Network Is the Strategic Foundation of Digital Business

For enterprise customers across Europe, telecom is no longer just about connectivity. It is becoming a partner for end-to-end digital transformation. That is the central message from Mirela Šešerko, Vice President for B2B Product Development for Europe at Deutsche Telekom, as she describes a market shaped by network automation, cloud, cybersecurity, communications platforms, artificial intelligence, and the growing need for European digital sovereignty. In that environment, the network is no longer a hidden utility. It is the base layer on which every serious digital service depends.

Šešerko sees the current period as one of the most dynamic phases the industry has experienced in years. “We are seeing major changes in technology right now,” she says, arguing that the transformation is happening both inside the network itself and in the way companies organise their operations. In her view, telecom is moving beyond faster and more resilient connectivity toward “automation and digitalisation,” with a strong shift to cloud-based, network and application environments. AI is accelerating that trend, and, as she puts it, it is “enabling a major transformation within companies and in the way they work.”

At Deutsche Telekom, that translates into a portfolio that stretches well beyond traditional telecom infrastructure. “As a telecom operator, we offer the full portfolio of services,” Šešerko says. That means the evolution of enterprise networks from legacy models toward software-defined environments, alongside broader management of Wi-Fi and LAN infrastructures. Security is becoming just as critical, particularly as a new wave of regulation starts to bite across Europe. Speaking about security architectures and cloud-based approaches, she notes that “this is where we see strong growth.” The implication is clear: enterprise customers now expect telecom providers to deliver not a single service, but an integrated technology stack.

Communications platforms are another area where operators are trying to create new enterprise value. Šešerko points to Deutsche Telekom’s work with Infobip on a CPaaS offering designed to let businesses engage customers across multiple digital channels, including social and messaging platforms. At the same time, the group is working on RCS Business Messaging to make enterprise-to-customer communication more unified and more effective. Behind that sits a broader infrastructure layer, including data centre services as well as both private and public cloud options tailored to different user requirements, from smaller businesses to large enterprises.

The most important point in the interview, however, is her view of the network itself. What used to be treated as an invisible layer in the background is now a strategic asset. “The network is becoming the strategic foundation for digital transformation,” Šešerko says. When customers say the network is something they take for granted, she argues, what they really mean is that they expect full availability, adequate capacity, and a high level of security. “They expect the network to function in the best possible way,” she says, because today “everything is connected through the network.” Without that stable and secure foundation, there is no meaningful way to scale AI, cloud services, digital workflows, or new customer-facing services.

She also stresses that the industry was discussing many of today’s themes five years ago, long before the business impact became fully visible. Even then, the logic was clear: infrastructure had to be built ahead of demand, because “you cannot develop use cases if you do not have the platform on which to deliver them.” That logic now looks prescient. AI, IoT, robotics, and autonomous systems are creating a rapidly expanding universe of connected devices that share data and require real-time processing. As a result, enterprise expectations of telecom providers are rising well beyond connectivity and into compute, security, flexibility, and orchestration across multiple digital layers.

In Europe, that discussion increasingly overlaps with sovereignty. Geopolitical pressures have accelerated the sense that the region needs its own secure and high-quality digital capabilities. “Europe has realised that we need to be sovereign,” Šešerko says, arguing that the continent has significant know-how and untapped potential that can still be mobilised. She points to a growing number of European startups building digital and network services, while also noting that major international partners are willing to invest in sovereign solutions for the European market. The broader conclusion is that as digital transformation enters its next phase, network, cloud, security, and AI can no longer be treated as separate domains. Together, they are becoming the strategic system on which Europe’s future competitiveness will be built.