Game Changer Profile

Robert Novo, Global Director of TCAP at BT Global Services Read insights

Robert Novo is a director in the global services division of BT (British Telecom) where he leads a department responsible for various proactive ITIL functions that are an integral part of a managed services contract for a multi-national, Fortune 200 insurance company. He and his team are responsible for a network with tens of thousands of devices, serving hundreds of sites worldwide. The team provides management and planning of various functions including capacity, inventory, change, problem, release, and knowledge as well as managing and supporting the tools used in the day to day monitoring and operations of the network.

Robert has 30+ years of experience in the industry, having worked with customers all over the world, published papers/articles, and presented at conferences on leading-edge technologies in both Spanish and English. Prior to joining BT, Robert has held a variety of senior leadership positions in the telecommunications networking industry, in areas including business strategy consulting, research and development, product/service management, complex data analysis and forecasting, and software tool support. Robert holds a Master of Engineering degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in computer and systems engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

He has spent almost his entire career in customer facing roles because of the satisfaction he gets of seeing innovations being put into practice, particularly when making strategic decisions. “Every day, we face complex problems that we are challenged to boil down to the right black and white, dollars and cents, decision point. Not enough depth in the analysis increases the risk of a sub-optimal decision. Too much can result in wasted effort and time or ‘paralysis by analysis.’ Understanding the problem statement and determining that sweet spot is essential.” He advocates innovation as early as possible in the problem definition process to maximize the potential benefit.

Robert has developed telecommunications traffic projections for many customers worldwide, with forecasts ranging anywhere from 6 months to 15 years. “The level of detail in the analysis has to be tailored to the forecast window. Near term projections are more driven by trends in existing customers and applications. Longer term, we need to look more into industry disruptors and social, business, and technology trends. Fifteen years ago, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat weren’t around and Facebook was nascent. Fifteen years from now, the Internet may be dominated by a new generation of apps, but a constant will always be the people, companies, and machines behind them creating the traffic.”

In his current position, Robert leads a team of experts located throughout Hungary, India, The United Kingdom, and The United States. Two areas he considers essential to keep his team thinking ahead of the curve are collaboration in the decision making process and customer centricity. “Innovation should not only be a personal objective. We should always look at ways to encourage and nurture it in others.”