Tech Insights: Interview with Thorsten Punke, TE Connectivity

In our Tech Insights series, we quiz industry leaders to get their views of what the year ahead holds for the IT world. Today we speak with Thorsten Punke, Strategic Marketing Manager, ANZ, TE Connectivity.

What do you see as the single biggest challenge facing the ICT industry in the year ahead, and why?

The balance between pricing and quality. Just as in other areas of ICT, each year customers expect lower prices but at the same quality level. This is forcing suppliers to develop innovate processes to meet this demand, while simultaneously implementing a permanent review of the entire life cycle of products and systems.

At the same time, non-compliant or low-cost products are entering the market, making it difficult for customers to easily see the difference in value for money.

What do you see as the two or three biggest growth opportunities for your customers in 2015, and why?

Public Wi-Fi, smart or green buildings, and smart connectivity. The future trend is big data and connected cities. More and more people and devices will become network ready and allow different applications. Smart connectivity is essential to support the IT management with information in order to handle the team tasks more efficiently.

Using cabling as an example, the systems will become intelligent and can provide information to the software management, so you can see what is connected, asset information and so on. What is coming next is the global standard for this, the AIM standard - and this will bring automated infrastructure management.

What emerging trends or developing technologies may influence or change the way the ICT industry will do business in 2015, and why?

I see four things. The first is any kind of wireless technology. And when I say any kind, there are two technologies currently emerging - one is the 3G/4G technology and the other one is Wi-Fi. The second trend is the way in which online business will change the way we deal with customers.

The third is the information that we have to provide to our customers, which will definitely change that relationship. So, for example, 10 years ago a customer would ask for fact sheets - today they may want to have this in an editable content format.

The fourth is sector pre-terminated products, as they will reduce deployment times and cost - customers are looking for ways to reduce their Capex and Opex, but mainly Opex.

What new and innovative technologies do you see emerging in your IT solution categories in 2015, and how will they help your customers?

Meeting supply and demand requirements, and customer-specific products. We meet this by local production, design and technical support, and warehousing. We have expanded our local capabilities and have a nationwide distribution network. Furthermore, we have offices in all major cities with sales and technical support. At the same time we participate actively in standards committees in Australia and around the world.

Thorsten Punke is the Marketing Manager, ANZ, for Broadband Networks Solutions, a TE Connectivity division. He is responsible for strategic, program and technical marketing. He has 16 years’ industry experience with a wide range of knowledge, eg, copper, fibre, testing, power and active technology. Before he joined the ANZ team, he worked as a global Program Manager for Office Networks and for data centres in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.