Bridging the skills gap: Why people power telecom transformation

In my early days at Google, I witnessed first-hand the seismic shift as marketing changed from analogue to digital. We were innovating at a fast pace, building new tools and platforms to reach customers in smarter ways. But despite the technological breakthroughs, one truth became clear: organisations don’t transform just because the tech does. They transform when their people do.

That realisation led me to create Google’s Digital Academy, a programme designed to equip teams with the skills and mindset needed to embrace digital marketing. It wasn’t just about learning new tools; it was about changing how people worked, collaborated, and even how they thought. That experience shaped my belief that transformation is powered by people, and it’s a belief I carry into my current role at TM Forum, helping drive change across the telecoms industry.

At TM Forum, we're exploring a bold new direction, one that brings together our strengths in innovation, collaboration, technical conformance and education to help individuals and organisations chart meaningful transformation journeys. We call it the Pathway for Progress.

The Challenge: Skills Gaps and the Human Side of Change

Today, telecoms leaders are under pressure to unlock new revenue streams, accelerate speed to market, and meet rising customer expectations. The appetite for deriving the benefits of AI-enabled solutions is increasing dramatically, and the promise of autonomous networks underpinned by composable architectures is within reach. But we see that the pace of new technology innovation is outstripping the pace of building capability and skills.

IT teams are stretched. They’re juggling the drive to accelerate delivery of robust next-gen solutions with the realities of legacy infrastructure. They need to partner with vendors and integrators, yet often lack the shared language or framework required to collaborate effectively. And while technology evolves rapidly, the skills needed to harness it — and the time to acquire those skills — remain elusive.

This isn’t just a technical challenge. It’s a human one. Transformation demands more than new systems; it demands new ways of working. And for IT leaders to become true change agents they need to be empowered, not just with tools, but with confidence, clarity, and capability.

Of course, we are also asking: ‘will AI help to solve all this?’. Well – yes and no.  ‘Yes’ because AI will be our friend in helping industry professionals learn faster and better, and yes because some of the technological challenges they need to address will become easier as AI takes on more of the load of the work itself. But the answer is also ‘Not completely’ because while we still have people leading business strategy, innovation, architecture, software development, network engineering, operations, sales, marketing and more – there is a real need to upskill at greater speed and scale.  AI will not remove this need – it will just change the nature of how it’s done, and the specific skills required. And critically – whatever the method, it will always be important to understand how upskilling efforts are resulting in real progress – for people and for their business.

Pathways for Progress: Shaping the Future of Transformation

We know that for large organisations, it’s often difficult to tell how change is truly delivering benefit. And that’s why we’re developing the Pathways for Progress concept: a way to define concrete achievements and milestones that act as clear signals of progress – with ladders to climb and incentives to progress - both for individuals and for companies.

We are developing a simple, unified framework to recognise and reward many of the things that industry professionals are doing to transform personally and to enable transformation within their companies and their industry. From getting certified in industry-critical knowledge and skills, to creating new innovations, collaborating on new standards and ensuring their company adopts best practices.   We are creating a programme to help everyone build a more compelling and motivational picture of their transformation.

This is not a finished programme. We’re still designing it — and we want our members to help shape it. At Innovate Asia, we’ll be sharing our early thinking and inviting feedback. If you're interested in seeing the plans and contributing to their development, we warmly encourage you to join the session.

Getting started

If you’re ready to take the next step, explore our free training course or reach out to our education team. Let’s build the future — together.