GENBAND is all set to kick-start Perspectives 17 – a five-day event that brings together a unique confluence of brightest minds in technology. Delivering huge value to its overall partner ecosystem – the event will be putting spotlight on upcoming trends in the Cloud and Virtualization space.
On the eve of this mega event – Patrick Joggerst, EVP of Global Sales and Marketing, GENBAND speaks with Zia Askari from ChannelDrive.in about what is in store for this year’s Perspectives.
How do you define GENBAND Perspectives? What are the big themes for this year’s event?
We think of Perspectives as a more intimate TED-like conference, where great ideas are exchanged and great connections are made. There’s so much happening in our industry, it’s the perfect time to get together, hear from top thought leaders, and see where things are going.
Broadly speaking, I would say these are some of the key trends we’re seeing across Service Providers, Enterprises, Software Developers and Cloud Providers as they compete for services revenue in the hyper-connected era:
Network Evolution: Service providers are transforming legacy communications networks to all IP-based technology with a cloud-based network and software-centric approach for digital service delivery, whether deploying VoLTE, IPX, interconnect, IMS, NFV/SDN or another technology to enhance their networks.
The Cloud, which is rapidly evolving into the Cloud of Everything and enabling organizations of all sizes to scale up to high-performing, secure capabilities. We’re seeing the evolution of “Over the Top” (OTT) as new real time as a service challengers are sprouting up around the world, causing service providers to rethink their models. There’s also a tremendous amount of innovation happening, with omni mashups that provide enterprises with the flexibility they need on desktop and mobile, as well as the rapidly increasing convergence of UCaaS and cPaaS.
And of course Network Functions Virtualization is helping to prepare the world of fully software-driven network creation, operations and management, and has its own thriving ecosystem, which we’ll be talking about and hearing from quite a bit.
What are the primary objectives for the event for this year?
Our first and foremost objective is always the same – making sure that our attendees come away with actionable insights, new relationships, and hopefully some new business as well. We put a lot of thought and effort into every facet of this event to make sure that it’s memorable across the board.
We want to make sure that we are giving our global customer and partner base some new insights and to that extent we have a diverse speaker lineup, with representation from multiple verticals and countries. We also have a broad set of industry participants on hand, including software, hardware, middleware, applications and innovation-oriented visionaries and entrepreneurs that are all helping to invent the future.
Because we’ve moved it to Los Angeles this year after 4 years in Orlando, we’re hoping the new venue will also give our guests a chance to discover the LA tech scene and get some new insights into what’s happening here. And finally of course our team is always hard at work to deliver some compelling announcements while we’re at the conference and this year we’ve got some great news regarding new customers, partners and innovation to share.
Why it is important for your partners and customers to attend this?
First and foremost, it’s a great opportunity to get together and have real conversations, both with people you know and people you don’t, so there is an opportunity to make new connections or deepen existing ones. It’s also a place to do business – we’ve seen deals get done at Perspectives and expect to see that happen again this year.
But as I mentioned above, we put a tremendous amount of effort in showcasing the latest and greatest, for example with our solutions showcase, which is open to all attendees and allows them to see some of the best that the industry has to offer right now.
We will also have some compelling voices on stage which you may not have heard yet. People like Judit Andrasi, CEO of Deutsche Telekom’s immmr, Lauro Cantu, CEO, Maxcom Telecommunicaciones, Pamela P Chandor, Global VP, Market & Industry Sales, Collaboration and Talent Solutions, IBM, William Hurley, Chief Marketing Officer, CenturyLink, and many more. It’s an opportunity to hear firsthand about what these leaders and decision makers are seeing and how they’re responding to today’s market pressures and anticipating tomorrow’s.
How can this event help your customers / partners get a better understanding about the future of their business dynamics?
Our industry is in a constant state of change and it can be challenging to keep up and know what matters and what’s just a blip on the radar. Having access to peers and others who are in the thick of it is an excellent way to gain insight and make some sense of the current environment. Exchanging ideas and experiences is always beneficial.
That’s why we strive to make Perspectives just the right size. It’s big enough that you’re guaranteed to see some new faces and yet intimate enough that you can network effectively with these leaders and develop relationships that matter and can continue past the event itself.
We’re excited to welcome everyone to what we’re confident is going to be the best Perspectives yet.
