. We are working with, for example, Crystal House, which is a, it's a nonprofit organization that is a global organization, but we're working with their units out in Bangalore.

in India as well as in Mexico City. And you know this institution is you know geared towards getting people from who are you know very underprivileged in terms of what they have available to them.

But they bring them into this environment of a school from the age of five or six or seven where they have nothing. They come from broken families and homes and don't have the opportunity. And they groom them and educate them through this foundation. And we at Nokia got involved with them. And most recently we recruited, you know, 11 people from the organization, eight women.

I love that. what was interesting was when I went to their school and all these kids were there with smiling faces, etc., etc., and they introduced me as, you know, this is Raghav, president of Nokia Cloud and Network Services, and he's out here to come and inspire you. And quite frankly, after I had seen what I had seen, it wasn't me inspiring them, it was me getting inspired by them.

had overcome as their challenges was nothing compared to what we were dealing with over here. So I think, you know, this is where, you know, I think there's goodness in everybody. You know, people always say that...

Hey, you were lucky you had some good people working for you. I said, no, that's not the case. think there's every person has the ability to be moved from good to great. You just as a leader have to figure out how to create the motivation environment and mentoring capabilities to help them exploit those capabilities and become strong leaders in the organization. So, but it finally comes back to that you have to

be very humble yourself to say that you don't know it all and you learn from these people and when they have the opportunity to share and teach you as well, they feel respected and wanted and they drive with a higher degree of motivation. So it's a lot of things, know, having been in a leadership position for a long time, I still feel there's a lot more I can learn and get better at, so continuous better.

I think is always a good ambition to keep in line and making sure that you don't get ahead of yourself because there's always things you can learn and get better at. Words of wisdom, Prahagav. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been wonderful. I've learned a lot.