Scott Petty, CTO of the UK opco, will take over responsibilities at group level for digital and services.
Vodafone Group is restructuring its IT and network-related organization as it continues its effort to become a techco, Telco Titans reported [subscription needed].
Alberto Ripepi, currently the group’s Deputy CTO, will be in charge of all networks, while Scott Petty, CTO of Vodafone UK, will be responsible at group level for all things digital and services.
Both will report directly to Group CTO, Johan Wibergh, who is continuing in his current role.
Petty’s move to a group role was flagged in a comprehensive interview he did for the recent, inaugural Leadership Confessions podcast. As CTO in the UK he has had a high profile, for example leading proceedings the UK’s 5G launch and has championed Open RAN – a commitment reinforced by Vodafone and its largest competitors last week.
Part of the techco strategy
Apparently the thinking behind the shake-up is to execute the ongoing tech strategy of standardising processes, internally generated code and infrastructure right across the company.
Uniformity in these aspects should making scaling more straightforward and bring economies of scale in everything from procurement to deployment for services such as IoT and for cloud-based deployments, for internal operations as well as for new services customers as they move to digitalise.
Vodafone has said it will roll 5G-based edge computing services in the UK and Germany this year, using software from Amazon Web Services to reduce latency, which should pave the way for new applications.
Petty has a track record of working with application developers, including Digital Barriers, which analyses video from cameras worn by first responders.
Common approach
Last week BT announced it would separate responsibilities for its IT and infrastructure, and create a Digital unit, as Harmeen Mehta joins its top tech from Bharti Airtel where she pioneered the use of analytics and AI. Telefonica made a similar move in February 2020.