The key levers of an enterprise’s growth - AI focus, innovative culture, and strategic partners

Every year on July 16, the World Artificial Intelligence (AI) Appreciation Day is observed to recognize the transformative power of AI across industries and our daily lives, while fostering a deeper understanding of AI's capabilities, ethical considerations, and its role in driving innovation and efficiency. Matter of fact is companies across the globe have undertaken large-scale digital transformations spurred by rapid market evolution, recent geopolitical crises, and shifting dynamics.

As it stands, today's modern enterprises grapple with progressively complex challenges, from boosting customer experiences, scaling up operations, to preparing for a future against advanced security threats and adversaries, more notably so with the rise of AI. While the AI journey has long begun, it is still evolving as we speak, making it challenging for businesses to invest in the right tools and spearhead their organizational direction based on strategic imperatives and priorities to derive real returns and measurable impacts on their processes, people, and infrastructure.

It's a tall order to fulfil – yet, to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world, businesses must draw on these three key elements: i) Realizing meaningful business outcomes with the latest advancements in technology such as AI; ii) Building not only a secure and agile IT environment but a resilient workforce that supports your transformation vision and fuels your long-term success, and iii) Tapping into a trusted network of partners with proven expertise and capabilities to drive and shape your growth.

In a nutshell, it's about confidently unlocking AI values to your advantage by aligning business goals with long-term impact, cultivating an innovative culture within the organization with people-first transformation strategies, and counting on visionary partners who can execute your IT roadmap seamlessly and securely to achieve your ambitions.

i) An AI-powered ecosystem

Risks considered, the far-reaching impacts of AI are already felt by businesses – from automating repetitive tasks that would streamline workflows and reduce manual efforts, enabling predictive insights gathered from raw data through Machine Learning to anticipate trends, optimizing customer experiences with personalized interactions, and fueling innovation organization-wide with new efficiencies and opportunities.

For example, the Orange Business AIOps (AI for IT Operations) application – one of our service capabilities - has been deployed for mining customers to support predictive maintenance, accelerate resolution, identify system anomalies for safety, and optimize resources – thereby boosting new levels of efficiency, enhancing safety, and unlocking new areas of growth for future sustainability.

But many enterprises continue to struggle with architectures that are not fit for AI purpose, or a lack of vision that doesn't help with setting a well-defined readiness strategy to see real, measurable changes that are driven by AI. Hence, laying the right foundation underpinned by seamless connectivity and data network, a reliable cloud and IT environment, and robust cybersecurity capabilities (which can be summed as the 3Cs namely connectivity, cloud, and and cybersecurity) – are fundamental to successfully unlocking your digital infrastructure goals powered by AI at scale to achieve a long-term competitive edge in the market and experience a difference to your processes, people, and infrastructure.

ii) An innovative culture

The accelerated and significant adoption of technology with AI at the fore was a disruption that altered the way teams operated forever, putting to test the resilience of people, organizations, and the economy. Given how we have learnt to embrace this digital disruption head-on, therefore, increasing employees' resilience by gaining their trust, empowering them with greater autonomy and flexibility, and imbuing an innovative culture and approach to work will go a long way to strengthening an organization's positioning within the market and create a sustainable business case to customers.

It is much easier to achieve business outcomes with a workforce that possesses the right mindset, armed with rational and collected thinking qualities to resolve any crisis or situation when caught in the eye of the storm, and who would go above and beyond to help the team win. In times when an organization is wrestling against a strong pool of competitors or is faced /with significant geopolitical or economic challenges, having a resilient and trustworthy team will go a long way to helping the organization navigate any complexities and driving it forward as a united front.

iii) Strategic partnerships

In accelerating our digital transformation, Orange Business has teamed up with the best-in-class industry leaders to build a next-generation, fully digital, and AI-native company – all with the aim of delivering simpler, more flexible and AI-native experiences underpinned by trust and resilience. This involves a redesign of our product portfolio, customer journeys and internal platforms that can radically redefine experiences for customers, as well as to offer seamless and trusted solutions that can be consumed on demand and reduce time-to-market. 

Our most recent partnerships span the breadth of leading technology companies that include an AI platform for business transformation, and another that provides service order management, orchestration, and AI-powered service assurance processes – all of which are central to enabling a secure, modular, and future-proof digital ecosystem that help businesses transform and thrive.

In Australia and New Zealand alone, Orange Business's access to 6 colocation data centers enable crucial support to customers with critical infrastructures from sectors like mining, resources, BFSI, engineering, and Government, thereby strengthening sovereignty for organizations that increasingly seek to secure their sensitive data, while ensuring compliance with local regulations and building trust. These infrastructures do not only offer IoT solutions and AI-driven technologies but can ably host cloud computing services for businesses to manage their data from the edge to the cloud in a highly flexible way. Across the wider APAC, Orange Business has over 20 data center partners in countries including China, India, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

For businesses looking to simplify their work routine with GenAI deployment at scale, Orange Business launched its Live Intelligence platform in 2024 in collaboration with various partners as our steadfast commitment to help accelerate the adoption of trusted and innovative AI technology. The Live Intelligence Trust was first launched as a sovereign solution followed by the Live Intelligence Open that provides access to multiple LLMs (Large Language Models) tailored to address unique business challenges. As customers require extensive, end-to-end support in identifying their use cases to develop effect AI strategies for faster business outcomes, we offer clear step-by-step approach for customers embarking on their AI journey, regardless of their deployment stage.

Enterprises who require total control over the host infrastructure of their GenAI projects can seize Orange Business's offering of GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) as-a-Service, where we empower businesses in APAC through our Cloud Avenue platform with the capability of deploying their own AI models or LLMs with a partner of their choice. 

Additionally, with our Orange Group entity Orange Cyberdefense that is dedicated to cybersecurity, we help customers navigate the trust and resilience priorities across the value chain without compromising performance – in these key pillars namely data, infrastructure, technology, and operations & resources. Where data is concerned, there's a crucial need for data residency and encryption with secure data management to recover quickly from incidents and to safeguard data integrity and confidentiality. Then comes infrastructure, by way of diversifying the managed and hosting services to mitigate risks and ensure business continuity. Technology is about reducing dependence on extraterritorial technologies by leveraging proprietary and open-source solutions including trusted AI models and on-premises malware detection. And finally, maintaining your sovereign security posture and business continuity through our diversified locations and operational footprint for an end-to-end strategic support.

Conclusion

In a journey marked by uncertainties of shifting geopolitical landscapes and emerging challenges and actors, immense opportunities abound for those confident in capitalizing the AI revolution to chart a new path forward with strategic foresight and adaptability, all while nurturing your organization's growth with strategic and trusted collaboration, a well-defined technology strategy, and values of innovation and resilience. The reality is that AI is here to stay for the long-run, and as this new realization dawns, it is by starting small, thinking big, while wisely integrating customized AI solutions into your processes that a company can be well on its way to securing our future of tomorrow.