Abu Dhabi, 30 October  2017:  Etisalat Group - the leading telecommunication operator in emerging markets - with Deloitte - a leading global professional services organization with world-class business - and Huawei - a leading global ICT solutions provider – have today announced the launch of a joint White Paper entitled “From Pipelines to Clouds - Etisalat's Playbook” that intends to share our lessons learned and our point of view on the road towards a cloud-native Telco, ultimately making a contribution to the telecommunication industry, as well as to indicate how all these technologies combined can elevate a Telcos’ capabilities to revamp their business.

The launch of the White Paper “From Pipelines to Clouds - Etisalat's Playbook” is part of a collaboration made amongst the three companies for a joint innovation program focused around a playbook to how implement multiple exponential technologies that constitute a Digital Transformation journey through a technology perspective. The companies believe that a future Telco Cloud will require a different telecom networks' infrastructure and system architecture to address customers’ digital needs in order to deliver intelligent, quicker, more reliable value added services.

Hatem Bamatraf, Chief Technology Officer at Etisalat Group said: “Cloud computing presents unique opportunities for Etisalat to attain sustainable growth in the emerging digital ecosystem. Our aim is to deliver a differentiated service experience to empower a digital and happier society. This new, opportunity-rich landscape calls for collaboration with diverse industry players focusing on open and agile operating and organizational models. Those who have yet to start this journey, must start now and respond boldly with the right strategy!”

 “Network transformation should be considered as an opportunity to deploy an experience oriented agile network and operating model rather than an imperative compulsion to address short-term business challenges” says Peng Xiongji, President Etisalat Key Account Huawei Technologies.

“At Deloitte we believe that digital transformation is not only about technology, deep transformations might happen in Telcos at multiple dimensions in order to revamp their business. We also believe that a big bang approach has a lower probability of succeeding; instead, the journey might be travelled step by step and harvest benefits along the way” says Pedro Tavares, Partner, Deloitte Portugal, and Leader of the Engineering Centre of Excellence (CoE).

The White Paper underlines the vision of Etisalat Group to harness its technological vision and key industry advances to provide innovative premium and differentiated service experiences for customers. The adaption of new architecture and processes outlined in White Paper will enable Etisalat Group to devise a practical road-map for the adaption of SDN and NFV technologies in addition to cutting edge techs such as MEC, AI, Machine Learning, 5G and so on. This will greatly assist Etisalat Group to reassure the path to the envisioned scenario achieving a cost effective infrastructure which enables Etisalat to launch innovative products coped with future time to market.