Axiata Group is on a digital transformation mission. It aims to be recognized as a Next Generation Digital Champion in Asia by 2027. Axiata’s position as a regional mobile telecommunications and digital conglomerate puts it in a prime position to enable consumers, homes, and enterprises through differentiated offerings and solutions. To that end it is accelerating the process of transforming all its operating companies (OpCos) into fully-fledged digital telcos capable of generating higher productivity and greater operational efficiencies in a sustainable way.

It’s an ambitious goal. Headquartered in Malaysia, Axiata has controlling stakes in various mobile and fixed operators spanning ASEAN (Association of Southeast Nations) and South Asia. Over the past decade, Axiata has been developing its digital capabilities of its Digital Telcos, serving more than 350 million customers within its 11-country footprint.

To accelerate digital transformation at this scale, Axiata established Axiata Digital Labs (ADL) in 2019. ADL is Axiata’s software innovation and digital transformation unit. It’s focused on developing digital products and services, not only for Axiata’s OpCos but also for other telcos and enterprises.

The ADL flagship digital transformation solution is the Axonect product suite. Launched in 2021, TM Forum has already recognised Axonect as a cost-effective platform for Axiata’s OpCos to turn themselves into digital telcos.

Axonect: A pathway to digital transformation

The Axonect product suite is pitched by ADL as a comprehensive and open standard-based toolbox that can help simplify and accelerate cloud-based digital transformation for telcos and enterprises.

Developed and honed by ADL’s 1,300-strong team of digital IT experts based in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Jakarta (Indonesia) – and in collaboration with Axiata’s stable of OpCos – Axonect comprises various middleware products that “seamlessly connect” north-bound and south-bound systems. To date, Axonect has developed a suite of 360 market-ready solutions that are flexible, scalable and user friendly.

These innovative solutions, when combined, provide a range of benefits for telcos embarking on digital transformation, such as:

Axonect’s solutions run on open-source software and TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA), which stipulates open application programming interfaces (APIs) for a telco’s operational framework, circumventing vendor lock ins. Open platforms makes it easier for app developers and third-party ecosystems, who use open APIs to plug into operators’ modern and legacy OSS/BSS. This advantage paves the way for digital telcos to launch and monetize new products and solutions much quicker than traditional ones.

Product suite

Axonect comprises four key elements: API Management; Enterprise Enabler; Enterprise Marketplace; and a Hybrid/Multi-Cloud Orchestrator. Each element offers telcos and enterprises a pathway to greater agility when it comes service delivery, as well as improved cost-efficiencies helped by cloud-based automation of operational processes and the sharing of digital assets (something which ADL has executed across multiple Axiata OpCos).

API Management Suite provides an internal API catalog, which helps fast-track the pace of telco service innovation – it’s easier for app developers to harness network assets if an API catalog is on hand – and an ‘Enterprise API Aggregator’ that allows multiple telcos and enterprises to access the same services through a single point of integration. API Management also provides telcos assistance in generating additional revenues from existing network assets through ‘API Monetizer.’

To realise potential revenue growth opportunities, Axonect includes what it calls an ‘enterprise ready’ digital transformation platform. Based on microservices and ODA, ADL calls the platform an ‘Enterprise Enabler’, giving telcos the opportunity to optimize the value of new business support models while still working in parallel with legacy business support systems. The platform is suited for DevOps and supports Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), providing telcos greater flexibility in improving cost-efficiencies of day to day operations.

The Enterprise Marketplace is a digital storefront for telcos and other businesses to offer products and services – quickly and with lower costs compared with traditional marketplaces – to their enterprise customers. It’s another way for telcos to drive new revenue streams, either from in-house digital offerings or ones co-created with partners.

Axonect, through its agnostic Hybrid/Multi-Cloud Orchestrator, can also be deployed across different cloud environments, as well as on-prem. ADL speaks of ‘seamless application portability’ from on prem to cloud, as well as from cloud to cloud. Telcos can migrate on-prem systems and workloads to the cloud at their own pace.

As its name implies, the Hybrid/Multi-Cloud Orchestrator – incorporating a developer toolkit and CI/CD – allows the provision and management of multiple cloud assets and user workflows from a single interface. Moreover, since ADL’s digital platform is closely aligned to TM Forum’s ODA, Axonect’s ‘pluggable’ orchestrator can integrate with the most popular public cloud providers, including AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft’s Azure.

Impressive results…

The Axonect Hybrid Cloud Orchestrator has already yielded impressive results. ADL reports that CelcomDigi in Malaysia, formerly known as Celcom Axiata, has enjoyed a range of operational upsides in terms of lower infrastructure costs and efficiency improvements after deploying the orchestrator.

First, the OpCo has managed to reduce infrastructure costs by 15% and boost operational efficiency by 40%. Second, there has also been a marked 45% efficiency improvement in migrating cloud-native apps and a 32% improvement in migrating cloud based apps.

By consolidating on-prem and cloud infrastructure via the orchestrator, and enabling cloud-agnostic development, ADL asserts that the organisation’s selection of underlying infrastructure for service delivery has now become ‘as easy as clicking a button’.

“Axonect Hybrid Cloud Orchestrator has enabled the organisation to embrace cutting-edge DevOps technologies to deploy hundreds of microservice-based components in multiple Azure cloud and on-prem environments,” said Dylan Lim, Architect at CelcomDigi.

…industry recognition

TM Forum, at its Digital Transformation World (DTW) 2022 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, held last October, awarded ADL the 2022 Excellence Award in the cloud-native IT and networks category for its Axonect Hybrid/Multi-Cloud Orchestrator.

In a statement relating to the award, TM Forum noted that the Axonect Orchestrator drew heavily from past TM Forum Catalysts, ODA and open API standards to deliver a product that “helps telcos maximise resource utilisation, reduce TTM and improve the overall experience with the latest cloud technologies.” The industry body added that ADL “provided a consistent platform to generate efficiencies and create monetization opportunities across multiple Axiata Group operating companies.”

At the same DTW event, TM Forum named Axiata amongst the first three telcos globally to earn “Running on ODA” status, in part due to the significant work by ADL. TM Forum specifically recognized the three winners for deploying ODA at scale.

Axiata Group has, through ADL, deployed TM Forum’s ODA framework groupwide. To date, it has been rolled out in multiple markets with the various OpCos, including CelcomDigi (Malaysia), XL and Link Net (Indonesia), Dialog (Sri Lanka), Robi (Bangladesh), Smart (Cambodia) and Ncell (Nepal).

This content is sponsored by Axiata. https://axonect.com/