Becoming a digital telecom – meeting increased customer demands and changing the way we work

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Anamarija Mlinaric, Project Director, HT

The telecommunications industry has experienced more change in the last decade than in its entire history. In 1999, only 15 percent of the world’s population had access to a telephone; by 2009, nearly 70 percent had mobile phone subscriptions. Then, this decade has brought steep declines in public switched telephone network (PSTN) voice revenues, an explosion of over-the-top (OTT) communication services, phenomenal growth in mobile communications, global industry consolidation and even ground-breaking telco decisions to outsource their networks. At the same time, the volume, diversity and complexity of data continue to grow. In addition, telecommunications companies face immense pressure with increasing customer demands for personalization, cost pressures, dynamic ecosystems, and facing new entrants in a hyper-competitive environment. More than ever, telecommunications service providers need to rely on the latest technological innovations to be able to capture and analyze data in real time to meet the increasingly high expectations of empowered customers and to become digital service providers.

As the leading provider of telecommunications services, Hrvatski Telekom serves 2.2 million mobile subscribers, almost 1.0 million fixed lines, 408,000 television services and 763,000 broadband connections. In such a mature telecom market, telecommunication providers face hurdles when it comes to delivering an optimal customer experience as subscriber demands around new technologies and services shift the landscape.

After a decade of unprecedented change, where the phenomenal growth of mobile telephony has given rise to an era in which anyone who wants telephony has it, the industry is at its turning point as it positions itself for future growth. Good strategy is crucial for future business development – therefore we at Hrvatski Telekom have positioned ourselves as the strongest local investor in network infrastructure aiming to deliver crucial backbone for any service. Listening to customers, we are covering their needs through implementation of various differentiated services – tariffs tailored for youth segment, convergent offers for families, and smart solutions for business. Developing new digital businesses, service personalization and an agile and more efficient, performance-based organization are also part of our strategy and a way how to maintain the position of premium service provider on the market, aiming for the the best customer experience.

At the same time, we are facing an accelerated growth and complexity of converged telecom offerings in everyday business operations, combined with growing customer demands which makes us need to modernize our customer relationship processes. This was the crucial step that governed our digital transformation towards new CRM system implementation that will help us improve customer experience with quicker, easier and more engaging processes to better anticipate customer needs and solve customer requests.

We teamed up with IBM Global Business Services with the goal to implement a new customer relationship management system based on Oracle Siebel solution tailored specifically for telecommunications which is expected to raise the customer experience to a new, better level. We are looking forward to getting all the information about our customers, to know what happens with customers at all touch points, to discover their needs through some advanced analytical capabilities so that we can take steps to facilitate and improve their experience. With this intervention that will last for three years, we change the very heart of the company, in order to have state-of-the-art technology, satisfied employees and the best customer experience.

Since delivering such a project is always a challenge, partnering with IBM will help us reach required efficiencies and agility while addressing the critical elements of digital change, reducing costs, and operational disruption for better customer engagement. The new CRM system will introduce unique data storage and processing system for all our customers. Business processes related to the new CRM system are planned to be optimized and simplified, and contribute to the satisfaction of customers and employees who will use the new system.

It was interesting to notice that already during the early project activities, mindset of employees – project team members – changed towards visionary designers. Overnight, the organization started to dramatically increase the number of fully automated process steps, enhance the powerful marketing hub functionalities and provide a more efficient customer 360 view.

Working on a new CRM system implementation project is part of our company’s big business and IT transformation – it is a great challenge and reference for everyone involved!