LEWIS INSIGHT, LLC
RIVIERA BEACH, FLORIDA

Chris is a highly regarded and experienced Telecoms Industry Analyst covering the depth and breadth, demand and supply of the ICT sector on a global basis for 30 years. He is one of the few industry analysts who can draw together the many varied technology and business components helping shape telecoms in the context of the future digital marketplace. Registered blind throughout his career and a leading user of assistive technology, Chris now brings his knowledge to help the charitable organisations, the healthcare sector and the ICT industry. His unique understanding of the interplay between business processes, communications technology and people is allowing organisations to expose the potential opportunity presented by leveraging technology for the disabled community. Chris has published reports on the accessibility issue and presented at the last two Mobile World Congress events on the topic. He has a strong track record of managing Analyst Teams, supporting Sales and helping to maximise individual potential and is proud to have maintained personal and professional relationships with analysts and management from all previous employers and fellow analyst firms. Chris also sits on several Boards in the Visually Impaired charity sector where he brings his technology knowledge to help the RNIB and Vision 2020 leverage telecoms and communications technology for the blind and partially sighted community. He has also returned to playing blind cricket with the London Metro team and is continuing with blind golf, tennis and riding tandems – beware in West London! Phil believes the industry should be proud of being at the heart of building the digital economy and helping people run their digital lives A low, especially recently, is how frustrating it can be getting the industry to shift gear. We are running out of time to remain relevant and at the centre of driving the digital revolution Telcos were traditionally run by network people and IT was very much an afterthought, resulting in overly complex systems. According to Phil, very little architectural integrity exists in telcos. IT was a system of record but is now moving to be the differentiating factor with the network becoming the underlying product. The network is, of course, the biggest asset but it is not a source of differentiation. Phil suggest that the real differentiator is the leveraging of customer data. This is a huge transition for telcos to move from an engineering mentality to actually serving the customer. All this places huge technical, skills and leadership demands on the organisation. Transforming the telco into a digital business Transformation is difficult because it was easy running a telco when profits were high, competition low and everyone knew their place! The commercial and technical leadership used to “rock up and run the business”. All of a sudden there are new competitors, margins are shrinking and innovation is coming from other places. This requires a different kind of leadership. According to Phil, the role of the CIO is very much one of being a story-teller and explaining how things work to the different LOBs, OPCOS and levels of management. The CIO, in many ways, has a better end-to-end understanding of the way the business runs. This is because the CIO can’t get away from everyone asking him how everything worked. So, in short, a major problem exists at the top of telcos not understanding the way the business runs and not really understanding the art of the possible when it comes to technology On the business side, there are enormous possibilities as business models emerge that require connectivity. One of the problems is that telcos think they should be running Facebook. The problem is that the money is in B2B, IoT and AI. We need to build offerings into the emerging digital business models. Wholesale was the poor relation because its margins were considerably lower that the highly profitable retail and business service. As those margins ‘head south’, wholesale may well look more attractive! Chris is a highly regarded and experienced Telecoms Industry Analyst covering the depth and breadth, demand and supply of the ICT sector on a global basis for 30 years. He is one of the few industry analysts who can draw together the many varied technology and business components helping shape telecoms in the context of the future digital marketplace. Registered blind throughout his career and a leading user of assistive technology, Chris now brings his knowledge to help the charitable organisations, the healthcare sector and the ICT industry. His unique understanding of the interplay between business processes, communications technology and people is allowing organisations to expose the potential opportunity presented by leveraging technology for the disabled community. Chris has published reports on the accessibility issue and presented at the last two Mobile World Congress events on the topic. He has a strong track record of managing Analyst Teams, supporting Sales and helping to maximise individual potential and is proud to have maintained personal and professional relationships with analysts and management from all previous employers and fellow analyst firms. Chris also sits on several Boards in the Visually Impaired charity sector where he brings his technology knowledge to help the RNIB and Vision 2020 leverage telecoms and communications technology for the blind and partially sighted community. He has also returned to playing blind cricket with the London Metro team and is continuing with blind golf, tennis and riding tandems – beware in West London!