Spa Communications Attends Capacity Europe 2024

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The 2024 event, which took place on 15th-17th October, saw over 3,000 senior decision-makers gather at Intercontinental at the O2 to network, and gain fresh insights from global leaders including AWS, Nokia, Deutsche Telekom, Equinix and Connectbase.

During the event, we attended various high-impact panels that discussed the key issues around cloud adoption, customer experience transformation for the better, and messaging service evolution. Here’s a glimpse of what we experienced:

The State of Cloud Adoption in Europe


Cloud computing is now seen as a cornerstone for digital transformation in the telecom and connectivity industry. Businesses are now seeing the increased benefits in the cloud – scalability, flexibility, and cost efficiency – however, widespread European cloud adoption doesn’t come about without its challenges in data sovereignty, privacy regulations, and operational concerns.

This panel, moderated by Scott Roots, Sales Director EMEA at DC Byte, heard from industry leaders, Warren Barrie, SVP Sales at Kevlinx Data Centers, Guillaume Sampic, VP Service Provider Segment EMEA at Digital Realty, Brendan Rawle, Senior Director, Business Development EMEA at Equinix, Olena Lutsenko, Business Development Director at RETN, and Andrew van der Haar, Founder and MD at Fiber Carrier Association, who all discussed the key topics of cloud maturity and scalability of cloud strategies.

The panel explored issues in data sovereignty, especially considering regulation alignments like GDPR, in managing data localisation requirements. These privacy frameworks are set to protect people’s data, but they do bring out complex issues for businesses looking to fully embrace cloud solutions. For companies that operate across different regions, sensitive data has to be kept within defined geographical boundaries, which can limit their choice of providers and complicate cloud strategies. Places with lower cloud maturity are finding innovative ways to help the traditional adoption processes by using AI cloud optimisation and edge computing solutions to support.

What was also interesting was on the topic of cloud migration, and how not all workloads are ideal for the cloud. Businesses have to evaluate the most suitable cloud approach to benefit for flexibility and scalability. For critical infrastructure providers, this is a larger challenge as operational resiliency and regulations are the top priority. In this, operating in multi-cloud environments sets another challenge. The panel discussed the need for standardised interfaces to allow workloads to move freely across cloud environment – crucial in the telco industry.

As we listened to the panel, our takeaway was that businesses need tailored, strategic cloud adoption strategies that meet their operational needs, as well as meet regulations and technological requirements.

Delivering Joyful Customer Experiences Through Multichannel Messaging Services


The focus then shifted to how businesses can revolutionise customer engagement and experience through advanced communication approaches.

Even though SMS remains a highly effective and reliable form of communication, the panel delved into how this might be pushed aside, making way for more multi-channel messaging services to be used.
Joining the panel was moderator Dario Betti, CEO of Mobile Ecosystem Forum, Chanderhas Rana, Chief Business Development Officer of Bankai Group, Tim Biddle, Director of Operations, Commercial Management at SINCH, Claudine Bell, Partner Business Manager – Messaging & Payments at Virgin Media O2, Othman Cheddadi, CEO of Atlas Communications, and Pascal Prot, CEO of LEGOS, who discussed how businesses can move beyond traditional SMS platforms to create a more personalised and seamless customer experience.

What stood out was that even through today’s customers expect to engage with businesses across multiple channels and platforms, businesses are now empowered to take it a step further and deliver messages in a unified system for a more flexible experience. Even bringing in the potential for RCS to transform conversations to make them more dynamic and engaging, combining this with AI as well to have more personalisation in communication.

This session showed the importance and the varying opportunities that businesses have in innovating their messaging styles, and by embracing multichannel messaging, it will become a more customer-centric approach that builds a stronger connection and drives long-term engagement.

Our Key Takeaways:
Among these panels we attended, Capacity has recently released their ‘12 Takeaways from Capacity Europe 2024’ article, highlighting some of the essential industry insights from the event. We picked out a few of our favourites below:

  • Regulation and mindset importance in industry transformation: having a forward-thinking mindset, as well as being aligned with regulations is key in driving growth and innovation in the telecom sector. During the event, leaders in the industry expressed the effective digital strategies are solidified in a culture that is ready to embrace new solutions.
  • Data centres still demand power, but going nuclear doesn’t solve going green: data centers consume a large amount of power even though sustainable energy is a top priority. Using nuclear energy as an alternative hasn’t been fully explored whether it meets goals in a greener future, but more efficient solutions are being explored.
  • AI’s full extent is yet to be determined: at the event, industry leaders agreed that while AI’s potential is vast, its ultimate impact on the telecom sector remain unclear.

As part of its work, Spa was tasked with building brand awareness and supporting the shows media relations strategy, establishing new media partnerships and securing journalists from a host of national and business titles to join the event.

“Capacity Europe has long been recognized as one of Europe’s premier events, and we’re thrilled to have collaborated with techoraco to expand its reach among key influencers in industry media,” said Charlotte Wood, Account Director at Spa Communications. “With the addition of new partners and enhanced media relations, Capacity Europe 2024 has offered even greater value to its audience, top sponsors and speakers, creating a lasting impact both now and moving forward.”