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Communications & Media

FEBRUARY 26 – 29 | BARCELONA

Accenture at MWC Barcelona 2024

Reinvent connectivity: Master the know-how to grow now

About MWC 2024

MWC Barcelona, the largest connectivity event, showcased cutting-edge technology and influential visionaries. We highlighted our role as a knowledge partner, delivering keynotes and demos. We demonstrated how we enable growth through Gen AI and ecosystems, driving efficiency, innovation, and scalability in the connected world.

What happened

We enjoyed collaborating with our partners and clients, and sharing valuable insights on GSMA’s key event themes, such as humanizing AI, 5G and beyond and connecting everything.

Julie Sweet's keynote emphasized change in communications, collaboration, the GMSAs Open Gateway, and AI with CEOs from Ethio Telecom, Telstra Group, Deutsche Telekom, and Liberty Global.

Kathleen O'Reilly, Global CMT Industry Practices Chair, urged companies to embrace gen AI. Presenters from BT, Vodafone, SK Telecom and Ericsson emphasized the need for a solid technical base and responsible AI to support rapid AI application growth.

Lan Guan, Chief AI Officer, and top leaders from Telia and Verizon discussed strategic use of gen AI, showcasing its impact on talent management, operations, and network engineering, especially in 5G deployment.

Microsoft-sponsored session, led by Andy Tay, Global Lead – Cloud First, discussed smart factories, AI, Digital Twins, XR, 5G, IoT, and Automation. Real-world challenges: customization, security, flexibility, efficiency, sustainability.

Industry experts assessed the current state of XR in a session moderated by Yusuf Tayob. They discussed use cases, applications, and the fragmentation of digital worlds, questioning the proximity to widespread XR adoption and its true value today.

Laura Peterson, CMT NA Lead, discussed AI trends and strategies with panelists from SVP, NVIDIA, and Amdocs. They explored seamless AI integration in customer engagement across industries like telco, marketing, retail, and finance.

Executives from Huawei, Broadcom, Wind River Systems, Analog Devices, and Schneider Electric joined Jeff Wang, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, Cloud First, to discuss cloud computing and intelligent edge technologies in shaping Industry 4.0.

Juhi Munjai, Managing Director, Strategy & Consulting Global Network alongside leaders from NTT Data, Turkcell, and XME.digital discussed the underlying causes of bias in AI systems namely the human touch, training and data algorithmic biases.

Gen AI workshops

Generative AI dominated conversations at MWC, so we offered a series of gen AI workshops as part of our MWC24 program. We covered key topics such as: scale, tech debt, talent, networks, innovation, and customer experience. These closed-door sessions with industry executive peers dove into critical aspects of gen AI that CSPs must consider for successful implementation.

If you’d like to schedule a similar meeting or workshop in your organization, please reach out to your Accenture contact or by using the Contact Us button at the bottom of the page.

Connected Industries stage

As GSMA’s exclusive Connected Industries Knowledge Partner at MWC Barcelona, our experts took the stage to discuss how connectivity and other technologies play a central role in delivering smarter and more valuable products and services.

Michele Marrone discussed the real-time impact of 5G in sustainability and the energy transition in the railway industry. Clients and partners highlighted the crucial role of 5G in fueling the industry's evolution.

Jeff Wang led a panel discussion on the readiness of the manufacturing sector to adopt private wireless technologies, addressing challenges and opportunities in scaling it up and enhancing connectivity and operational efficiency.

Teresa Tung discussed deploying gen AI and LLMs in industrial environments, focusing on safety scenarios. Clients shared insights on AI applications in manufacturing and future industry design.

Sulabh Agarwal and experts from telcos, FinTech, and payments partners discussed next-gen payments, driven by data and modernized tech, facilitating connected digital experiences across businesses, consumers, devices, and machines.Intelligent Network Operations & Automation.

Yusuf Tayob and senior leaders from Bolttech, Trustonic and Yabx explored how a deep understanding of market dynamics has been combined with new technologies to launch and rapidly scale the latest FinTech solutions.

Devyani Ozarde discussed the changing role of audience cultivators in the attention economy highlighting the importance of understanding the core audience, balancing content differentiation and cost efficiency, and diversifying revenue streams.

Inspiring demos

More than 120 demo experiences were shared with clients, partners and media during the four intense days of the event. Our featured demos showcased how we’re empowering global connectivity leaders to innovate smarter, grow faster and compete better with enriched experience plans, a modern digital core and a future network strategy in the era of Generative AI.

Who was there?

Julie Sweet

Chair & CEO

Kathleen O’Reilly

Global Communications, Media and Technology Industry Practices Chair

Francesco Venturini

Communications & Media Industry Sector Lead

Boris Maurer

Managing Director – Communications & Media Lead, EMEA

Jefferson Wang

Senior Managing Director – Global Technology Convergence Lead

Lan Guan

Chief AI Officer

Yusuf Tayob

Group Chief Executive – Operations

Andy Tay

Global Lead – Cloud First

Juergen Reers

Senior Managing Director – Global Industry Sector Lead, Automotive

Sulabh Agarwal

Managing Director – Management Consulting

Laura Peterson

Products Senior Client Account and Growth Lead

Teresa Tung

Cloud First Chief Technologist

Devyani Ozarde

Managing Director – Client Account Executive

Marco Dellarole

Managing Director – Enterprise and Connected Industry Networks Europe

Juhi Munjal

Managing Director – Ind & Func AI Value Strategy Executive