Agribusiness is New Tech Battleground for Australia’s Telcos

M. Rogers

Summary Bullets:

• TPG and Telstra have had multiple trials with various agribusiness in Australia, leveraging 5G, AI, IoT, and data services to develop solutions for livestock.

• Both companies have yet to develop commercialized solutions, and could consider joint ventures with or acquisitions of agritech firms to fully capitalize on the vertical opportunity.

Cows, potatoes, and tomatoes could be the next tech and telco battleground in Australia. Leading telcos Telstra and TPG have both made recent announcements around their efforts to develop converged technology offerings centered on agriculture use cases.

In March 2023 Telstra announced a partnership with Charles Sturt University (CSU) and Food Agility, an industry-focused research and development organization, to develop innovative agricultural technology solutions. The collaboration aims to leverage Telstra’s network capabilities and IoT expertise as well as its “Telstra Data Hub” alongside CSU’s research and academic resources, and Food Agility’s industry connections to support the development of innovative use cases at CSU and Agility’s jointly operated “Global Digital Farm”. The farm, located in Wagga Wagga, NSW, is a commercial farm that incorporates technology labs, innovation centers, and training facilities.

This is not the first foray Telstra has made into developing prototypes for the agriculture and livestock industry. Last March the company partnered with IBM to test a data sharing platform to track western rock lobsters as they move across the supply chain from boat to distribution. Telstra also ran a similar trial with Meat and Livestock Australia in July 2022.

Meanwhile, announced last October, TPG Telecom partnered with the University of Technology Sydney, Nokia, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop a cattle counting solution for the Tamworth Livestock exchange. The solutions leverage TPG 5G network to deliver multiple live video feeds of cattle as the move into the exchange, and uses AI-video analytics run on an edge server to count the cattle as they enter, eliminating human error and reducing the need for man hours in a typically laborious process.

Telstra and TPG are hoping to capitalize on a critical industry for Australia, that is underpenetrated with technology. According to the Royal Bank of Australia, the Australian Agriculture industry contributed AUD52 billion to GDP in the calendar year 2022, and has been growing at an average annual rate of 15% over the past three years. There is also a growing demand for agriculture technology solutions. GlobalData Connected Enterprise Tracker, (viewed in March 2023) shows that there are 365 deployments across the world since 2011, including 93 within the last three years. Between use cases, environmental monitoring, people and animal tracking, and condition monitoring lead the demand by accounting for 70% of the total deployments. However, both telcos will face the challenge of moving from trials and prototypes to repeatable business. Despite lengthy prototype periods, neither have announced any commercial solutions.

However, both Telstra and TPG have the right ingredients in place. Telstra’s Datahub can address broader agricultural issues in regulatory compliance, traceability, environmental health, biosecurity, and more efficient food supply networks. Telstra also has wide IoT capabilities across multiple stacks including devices, networks, cybersecurity and platform, which can support and enhance the development of agriculture technology solutions. TPG’s machine vision, paired with private network and edge compute can enable a host of applications for regional farms that go beyond cattle counting to areas like farm security, aerial crop analytics, or grading and sorting.

The broader issue however is the unique challenges that come with each agribusiness use case, and each individual customer. While TPG and Telstra and their technology partners can provide horizontal expertise, the labor cost of developing and deploying field trials that suit the needs of individual agribusiness customer is too high. To be truly competitive in commercializing solutions for agriculture, Telstra and TPG should consider developing more specific skills either through acquisition or joint ventures. Telstra is already taking this approach to the mining sector with its purchase of Alliance Automation.

Meanwhile, TPG is also focusing on industry for its 5G, IoT, and private networks business, and has mentioned sales teams dedicated to mining and energy. However, TPG could consider specializing in agriculture as it seeks to grow its private 5G business with Nokia. Compared to other industries like mining and energy, there fewer existing private wireless customers and it could be a greenfield for them to grow in.

 

Cybersecurity: Corporate Boards Take a Reactive Approach to Security

Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

• Though more than 76% of the surveyed corporate directors say their boards had at least one cybersecurity expert member, only one-third highly regarded their board of directors’ ability to navigate a security disaster.

• Leadership is not as proactive as it should be in getting ahead of incidents. Fewer than half of the board of directors who participated in the study had conducted cybersecurity tabletop exercises in the last 12 months.

The Wall Street Journal and the National Association of Corporate Directors surveyed 472 directors across all industries about their current cyber risk management postures and their respective levels of preparedness. The survey comes in advance of new US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requirements that public companies release uniform reports on cybersecurity risk management, governance, incident reports, and cybersecurity expertise within their board of directors. The survey results paint a mixed picture that reveals a fairly high level of expertise but a largely reactive approach to security.

Does Broadcom’s Acquisition of VMware Create an Unfair Playing Field?

R. Muru

Summary Bullets:

• The proposed Broadcom and VMware deal could create a conglomerate effect in the server virtualization market.

• The uncertainty of the deal will impact customers on their decisions on current and future VMware investments, resulting in some customers switching to competitors.

Broadcom has a Checkered M&A History
GlobalData previously provided commentary questioning if Broadcom had the right profile, but more importantly, the right pedigree to be the company acquiring VMware. After all this is one of the largest potential acquisitions resulting in VMware being acquired by Broadcom for approximately $61 billion in a cash-and-stock transaction, together with VMware’s net debt of $8 billion.

European Telcos: Which Future Operating Model?

R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

• Europe’s rumor mill is running at high capacity, but it’s becoming ever clearer that – despite the EU – in telecoms, the region remains a series of national markets.

• Activist investors, workforce reductions, fast-changing technology, hyper-competition, multiple layers of regulation, socio-economic changes, and the digitization of everything have got C-suite heads spinning.

Unsubstantiated reports in the press of BT seeking to replace its CEO, Philip Jansen, are typical of a market that is not entirely sure where it is going. Activist investors, cross-shareholdings, and in-country consolidation are confusing enough for the telco C-suite. Add to that, the complications of national and EU regulation, growing ESG requirements, employee ‘rightsizing,’ broad socio-economic and workplace changes, rapidly evolving technologies, the key role of digitization across all aspects of home and work life, plus the need to invest in both infrastructure and systems – it is no wonder that heads are spinning.

Cybersecurity Providers Must Approach 2023 with Product Simplicity and Consolidation in Mind

R. Muru

Summary Bullets:

• Vendors with wider portfolio and high growth product suites should focus on enterprise portfolio consolidation, with strong supporting business case.

• Vendors must factor in their revenue projections longer sales cycles and project delays on more complex cybersecurity deals in 2023.

Enterprise Trends:
As 2023 progresses, enterprises continue to face tough economic conditions. This year has already witnessed mass layoffs in technology and other sectors as organizations look to cut costs and streamline operations ahead of what is expected to be major reductions in consumer and corporate spending. IT budgets are expected to suffer as planned projects get shelved and executives reassess priorities.

Enterprises Should Not Pause Their Technology Spend

S. Schuchart

Summary Bullets:

• Layoffs and economic events are making enterprise buyers think about their technology spending.

• Its not time to cut off technology spending on core systems to help the business and to help IT.

It was announced that Disney has laid off its entire metaverse team of about 50 individuals as part of a much larger layoff strategy. Layoffs at tech companies, or companies that are heavily invested in tech such as Disney seem to be happening a great deal recently and it has induced some level of uncertainty regarding tech and the larger economy in general.

Threat Preparedness: Not Ready for Prime Time

Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

• IT security preparedness may not be where it should be, but organizations are keenly aware of the threat. Some 82% of those surveyed in Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index said cybersecurity incidents are likely to disrupt their businesses over the next 12 to 24 months.

• Nearly 60% had been hit by a security breach in the last 12 months.

Enterprise cybersecurity awareness is at an all-time high as challenges associated with protecting IT resources and organizations across most industries building out end user security training. However, even with increasing education, a surprisingly high percentage of organizations are still underprepared to mount a strong defense against cyber threats. In Cisco’s first ever Cybersecurity Readiness Index, based on metrics across five pillars of IT security (identity, devices, network, application workloads, and data) and the implementation stage of 19 security solutions with those, only 15% of the 6,700 were met the requirements to be considered as “mature” in their cyber readiness. Thirty percent were rated “progressive” in their preparedness. Forty-seven percent were categorized as formative in their security implementations. And eight percent are very early in their security journeys, with a beginner ranking.

AWS Cloud Day Malaysia – New Region and Diverse Vertical Capabilities to Drive Malaysia’s Digital Ecosystem

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A. Amir

Summary Bullets:
• AWS’ new Malaysia region and diverse industrial capabilities will strengthen its market position.
• Industry collaborations will be the key to capturing growing business-led cloud opportunities.

AWS held Malaysia Cloud Day earlier this month and shared its latest plans in the country including a plan to invest $6 billion in the country by 2037. The investment will include a new local region to address the increasing adoption of cloud services in the country as well as various programs to upskill workforce in the country (for more, please see AWS Malaysia Region Will Address Malaysian Cloud Demand but Could Lose Early Market Opportunities to Competitors, March 6, 2023). At the event, AWS also shared various success stories with a number of enterprises across different industries including key players such as Petronas, Pos Malaysia, Bank Islam, Carsome, Axiata, and Astro. This is crucial to showcase AWS’ capabilities not only to offer basic cloud services, but also to work closely with enterprises on their cloud-led digital transformation and help them address business challenges through a wide range of solutions.

Mobile Operators Amping up Capabilities for Private Wireless Networks

Kathryn Weldon – Research Director, Business Network and IT Services – Americas

Summary Bullets:

• GlobalData’s Private LTE/5G Wireless Network Services report update shows mixed results for the last six months as operators faced increasing competition from system integrators, network equipment, and infrastructure vendors; several operators publicly acknowledged slower than anticipated momentum.

• In spite of this difficult competitive environment, most operators enhanced offerings or struck alliances to help boost the likelihood of opportunities down the road. All still consider private wireless networks to be a substantial revenue opportunity.

The public announcements below were made between September 2022 and February 2023 and disclosed a mixture of technology and go-to-market alliances, a few new customer trials or commercial deals, some unique offerings for specific segments or verticals, and adjacent network or technology advancements that should have a positive effect on future private network momentum.

Meta Walks Away from NFTs – You Should Too

S. Schuchart

Summary Bullets:
• NFTs have had their moment in the sun.
• Meta and others are walking away from them.

Social media giant Meta (formerly Facebook) announced early in March that it was discontinuing support for NFTs across Facebook and Instagram. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital tokens verified by blockchain technology, in theory to verify ownership of a particular image, despite that image not being hosted on the blockchain itself. NFTs were the subject of a torrent of hype and some truly incredible investment by individuals and companies, with individual NFTs going for hundreds or millions of dollars or the equivalent cryptocurrency. Like many trends NFTs became fashionable, with celebrities not only buying them but outright endorsing them. As with any trend where the money flows freely, it got so big so quickly that a lot of businesses tried to jump on the bandwagon.