Interview to Stéphane Allaire, Chief Innovation Officer at Bouygues Telecom

We have talked with Stéphane Allaire, Chief Innovation Officer at Bouygues Telecom. He shared with us his thoughts about Alaian and how this partnership is going to change the telco industry.

What does Alaian mean to you? How would you define it in one word?

I would say that Alaian is open-mindedness, and the key idea behind it is that we share innovations with other Telcos that are not our competitors.

We face the same issues, we have similar customers, the same challenges in network deployment, market pressure, race on new technologies. The value from Alaian is to share all of this to learn from the other and to tell our stories, either successful or failure.

What does your telco contribute to the overall alliance?

Bouygues Telecom is a French carrier with more than 16 million customers. We bring two majors elements to the alliance: We are telecom carrier in only one country,  so our strategy in a multi countries communication is interesting. We belong to the Bouygues Group with many activities (Television, construction, city, building, energy, road…). All these activities help us to better understand the need of our business customers.

Highlight a key telco technology for you today

The next big thing will be the merge between information and telecommunication systems. All the technical solution we use in the information systems: the cloud (hybride, private), the open source, the agility, the compute on demand, the artificial intelligence…  will enter in the telco world. It will impact heavely our way to build and deploy network in the future.

In consecuence, these improvements will enhance our customer experience and will create more value beyond the networks we deploy.

Why is it so important to innovate, and what role does innovation plays in your company?

If your enterprise doesn’t innovate it will die. And the thing is that, not only you need to innovate to survive but you need to do it faster and faster.

What does an alliance like this offer the entrepreneurial ecosystem?

Alaian offers a place to meet many customers with different needs in one meeting point. So it is a valuable place to spend some time to learn, build and make business.

What would you say to startups who want to be part of Allaian?

If you want to innovate within the telco indrustry, it is the place to be.