Global - BuddeComm's International Consulting Activities

Synopsis

Over the last fifteen years Paul Budde has established himself as one of the world’s foremost advisers on the deployment of national broadband networks for the digital development of cities and countries. He has been successful in providing a vision, linked to policy and business strategies, which shows that high-speed broadband is essential national infrastructure for the next stage of social and economic development; and that government leadership is needed to achieve a rapid deployment, nationwide, in order to remain internationally competitive and to maintain current lifestyle expectations.

Smart energy is the other key infrastructure element in the development of smart communities, cities, and indeed countries, and Paul has been involved in smart cities and smart energy since 2001.

After assisting the Australian government in setting up its NBN, Paul advised governments in the USA, UK, Netherlands, Ireland, New Zealand and Qatar. This culminated in his being the co-initiator of the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development.

Paul was also instrumentals in developing the vision and obtaining $100 million government funding for the Smart Grid, Smart City project which was launched by the Australian government in 2009. He established Smart Grid Australia and became a founding board member of the Global Smart Grid Federation.

Using the insights he gained from these activities Pau has expanded his consultancy activities to focus on the sector and industry transformation that is becoming essential in the interconnected/sharing/digital economy. It has become clear that today’s economic climate is forcing organisations to transform themselves, and ICT infrastructure – broadband, smart grids, smart cities, cloud computing, datacentres, M2M, IoT and big data – is of major importance in this. Without a smart use of ICT organisations will not be able to transform and achieve the digital productivity that can often remove 50% or more of the costs attached to their current business model.

A similar level of digital productivity needs to be achieved in sectors such as telecommunications, media, energy utilities, retail, healthcare, education and so on.

Paul advises investment companies – over 100 in the last decade – of the consequences, opportunities and risks related to the transformation of individual telcos, ISPs, media companies and new digital companies arriving in the market.

He organises workshops and training sessions for businesses, aimed at facilitating this process of change – checking out new businesses models and looking at opportunities and potential risks.