Telecom, Media & Technology

Innovation is a core part of the identity of technology and telecom companies. Today, they face the added challenge of embedding sustainability into their fast-paced, agile business models—spanning hardware, software, and service offerings.

 

Innovative Procurement for Telecom and Technology

Procuring something that doesn't yet exist—this is the unique challenge faced by the telecom and technology sectors. Data volumes, user numbers, and energy demands have been steadily increasing as more aspects of business and society become digitized. Both end-user devices and the infrastructure supporting them must continuously evolve to handle the growing demands of deeper connectivity and process the ever-expanding data load.

For providers, this presents significant opportunities for growth and innovation. Modern technology-driven business models rely on seamless network availability and high performance. However, these industries must also address their energy consumption to contribute to a more sustainable and climate-friendly economy.

To achieve intelligent solutions, procurement must be innovation-focused. Our experts collaborate with you to develop strategies that balance creativity, performance, and sustainability.

Reconciling innovation and sustainability

Reduce, reuse, recycle – this triad will also apply to physical technology products in the future. However, if the industry continues to consume the same amount of raw materials as it does today, it will neither be possible to achieve sustainability goals nor to take advantage of the many opportunities offered by digitization – because the materials available are simply not sufficient for all needs, as the chip crisis is currently demonstrating.

In the case of digital applications, energy consumption must be reduced. Servers and data centers already account for around ten percent of global energy consumption. Energy-optimized software and intelligent control of data streams can and must reduce demand.
Energy efficiency and circularity (cradle-to-cradle) start with product design. The earlier procurement is involved in planning, the more carefully category managers can sound out their markets and contribute their expertise.

Guaranteeing constant availability and capacity

Digital solutions are helpless if the infrastructure is not efficient. In Germany in particular, considerable investment will be needed in the coming years to meet the steadily rising demand for transfer performance. Technology providers are hosting more and more computing power because software is no longer delivered on physical data carriers. Applications such as blockchain, which are mirrored on different servers, place even greater demands on the performance of clouds and networks.

As in energy generation, it is not only necessary to permanently cover a base load, but also to intelligently manage demand peaks. This requires efficient, data-driven forecasting and professional risk management. Failure risks must be minimized in any case, and at the same time costs – and energy requirements – should be balanced. Otherwise, infrastructure and technology providers will not be able to optimally manage growth in the coming years and exploit development opportunities.

Decoupling data volume and energy demand

Up to now, the increasing volume of data has also led to higher energy requirements. In order to achieve the politically prescribed climate targets, the two flows must be decoupled from each other. This is where procurement can provide the decisive impetus to find cost-optimized and at the same time innovative solutions.

 

 

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