Huang Li of iSoftStone: Everything is connected in the 5G era. Let’s discuss the opportunities and challenges of enterprise digital transformation!

[51CTO.com original article] On September 18, the three-day Huawei Connect 2019 Conference focusing on cloud + 5G + AI + IoT was successfully held in Shanghai. As an important strategic partner of Huawei for more than ten years, iSoftStone was invited to attend the conference. In the exhibition area, iSoftStone displayed key products such as talent training service solutions for universities, smart security and campus solutions jointly created with Huawei, one-stop smart terminal testing solutions, AI artificial intelligence solutions, and enterprise service platforms that help iSoftStone's digital transformation.

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During the break of the meeting, Huang Li, executive vice president and CTO of iSoftStone, was interviewed by a 51CTO reporter. They had in-depth discussions on topics such as the opportunities and challenges of enterprise digital transformation in the 5G era and how iSoftStone can empower enterprise digital transformation.

The 5G era brings both opportunities and challenges

In June this year, China officially issued 5G commercial licenses. This shows that my country's 5G industry is ready, marking the transition of 5G from the trial stage to the commercial stage. In the 5G era, new IT technologies such as cloud computing, AI, big data, and the Internet of Things will be integrated with the real economy in a wider range, deeper degree, and higher level, accelerating the digitalization, networking, and intelligent upgrading of the real economy. However, just like a coin has two sides, everything has its pros and cons. 5G has brought new development opportunities to various industries, but also brought challenges to the digital transformation of enterprises.

"5G is a national strategy. It has great opportunities in the future, but also brings challenges. Among them, the most prominent challenges are in industry application scenarios and solutions. 5G is like a highway. What kind of cars and applications run on this highway are still facing great challenges. Unlike the 4G era, in the 5G era, there will be more and more subdivided scenarios in different industries, and more problems will follow." Huang Li believes that a core concept of 5G is the interconnection of all things, and the Internet of Things is a relatively large application scenario of 5G. From the Internet to the Internet of Things era, the Internet of Things is larger than the Internet in terms of industry scale and market opportunities. "From the perspective of national strategy, this is a good opportunity for China to overtake others."

iSoftStone has a solution to meet the high requirements of smart terminals in the 5G era

There is no doubt that in the 5G era, from smartphones to virtual devices such as AR and VR, to other broadband devices, the concept of smart terminals is becoming more and more abundant, and the connection from the Internet to the Internet of Things is also becoming more and more abundant. Whether in terms of terminal functionality, usability, and user experience, higher requirements are placed on smart terminals.

Huang Li told reporters that for 5G, just like 3G and 4G, the three aspects of terminal, pipe and cloud must be taken into account. In the terminal, the development and design of hardware used to account for a large proportion, but in the future, the proportion of software will increase. Now many customers have reported that the proportion of software in their companies has far exceeded that of hardware, and the software and service teams are getting bigger and bigger. "This is an opportunity and a challenge for iSoftStone. This is a battlefield we must win."

When asked by reporters how iSoftStone will respond to challenges and win this "battlefield", Huang Li replied that first of all, there must be sufficient technical reserves. To upgrade the value chain, we should increase efforts and investment in the aspects of underlying software, underlying drivers, core software development, and Internet application development. Secondly, in terms of ecology, iSoftStone will work with major ecological partners to create a friendlier and more complete ecological environment. Thirdly, we will continue to attach importance to talent training. iSoftStone attaches great importance to talent training and has set up iSoftStone University. In the future, we will continue to deepen talent training in important fields such as smart terminals, 5G, and the Internet of Things.

"In 2013, we cooperated with Huawei's enterprise intelligent terminal department. Now, we are cooperating with intelligent terminal manufacturers such as OPPO, vivo, and Xiaomi. We have changed from focusing on testing to design, software engineering, hardware engineering, and customization, providing end-to-end solutions. This is a very big change." Huang Li told reporters.

If there are no cars or applications on the 5G "highway", everything is just empty talk.

In fact, iSoftStone has been planning for 5G for a long time. Huang Li admitted that 5G is the key investment area of ​​iSoftStone's next five-year plan. At present, iSoftStone's customers have covered most of the companies related to 5G technology, including 5G mobile terminal companies, the three major operators, etc. "All-round cooperation with customers has brought us huge advantages. It allows us to fully utilize and understand 5G technology and cooperate to develop various markets. This is a good opportunity for us to greatly enhance our capabilities."

Looking to the future, Huang Li believes: "At present, 5G is still in the early stage of commercial use. Applications such as short videos have driven the rapid growth of 4G, and the same is true for 5G. It must have similar application scenarios and industry solutions to truly develop rapidly. Just like there are no cars and applications on the highway, everything is empty talk. In the future, iSoftStone will apply and innovate 5G in industries such as finance, manufacturing, logistics, and smart cities."

Focus on industry applications and empower enterprises' digital transformation

As a long-established software and information technology service provider and a trusted partner for enterprise digital transformation, iSoftStone has served more than 10 industries and fields in the past 20 years and has served more than 1,000 customers worldwide, including more than 110 Fortune 500 customers. It has become one of the leading software service companies with a wide industry coverage and large service scale.

In order to promote more enterprises to achieve digital transformation efficiently, iSoftStone focuses on industry applications and deeply integrates new technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and 5G with the industry. At present, iSoftStone has served multiple industries such as manufacturing, finance, and smart cities, and has accumulated rich experience.

Taking the manufacturing industry as an example, iSoftStone has helped the industry realize the transformation of "Internet + collaborative manufacturing". From R&D management to supply chain management, dealer management and after-sales service management, iSoftStone has served 14+ well-known automobile manufacturers with the support of all-round service capabilities, helping automobile companies to achieve cross-brand and cross-factory flexible production, making the core system of the automobile industry autonomous, hourly capacity sharing, and economic benefits improved, so that intelligent manufacturing can be truly implemented in the manufacturing industry.

[51CTO original article, please indicate the original author and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]