Goce Mitevski is Chief Commercial Officer B2B in Makedonski Telekom. We discussed with him the challenges posed by digitalization of the businesses, the growing need for data protection and the potential of the smart cities.

1. The term digitalization seems to be the most used term in the last year, all processes in the society are being transformed, and thus the businesses themselves, regardless of whether they are small or large companies...Nevertheless we are at the very beginning of this process and the question is whether these are sustainable solutions, are we on the right path?

You’re absolutely right, almost everyone has been talking about digitalization lately, whether they are customers or service providers, but I'm not entirely sure if we all really understand the meaning, the basic elements, the implementation and most importantly – the sustainability. Sustainability is very important in the process of digitalization of businesses and institutions, especially due to the fact that they have their end users who require continuous functioning of the services with a high and unchanged standard.

What this really means?

With the surge of new technology everywhere around us, we decide to freely indulge into the digital ocean, but completely unprotected and with very little knowledge, we often expect miracles to happen and do not even think that something could go wrong, and if something does go wrong, we believe that we can always go back to the original position we started from.

However, experiences speak something else. Namely, if we enter the digital ocean without a suitable partner, without proper knowledge and sustainability in the long run, especially without the highest protection systems, then we must realize as soon as possible that the risks we take are huge and that we fatally jeopardize the most important business processes and operations, and most importantly - the end users themselves.

1. You say that businesses need a partner for digitalization and solutions that are sustainable in the long run. How does that system, which would provide those benefits, work in Telekom?

Telekom has been a technological leader for a long time now and has introduced the most advanced technologies such as fibre optics, 4G/LTE, and very soon 5G, NB IoT, etc. We started the modernization of our digital infrastructure more than 2-3 decades ago. As I have already mentioned, the first and most important thing is for digitalization to be based on advanced, stable and proven network infrastructure with high quality support.

Second, it is especially important that the previous infrastructure can be upgraded to include advanced data centre / cloud services. Telecom can offer an ideal balance of services on both public and private cloud. When we talk about public cloud, we mean big world brands such as Microsoft Azure, and Makedonski Telekom is an authorized Microsoft Cloud Services Provider (CSP) on our market. At the same time, Telekom can also offer private cloud services, i.e. its own data centre services, to the highest standards, with additional protection and data back-up. The third foundation is the use of the most advanced cyber security solutions, and Telecom is far ahead of any other company in Macedonia in this field. On the top of all this are the digital identification services as the fourth layer that completes the foundations of digitalization and provides the initiation in the digital world. With all this, we can say that Telekom is the best partner for entering the digital ocean. Everything else can be added to the previous four foundations according to the customers’ needs and wishes, but without them the entry into the digital ocean is a great uncertainty.

2. Data security will be one of the biggest challenges in the digitalization process, and smaller businesses, in particular, will be vulnerable. How do we tackle this challenge?

Business models of the most successful digital companies show that data is the greatest asset in the digital economy and society and will definitely be worth more in the future. Digital players would provide their services free of charge if we agreed to give them access to our data. At the same time, a large number of known and unknown participants in the digital traffic misuse data without permission. In Macedonia and in the world, a huge number of hacker attacks on companies and institutions occur every day, which later become victims of blackmail and face catastrophic consequences.

To protect themselves from such and similar attacks, companies cannot afford to hire expensive top cyber security experts, or allocate additional resources for purchase of technology, hardware, software, and additional services.

Therefore, the best, the most appropriate and the cheapest solution is to include all the foregoing digital services, especially cyber protection, in the existing long-term partnership with Telecom, based on a monthly fee, whereby the entry into the digital world would be worry free for every company.

At the same time, this is a message and an open invitation to the providers of digital equipment and services that if they really want the best for their end users, a business model that will work in the long run and will help them overcome the challenges of maintenance, connectivity, infrastructure and data security, Telecom is the right partner for everyone. For all the foregoing, I often use the phrase “worry free for additional monthly fee”.

3. We talked about digitalization of businesses, but the process is much broader and involves digitalization of processes in public administration, public services, municipalities, cities, digital transformation of the whole society in general. What would this process change and how would it contribute to the economic growth of our country?

Digitalisation of businesses and processes, if implemented properly, can really bring about enormous social and economic change and growth. Through specific examples from around the world, we can see that only on the basis of the successful use of digital identification services, developing countries can have a GDP growth (gross domestic product) of 6-13% per year, which is impressive, especially for countries such as ours which a growth by more than 10% would take it much faster to the developed European economies.

All this will become possible, especially due to the opening of the world as a market for our products and services and vice versa, the opening and simplification of the access to labour markets that would significantly and to a great extent increase the tax base, increase the transparency, reduce the opportunities for misuse and would lead to the above mentioned growth.

4. When we talk about digitalisation, it is inevitable to mention the smart cities. Skopje as a city is at the very beginning of this process and is trying to introduce several smart city solutions. How will these solutions in the future help us deal with the problems that are characteristic for big cities such as pollution, traffic, high electricity consumption, etc ...

More than 50% of the world population lives in the cities. They are the backbone of economic growth and prosperity. By connecting physical infrastructure and unleashing the full potential of digital technologies, we help make cities smarter, more competitive, and more sustainable. And that enables cities to offer residents higher quality of life and contribute to a better and sustainable world.

Makedonski Telekom as part of the Deutsche Telekom Group is in the best position to use the positive experiences from dozens of such successful projects throughout Europe and the world.

More specifically, some of the more significant Smart City projects that could actually be implemented by Telecom are services such as: smart lighting, smart parking, smart water measurement, smart air quality measurement, smart waste collection, etc. All of them will enable to maximize the economic, civic and environmental benefits, packaged and delivered in an open and transparent manner. The offer includes not only services developed by Telecom, but also services developed with the support of partners, as well as services that the city has already developed and implemented. Solutions can be placed on the Telekom's advanced cloud platform, which, along with other platforms, can be easily upgraded to include application developers and other services that will further enhance the economy, employment, savings and improve the living conditions of all citizens.

All of the foregoing positions Telekom not only as a leader in the digitalisation of society, but also as a creator of significant and sustainable values for all citizens.

Interview

{{Title}}