Telecom firms stand at a turning point. This rings especially true in regions like Turkey, where bold digital goals are reshaping economic futures. Vodafone Turkey’s CEO Engin Aksoy captured this perfectly: "We are committed to making Turkey a technology hub in the region. AI is a critical part of this transformation, and through our investments in digital infrastructure and skills development, we’re helping build a future where Turkey leads in AI innovation.” Other regional leaders say similar things.
Yet operators across these emerging hubs face a practical hurdle: transforming grand visions into working systems while managing regional rules about data storage, security demands, and budget constraints.
Success won’t come from scattered tech projects. It demands a thorough, methodical approach to deployment that transforms raw information into business advantage at a meaningful scale.
Telecom providers throughout Turkey, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe hold unique positions. With sprawling networks, massive customer bases, and growing digital offerings, these companies sit on mountains of valuable information.
Many struggle to unlock this wealth. Why?
Experience shows that telecom firms often waste months or years building basic structures before their experts can create value. This creates three major bottlenecks:
This operational friction blocks many telecoms from reaching their goals. That’s why, despite significant spending, many initiatives fail to deliver promised returns.
Consider a real-world example offering valuable lessons for telecoms in Turkey and similar regions.
The example operator faced challenges comparable to those faced by operators across emerging tech markets. Their analytics teams were hampered by slow setup times and complicated processes. Essential platforms like Spark, Kubeflow, and TensorFlow proved difficult to deploy and maintain at scale.
Their breakthrough came through fundamentally rethinking their approach. They moved from isolated projects to a standardized, modern service model. This shift delivered remarkable improvements:
The transformation wasn’t just technical—it changed how people worked. By standardizing their approach, they built a foundation for lasting innovation and market advantage.
For telecom firms in regions like Turkey with national digital transformation goals, another crucial factor emerges: data control and strategic independence.
As Aksoy highlighted during a 2023 technology conference, advanced data systems aren’t just about working better—they’re about positioning Vodafone Turkey and Turkey as technology pacesetters. Achieving this leadership requires control over crucial information and technical infrastructure.
This explains the growing trend toward bringing data operations back in-house. Many organizations that first embraced remote cloud services for data processing are reconsidering, driven by:
By establishing local, on-premises capabilities specifically designed for modern data workloads, telecom operators can become strategic enablers of national digital transformation, providing connections and the secure, compliant foundation for innovation across sectors.
Rakuten’s approach addresses exactly these challenges, drawing on practical experience from building and running Rakuten Mobile—a telecom network that operates fundamentally as a technology company.
This experience has shaped a distinctive philosophy centered on streamlining data operations:
The Rakuten Cloud-Native Platform, coupled with Rakuten AI for Telecom, delivers this philosophy through a unified system that dramatically simplifies the operational complexity that typically hinders progress.
For operators like Vodafone Turkey with ambitious strategies spanning network improvements, customer experience, research, and security, this approach offers a practical path to faster results while maintaining the control essential for leadership.
What might this mean for a telecom operator in Turkey or similar regions with ambitions to drive national digital transformation?
Consider the comprehensive implementation that Vodafone Turkey is pursuing, including initiatives like the Vodafone Future Lab at Istanbul Technical University and its partnership with Google Cloud to integrate generative AI into network operations. These efforts align perfectly with Turkey’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2021-2025), which aims to increase AI’s GDP contribution to 5% and related employment to 50,000 by 2025.
Successfully executing this vision requires more than isolated projects—it demands a comprehensive operational framework that makes deployment, management, and oversight systematic and efficient.
By adopting a platform purpose-built for telecom data workloads, operators can:
The opportunity extends far beyond operational improvements for forward-thinking telecom leaders in Turkey and similar regions. These leaders can position themselves at the center of national and regional digital ecosystems by establishing the foundational infrastructure for data-driven transformation.
As Aksoy has emphasized, this supports Turkey’s ambition to become a regional technology hub. This vision requires telecommunications providers to evolve beyond connectivity to become enablers of innovation across sectors. These efforts also contribute to the broader “Turkic World Vision 2040” for regional digital connectivity.
The telecom operators who succeed will be those who solve not just the technical challenges but also the operational ones—creating the streamlined, sovereign capabilities that can power transformation at the national scale.
For forward-thinking telecom leaders in Turkey and similar regions, the opportunity extends far beyond operational improvements. By embracing platforms designed explicitly for telecom data workloads, these operators can dramatically accelerate their journey from potential to reality, establishing themselves as the essential foundation for the next wave of digital transformation.
In doing so, they will transform not just their own operations but entire economies, driving growth, innovation, and leadership in the global digital economy.
Are you implementing AI and data analytics through a robust, cloud-native platform to support scale, speed, and seamless integration across your telecom operations?
Explore how operators across the globe are leveraging Rakuten Symphony’s cutting-edge technology to deploy private cloud solutions purpose-built for AI/ML and analytics. Read our whitepaper: Driving Innovation with AI-Driven Analytics and Cloud-Native Platforms to learn more.
Attending FutureNet World in London, May 7-8? Be sure to stop by and visit with Rakuten Symphony to learn more.
