Nisha Dutt brings over two decades of global consulting experience across strategy, operations, and transformation. With leadership roles at Xerox, Deloitte, and Intellecap, she has pioneered inclusive business platforms and demonstrated purpose-driven leadership in traditionally male-dominated industries across continents and sectors.
In an insightful interaction with Women Entrepreneurs Review Magazine, Nisha shares her insights on navigating global supply chain disruptions, balancing 5G and IoT growth with customer needs, and driving innovation in telecom amidst rising competition from tech giants.
How do you assess the impact of global supply chain disruptions on the telecommunications sector today, and what strategies have you implemented to navigate this shifting landscape?
Telecommunications companies operate within a capital-intensive framework, necessitating substantial investments in network infrastructure. Tariff structures play a critical role in influencing the pricing of network equipment, as tariffs can compress margins for both operators and vendors. This dynamic places considerable pressure on capital expenditure (capex) allocations, compelling operators to adopt a more prudent and strategic approach to investment. Consequently, other areas of expenditure—such as digital transformation initiatives, customer engagement activities, and the deployment of emerging technologies—may experience deferment or budgetary constraints due to the reduced flexibility in overall capital planning.
With the rapid expansion of 5G and IoT, what unique challenges do you foresee in balancing technological advancement with customer-centric service delivery in the Telecom space?
With the rapid expansion of 5G and IoT, one of the most significant challenges lies in managing the complexity and scale of customer service delivery. Today, IoT devices on a network already outnumber human users, and each of these connections—whether a smart sensor or an autonomous system—comes with its own Quality of Service (QoS) expectations. This leads to a manifold increase in the volume and diversity of service requirements. At the same time, 5G is enabling entirely new use cases that customers will interact with in fundamentally different ways, requiring telecom providers to not only realign their service models but also retrain their teams to meet these evolving expectations. To effectively balance technological advancement with customer-centric delivery, digital transformation becomes non-negotiable. Embracing automation and scalable service infrastructure is essential to handle the increased volume and to ensure personalized, seamless experiences across a rapidly evolving landscape.
As the telecom industry faces increasing competition from tech giants, how do you foster innovation within your organization to stay ahead while maintaining sustainable growth?
To stay ahead in an increasingly competitive telecom landscape shaped by tech giants, we have adopted a multi-faceted approach to fostering innovation while ensuring sustainable growth. Our processes have been redesigned to be more agile, with a strong emphasis on measuring R&D velocity to keep up with the fast pace of technological change. We have embraced Generative AI as a transformative force, integrating it into both our product development and internal operations. Recognizing that areas like GenAI are becoming dominated by a few major players, we are actively pursuing strategic partnerships to enhance our capabilities. Our platform has been re-architected to be GenAI- and cloud-enabled, allowing us to remain aligned with the latest industry trends. Additionally, we have established a dedicated innovation lab focused on experimenting with emerging technologies, particularly in AI. To ensure our innovation efforts are customer-centric, we have strengthened feedback mechanisms so our R&D remains closely aligned with customer needs. This tight integration has become increasingly critical as the speed of innovation continues to accelerate.
In the current era of digital transformation, how do you balance short-term financial performance pressures with long-term investments in network infrastructure and technological evolution?
In the current era of digital transformation, our focus leans more heavily toward long-term technological evolution, as we believe that sustained relevance in the telecom space hinges on continuous innovation. To manage the balance between short-term financial pressures and long-term investments, we’ve deliberately shortened our R&D investment cycles. This allows us to run fast-paced experiments and rapidly iterate based on constant customer feedback, ensuring that our resources are directed toward initiatives with the most tangible impact. Additionally, we’ve taken a strategic approach to abstracting our technology stack, enabling us to adapt quickly as the landscape evolves. For example, our AI agents are designed to operate across a variety of large language models—be it proprietary or open source, on-premise or in the cloud. This flexibility not only safeguards our long-term innovation roadmap but also helps us stay efficient and cost-conscious in the short term.
How do you ensure a culture of collaboration and agility within your leadership team, especially when the market demands constant adaptation and quick decision-making?
To foster a culture of collaboration and agility within our leadership team, especially in a market that demands constant adaptation, we believe in leading by example. As a CEO, I make it a point to actively engage with and use the latest tools shaping the industry, demonstrating firsthand the importance of staying current. Our leadership team has access to enterprise-grade subscriptions for the most advanced GenAI tools, ensuring they are not only aware of but also immersed in the technologies driving change. We’ve also rolled out code co-pilots across our engineering teams to boost productivity and innovation. Most notably, we’ve shifted our R&D milestone framework to a “GenAI-first” approach—meaning that projects are expected to incorporate the latest GenAI tools and methodologies, and funding is aligned accordingly. This has embedded a strong sense of urgency, adaptability, and innovation across the organization, starting right from the top.
How do you envision telecom companies influencing broader societal shifts toward sustainability and inclusivity?
Telecom companies are uniquely positioned to influence broader societal shifts toward sustainability and inclusivity, given their foundational role in enabling remote work and digital connectivity. One key area of focus is managing the energy demands of emerging technologies like Generative AI. As GenAI becomes more embedded in services, telecom network architectures must be optimized to deliver high-quality customer experiences while minimizing energy consumption—making efficiency and sustainability a critical “cost-to-quality” (CTQ) consideration for the industry. On the inclusivity front, mobile technology has already played a transformative role, particularly in driving financial inclusion. With the integration of GenAI into mobile platforms, we see a tremendous opportunity to further empower underserved populations—giving them access to information, services, and learning tools that were previously out of reach. This evolution can significantly bridge digital divides and foster greater participation in the digital economy.
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