By Paul Dobbins, Group CTO at Telent Technology Services Ltd
Technology is an integral part of our everyday lives and our uses for it continue to increase. We all find ourselves yearning for bigger and better developments to make specific tasks easier in both our leisure time and business lives. However, if we strip this all back, reflect on where the technology comes from and the ideas needed to create it, we are left to wonder how each innovation is possible.
It is well known in this industry that collaborative working leads to success, for both end-users and the businesses involved. We realise the importance of collaboration and see partnerships with other businesses as a crucial part of running a successful, innovative, and growing company. If we weren’t to fully utilise these partnerships, we couldn’t offer our customers the state-of-the-art technology we currently do. At Telent, we have been building partnerships with some of the biggest technology names in the industry worldwide for more than ten years, including Cisco, Juniper Networks, and Aruba [HPE] to name a few, discussing future technology and brainstorming ideas going forward.
Forward-thinking ideas
A couple of months ago, Steve Dalton, Transport Managing Director, and I flew over to San Jose, California, to network, discuss, and research new innovative technology services at our partner HQs. These meetings are a brilliant way to get hands on with the technology that is set to influence the industry in the next few years. While we know our partners’ products like the backs of our hands, we never turn down a chance to look at how we can continue to build on that knowledge. By visiting our partners, we can also listen to their forward-thinking ideas and in turn, they can listen to ours – it’s a relationship that benefits both parties.
Typically at our meetings, we set different themes for discussion and brainstorming, from topics such as 5G, transportation, cloud and autonomous vehicles. This exercise is hugely productive for both parties. 5G, for example, will require very intense coverage over small areas and research and analysis will need to be carried out into how we expand the network onto the road system for autonomous vehicles. We’re in a unique position to tap into this with our Highways England NRTS contracts, and by listening to our partners’ manufacturers to see how they plan to implement this technology, it gives us some direction too. The agenda also included the move towards IoT and connected transport, something that many of our partners are already heavily involved in, as are we with our ongoing Transport for London upgrade work. Discussing openly how we can continue to innovate and deliver future-proof services for our customers is one of the main drivers behind these meetings. Who wouldn’t want to constantly improve their offerings?