Redefining Telecom Excellence with Cloud & AI Transformation

Overview

In an industry where milliseconds define performance and innovation fuels competitiveness, one of the world’s leading telecom giants embarked on a bold mission, to rearchitect their digital foundation and future-proof their network for the era of 5G, AI and cloud-native operations.

This is not just a technology overhaul. It’s a story of a telecom visionary reimagining their core to stay ahead in a rapidly converging world, where intelligent connectivity, automation and resilience would determine leadership in the digital decade.

The Challenge

Modernizing the core to match the pace of innovation

By 2020, our client had reached a pivotal crossroads. Their legacy infrastructure and traditional operational models were constraining innovation. In a sector where time-to-market and reliability are critical, the inability to rapidly deploy and scale new technologies was stifling progress.

This challenge wasn’t just about IT transformation. It was about engineering agility into the heart of the telecom ecosystem, aligning people, processes and technology to drive industry-wide innovation.

The objective

Building a digital backbone for next-gen connectivity

The telecom leader’s goal extended beyond infrastructure modernization. They envisioned a digital-first, cloud-native foundation that could:

Scale seamlessly to support future network innovations such as 5G, edge and IoT.
Empower distributed teams across R&D, operations and customer delivery to collaborate in real time.
Balance operational stability with an innovation-first mindset.
Establish the groundwork for autonomous network operations, driven by AI and predictive analytics.

At the core, this transformation was people-led, training, reskilling and cultural adoption were prioritized to ensure that technology became a catalyst, not a constraint, for growth.

The Solution

Engineering agility through cloud, automation and AI

In collaboration with HCLTech, the telecom leader embarked on a multi-phase modernization journey, a carefully orchestrated roadmap that brought together cloud transformation, automation and human-centric change management.

Phase 1 – Cloud-first evolution

The journey began with large-scale migration to public cloud through a factory model approach, achieving 85% virtualization and over 250 cloud instances. This established a flexible, service-catalog-driven infrastructure ready to host next-gen applications and workloads.

Phase 2 – Building intelligence through automation

Leveraging HCLTech’s AIForce platform, our client infused AI and hyper automation across their environment, enabling self-healing systems, proactive incident prevention and improved operational predictability.

A 20% reduction in incident tickets was achieved through a shift-left approach and AIOps-led monitoring.

Phase 3 – Strategic alignment and workforce transformation

A series of cross-functional initiatives were introduced to align strategy, technology and culture. Transparent collaboration between leadership teams ensured every step of modernization translated into real business impact.

Phase 4 – Towards autonomous network operations

Today, the partnership continues to advance toward AI-driven observability, predictive operations and autonomous network control, redefining the very fabric of how a telecom enterprise operates.

The Impact

A smarter, more agile telecom enterprise

The results of this journey go far beyond metrics, they represent a reinvention of what operational excellence means in the telecom era.

Operational Resilience: 20% reduction in incident tickets and enhanced service stability.
Agility and Speed: Accelerated deployment of new services, reducing time-to-market for innovations.
Efficiency at Scale: 70–80% improvement in asset utilization and optimized licensing costs.
Global Enablement: Unified digital experience for over 100K+ users across 299 sites, 7,800+ servers and 281+ applications.
Cultural Transformation: Empowered teams working transparently toward shared innovation goals.

Conclusion

This transformation journey showcases how a telecom pioneer turned their legacy infrastructure into a launchpad for innovation, blending cloud, AI and automation to create a network that learns, adapts and scales.

With HCLTech as a strategic transformation partner, our client has evolved from stability to intelligence, setting the benchmark for the future of connected enterprises and redefining what it means to lead in the digital telecom landscape.