CRSP01: Reimagining Telecom Industry pt.1 - Simplification with Dr. Rainer Deutschmann, Global Telecom Leader

The telecom industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation. This shift is creating new business opportunities and services but also brings significant challenges in transformation and modernization. In a new five-part mini-series, Reimagining Telecoms, we will explore these challenges through five distinct lenses: Growth, Networks, Simplification, Data & AI, and Regulation, uncovering lessons and insights relevant to telecom organizations and beyond.

This week, Dave and Rob talk to Rainer Deutschmann, Global Telecom Leader, ex. McKinsey, Deutsche Telekom, Reliance Jio, Axiata, and Telia Company, about Simplification: the state of the Telco industry, the '3S' and '5P' transformation framework to unlock its true value, differences between brownfield and greenfield scenarios, the challenges and outcomes that can be driven by structured, intentional leadership and the ongoing importance of the learning mindset.

'Reimagining Telecoms' Episodes 2 - 5 will be available monthly across the next four months.

TLDR
01:13  Introduction to 'Reimaging Telecoms' mini-series

05:30 Cloud conversation with Rainer Deutschmann
06:42 Physics, quantum computation, and corporate life
09:57 State of the Telco industry, legacy, complexity, and locked value
14:55 Greenfield vs brownfield transformation
18:51 The perfect Telco model and transformation from within
23:13 Simplification, Standardization, and Scaling to unlock value
29:18 Product portfolio simplification, and the business case
34:25 People, leadership and culture change for simplification
39:12 The role of partners and joint incentives
45:15 Key challenges in a transformation and dealing with uncertainty
47:42 min curiosity, and empowering people to leverage technology

50:31 Neuron-silicon connectivity and the role of Telecoms
57:25 Learning from our kids adopting technology!
 
Guest
Rainer Deutschmann: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rainer-deutschmann/

Hosts
Dave Chapman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/
Esmee van de Giessen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esmeevandegiessen/
Rob Kernahan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-kernahan/
 

Production
Marcel van der Burg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-vd-burg/
Dave Chapman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/

with Praveen Shankar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/praveen-shankar-capgemini/

Sound
Ben Corbett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-corbett-3b6a11135/
Louis Corbett:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-corbett-087250264/

'Cloud Realities' is an original podcast from Capgemini

Creators and Guests

Host

Dave Chapman

Chief Cloud Evangelist with nearly 30 years of global experience in strategic development, transformation, program delivery, and operations, I bring a wealth of expertise to the world of cloud innovation. In addition to my professional expertise, I’m the creator and main host of the Cloud Realities podcast, where we explore the transformative power of cloud technology.

Host

Esmee van de Giessen

Principal Consultant Enterprise Transformation and Cloud Realities podcast host, bridges gaps to drive impactful change. With expertise in agile, value delivery, culture, and user adoption, she empowers teams and leaders to ensure technology enhances agility, resilience, and sustainable growth across ecosystems.

Host

Rob Kernahan

VP Chief Architect for Cloud and Cloud Realities podcast host, drives digital transformation by combining deep technical expertise with exceptional client engagement. Passionate about high-performance cultures, he leverages cloud and modern operating models to create low-friction, high-velocity environments that fuel business growth and empower people to thrive.

Producer

Marcel van der Burg

VP Global Marketing and producer of the Cloud Realities podcast, is a strategic marketing leader with 33+ years of experience. He drives global cloud marketing strategies, leveraging creativity, multi-channel expertise, and problem-solving to deliver impactful business growth in complex environments.

What is Cloud Realities?

Exploring the practical and exciting alternate realities that can be unleashed through cloud driven transformation and cloud native living and working.

Each episode, our hosts Dave, Esmee & Rob talk to Cloud leaders and practitioners to understand how previously untapped business value can be released, how to deal with the challenges and risks that come with bold ventures and how does human experience factor into all of this?

They cover Intelligent Industry, Customer Experience, Sustainability, AI, Data and Insight, Cyber, Cost, Leadership, Talent and, of course, Tech.

Together, Dave, Esmee & Rob have over 80 years of cloud and transformation experience and act as our guides though a new reality each week.

Web - https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/cloud-realities-podcast/
Email - [e-mail]

CR080: Reimagining Telecoms pt.1 - Simplification with Dr. Rainer Deutschmann, Global Telecom Leader
[00:00:00] This is a good question, Praveen. So, so there's I think two. Are you saying my questions weren't good, Rainer? It's like, hang on, hang on a second. I mean, let's be honest, Dave. We were waiting for Praveen's question because it's I wish I'd not given the option.
Welcome to Cloud Realities, an original podcast from Capgemini. And this week, a special conversation show. We are exploring reimagining the telecoms industry. And this week we're going to start with the first episode in a mini series just at the simplification of the industry. I'm Dave Chapman. I'm Esmee van de Giessen and I'm Rob Kernahan. And I'm delighted to say that we've also got Praveen Shankar, who is the head of telecoms at Capgemini with us today. And Praveen's been doing some co production on this series with us. Praveen. It is lovely to see you. How are you? [00:01:00] Awesome to see you, Dave and team. Now, I am glad to hear that the guy blowing leaves around outside your house has stopped doing it for a couple of minutes.
Have we got time to get the intros in, do you think? I think let's crack on. Let's crack on. Okay, so set the table for us a little bit. What we've talked about here is creating a series of episodes looking at specifically the telecoms industry and exploring it through different lenses. So give us a perspective from you on the industry and what we're going to try and do here over the next The context of this entire thing, Dave, is extremely simple.
What I see right now is that the telecom sector is properly at the crossroad. On one hand, we see that digital is key in driving our economies, and telecom is a key backbone of that digital economy. And it is being seen as a critical national infrastructure. We also see the telecom sector is hugely resilient, good times, bad times, [00:02:00] the telecom industry will be absolutely stable, rock solid, and the customers do trust the sector.
But on the other hand, what I see is growth is elusive for the sector, despite huge spent on networks, 5G, full fiber, you know, on an average, the global telcos growth expectation is between 1 to 2 percent only. Over the coming years, the cost continues to be high. The return on capital is not great. Um, the non traditional connectivity providers, satellite companies, hyperscalers are putting a lot of pressure.
And finally, and what I'm really worried about are the customers. Customers are seeing telcos more as commodities and like pipes. So these are very, very profound challenges and I strongly believe that a band aid approach, minor tweaks will not work. And this is the time when [00:03:00] telecom sector needs to take a step back, go back to the drawing board and have absolutely a courage, courage to reinvent, to re architect and re imagine themselves.
And I think that's the reason why. Uh, we are launching this five-episode podcast series reimagining telecom industry, and it will touch on five key topics. The first and foremost is simplification. That's what we're going to talk about today, because nothing will work unless the processes, systems, products, propositions are simplified.
That is the, that is a prerequisite to be match fit. to reimagine themselves. Then we are going to talk about data and AI networks, growth, risk, and regulations. Truly excited about this entire series. We'll have one of the, you know, the best and the brightest minds of the industry talking to us. Um, you know, Dave, it has been great working with you.
Back to you. [00:04:00] Thanks, man. Well, look, we, uh, we're looking forward to it too. And Ez, what do you think? This is the first time we've done a little miniseries like this. I think it's really good because it gives us the opportunity to dig deep on those topics. And I think that's very valuable. So I'm excited and curious also.
Yeah, yeah. Likewise. What about you, Robert? How's the weather where you are? How's the weather where I am? It's actually really sunny today. The bit I'm excited about is Praveen may turn out to be a, uh, a high quality and capable producer. So I'm just looking at Marcel here on the We need one of those. I'm just looking at Marcel on the camera there and going, you're on watch.
You're on watch. What we've got here is a bit of quality coming on. Thank God for that. Look at the structure. It's got a narrative. It's like we can all learn from this. We can all learn from this. And I think we have someone else here today with us who we can all learn from too. Check that bridge out, Rob.
Did you see that bridge? I saw, it's like, it's like consummate professionalism [00:05:00] constantly with you, Dave. I was a guest, Rob. I, I, I just think when I reflect on the day I finally retire, the, the, the, what, what would Dave Chapman do will be my moniker for lif. Yeah. How? I'll get you a t shirt with that one.
What would Dave Chapman do? Excellent. I'm delighted to say that we have Rainer Deutschmann with us, who is a very seasoned CXO leader in the world of telecoms over the last 20 years. Most recently, he was Chief Operating Officer at Telia. Rainer, it's so good to see you. Whereabouts are you in the world today?
Delighted to be with you guys. It's, it's, it starts to be fun right away. So I'm, I'm sitting in a very sunny spot in the north of Stockholm. The winter seems to be starting to kick in. We had a first couple of days of frost and it's sunny. So it's amazing. Good to be with you. Good time of year, a good time of year, but it is though going to get dark soon, presumably.
Yes, that is what I hear. And I've actually seen four times now. So I know I survived. [00:06:00] Very good. Well, let's start the conversation with your story. Tell us a little bit about how you've ended up where you've ended up and the journey you've taken. Yeah. So nice to speak. I would say I'm fundamentally just very passionate about technology and how we enable people to use technology to the benefit of the environment.
whatever, I mean, their company to society themselves and so on. And so that kind of is paired with a curiosity to just understand quite in depth, also some of the things that evolve over time and are developed. And I've started as a physicist. So I'm actually myself going quite deep into some fields for whoever understands.
I was doing solid state physics early on. So. building quantum transport devices at very low temperatures, and this has emerged into a little bit more sophisticated field of quantum computing now, obviously, still not commercial grade. Uh, I would say, yeah, yeah, I'd like to ask you that. Like, what's your view on [00:07:00] production grade quantum computers?
Yeah. I mean, of course, people like IBM and so on, they're investing, uh, and, and Google, uh, they're investing significant money into the technology. It's, uh, obviously there's a bit of a discussion still, how much physical a restriction. are actually there to build larger systems for sensible computation in spite of the fact that there is a noise problem in those systems, right?
So it's very, it's not yet fully clear, I think, whether this actually is 100 percent to succeed. But if, of course, we are able to have this kind of real time, very complex computation through The quantum entanglement. I mean, that is just opening up, obviously, a whole lot of new problems that can be solved or problems that will be created, things like the encryption that we use today might be at risk.
So it is a field worth looking into and just going back to my own. So I was doing very humble like 112 devices at the time at very low temperatures. But that's one thing. [00:08:00] And if you look at the Yeah. Other part that is currently being done, of course, is coupling of neural systems and, uh, silicon systems.
And that's also happens to be one of the things that I've done in my early career as well. So I did actually neuro inspired integrated circuits design and then, you know, test them out in real life for visual systems. So real time visual system. So that's a little bit my heritage and the curiosity that I, that I have since the early days.
And what's been your journey through organizations and how has that panned out to get you to this point in terms of having the view that you've got on the telecoms industry? So, so as a physicist, you can imagine that you have eyes wide open and then you look into the industry reality and that's of course a very harsh difference, right?
So I, I probably went into the most harshest of all entry points into the industry, uh, by joining a consultancy, in my case, it was McKinsey. So I was, uh, then having a very big, uh, I would say difference between being in a lab [00:09:00] and then being at a bank where, uh, two banks That's quite the shift. Yeah. It's like polar opposites.
It's, it's the most opposite you can, I guess, ever imagine, uh, two banks merging and then having the task to do a post merger integration of IT systems. That was like one of my first projects as a physicist coming out of the lab and quite interesting. I mean, that is, I think one of the skills that we will need also going forward for anyone is kind of coming into a problem and then being able to structure it very quickly and then see what, what are the things that are at a potential issue and then going about solving it.
And that's pretty much, uh, that's been the red thread in my life, uh, always coming into a problem. situation where there may be, may be an issue to solve and it's not clear how and then just going about solving it. So as Praveen set out at the top of the show, we're going to take a simplification lens on the telecoms industry in today's conversation.
Before we get to that, Can you just give us your little capsule view of the telecoms industry as you see it today? Yeah. So [00:10:00] we have an industry that is definitely far from simple. We have an industry that has grown for a long time. We have an industry that has enabled the world and societies to build on top which is what we have today, all the way to the AI. I mean, nothing would work without having a digital infrastructure that the industry has built. So I think we have a very long and very positive heritage and enablement for the whole world. But the downside of it is that all this kind of heritage and history has accumulated.
Right. We have seen, and we will see going forward, hopefully more consolidation. So that means there are different parties coming together with all their. Bespoke and own history and as we compound history over history, it's just getting increasingly more complex and it's like the mother of all legacy problems, isn't it?
Because the complexity of the hardware in the investment [00:11:00] required in the hardware means that, you know, you're going to have. A very complex organic system on your hands, right? Yeah, not only hardware, it's the whole, I think there's, there's obviously the software, there's the data, there's also the people, there's a lot of, I think, um, good old knowledge, but also a little bit of lack of openness for disruption and infusing some of the new technologies.
There's a good reason for this also, because that is an industry that has to be quite risk averse. We are so. So called in a critical infrastructure provider. So we are really not in a position to take huge risks, but maybe at some point, you know, there needs to be a little bit of a more openness for disruption.
So I think we are we are seeing an industry extremely important, but we are seeing industry that has a lot of value. to be unlocked. That's my word. So I think there's a lot of value in the industry. We have seen the shareholder not being happy. I am one of them. You guys maybe, uh, also invested. We have seen stagnation [00:12:00] in the growth of the value of the companies, the whole industry and other industries that are benefiting from telecommunication services have just grown tremendously.
And I think there's something wrong in that, right? So the enabler industry is basically not getting the Uh, not, not getting that or not gaining the, uh, you know, not being able to create that value that it deserves. And I think that's my mission coming back to your earlier question. I mean, I'm, I'm really excited about unlocking the value in the telecommunication industry by doing some things right, which I think we should be doing right.
And simplification is one of those things that certainly we can do a lot better. And I think there's a good point there around the, the complexity, critical national infrastructure, but it is an intrinsic service now, and that's been, it's appeared over my lifetime, mobile phones didn't exist, now they do, now our society has run off the back of it.
So there's that added complexity to say, without it, things don't work. So, you get this layering of complexity that goes on from all the [00:13:00] things you've discussed and then people get very upset when their mobile phone doesn't connect, doesn't it? Things, things go awry fast. Um, and so, introducing Oh, you get zero data on your 5G?
Oh, yeah, that's the classic. I've got a signal, but nothing's going through the base station. Yeah, yeah. As the services mature There's this reality of how do you deliver what is an ever increasing customer experience? Yeah. And I think not working also means like public safety. Yeah. It's not only, oh, I cannot reach, uh, Instagram or, or x uh, it's so intertwined in everything that we do in hospitals, et cetera.
So I think risk averse is hope. Yeah. Is a good thing in that sense. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's the sense I can tell from from inside of of the past 20 years in the industry. There is a huge sense of responsibility, as you say, um, we just need to pair the sense of responsibility and not with the opportunity out there.
And it can't be that we are just, you know, starting to stagnate and trying to [00:14:00] solidify the old things. I think that's the kind of the trade off that we yeah. We'll need to do a lot better job in the industry because in the end of the day, I just to conclude this question, I mean, if we are doing such a bad job in unlocking the value, we will not have the investment capacity either to go and further drive forward the industry from the 4G to the 5G, which we have now pretty much completed.
And then there's more to come. So we will need to have the kind of next generation as we do with the chip industry, as we do with the GPUs, everyone, we need to look into be. being able to invest into the next generation. And if we are just stagnating in the industry, we will not have an investment capacity.
There will be no investor there that sees the value to invest into the industry. So I think that's the conundrum that we need to get through. And, you know, that value generation is, I think, the key key that we need to get to. And again, simplification is one of the things that will help us get there. So if you were setting out on a, say, a sliding scale, a perspective of the level of [00:15:00] simplification that would be ideally required.
So like no holds barred. You could, you could wave a magic wand and you could resolve the problem. And so at one end you've got, you know, like, I dunno, Greenfield. And then maybe at the other end you've got, as an example of whether you liked it or not, a simplification exercise we've seen recently was Musk taking over Twitter.
And the very dramatic changes he made very, very quickly there, which was, which was, you know, kind of eyebrow raising to say the least. Where on a scale like that, or come up with your own coordinates, if you like, what does ideal look like? And then we'll start to wade into the reality of it a little bit.
Yeah. So I've seen Myself, both ends of the spectrum in Telco, so I can say I was starting after McKinsey and Deutsche Telekom, which is a larger European and U. S. player, which has a lot of history and also complexity. This was probably an [00:16:00] example where, and still today, there's a lot of drive towards simplification I've seen similar.
When I started here at Telia company in the Nordics, a lot of history, actually one of the oldest telecommunication companies in the world, together with Ericsson, inventing basically the mobile industry with a lot of pride, but also a lot of complexity that we started to really get through and remove.
And then on the other side of the spectrum, I was, uh, you know, starting a telecommunication service provider in India called Reliance Jio, where there was a very. Visionary leader, Mukesh Ambani, is saying that I need to create a new telecommunication and digital services provider for 1. 3 billion people in absence of any such kind of an industry earlier.
So I was very fortunate to be part of that journey. And we have started basically a telco from scratch, which was not only a telco, but obviously needed to be able to scale to a billion plus people in a market, in a single market. And so. So I've seen basically both of these things, and they have [00:17:00] their particular challenge, whether you create something new at scale or whether you have to transform something existing.
But the one thing I can also say is don't get into the fallacy of thinking that a greenfield is easier, certainly it is not. And also a greenfield will very quickly become brownish as you are starting to implement certain technologies, certain, you know, procedures, processes, and even if you bring in people, some of them might become brownish.
Becoming from the existing industry, there's always a legacy kind of included. So never trust that Greenfield is better and easier. There's a continuous, I think, renovation and simplification mindset required even for companies that are started at new. This is something that Google learned very quickly with Gmail.
They went, they created this new email tool. It was revolutionary, very different. Everybody jumps on it. They treated it like it was a startup. They could just make changes, you know, that very sort of fast change culture. And then they realized that so many people had intercepted the platform because it was compelling, but suddenly it [00:18:00] became very important and you couldn't behave.
like they used to and they had to lock it all down. That saw the rise of things like SRE to improve stability and such like, and they went from this, it was a big culture shock I think for the team, that then they realized they built something that billions of people use and they couldn't just play about with it anymore.
So I can appreciate on the scale you talk about, once you've scaled something out and serious use is there, behaviors need to change because you've introduced risk into the system inherently where, you know, people rely on it, suddenly behaviors change. shift. I think that's a really good point. I thought the other interesting point you made there was the imported legacy, like the imported legacy mindset.
So even though you're starting from a completely green field, you're going to have all of these perspectives coming in that may also be locked in the past, even though you've got a pretty clear road ahead of you. So what does the perfect model look like? I like to start with something like that because then it kind of allows us to kind of step back from that to the reality.
So [00:19:00] if if today you were designing the sort of the perfect telecoms organization that could roll forward at the right velocity that it could refresh itself at the right velocity, what does that look like to you? Yeah, so, so it would be very risky, I think, to and we could do that, but I think it would be very risky to define the perfect end state model.
You could talk about full automation, you could talk about the full, you know, scalability of your application infrastructure, you could talk about the bots for the customer interaction and so on. So you could talk about such an end state and we could do that, but I think it would be very risky because such an end state that we define it today will be obsolete tomorrow.
So. When I'm talking about a perfect system and nothing is perfect, obviously. But when I'm talking, when I'm thinking about a perfect system, I'm thinking about a continuously learning and improving system. For me, this is the core capability that I've at least tried to instill into the [00:20:00] organizations I've been fortunate to work with, whereby we have to recognize.
I mean, that the perfect system today is a legacy tomorrow. Let's face it. So what we need actually as an organization is an ability to quickly learn, improve and then, you know, learn and improve. And that capability requires, I think, People skills that it requires also very practical systems and processes that are in place so that you allow and you facilitate and you drive and foster a continuous learning and improvement mindset.
So so perfect for me is not a static definition. Perfect for me is a highly dynamic definition of continuously learning, testing and improving. I have a question right now. Reimagining a telco in the scenario of complete greenfield like geo that you have seen and reimagining a telco, which is brownfield, like tellier, they're [00:21:00] two very, very different things.
How is the question? How do you imagine in a brownfield scenario when there is an engine that is running completely? Reimagining means touching that engine. Which means impacting the business. How do you do that? I think there's two extremes in the kind of question of how to transform. And one is, you know, having a brownfield telco, you could argue I'm just building a new one next to it.
And I'm just serving the customers from that, right? So basically trying to disrupt myself, not only telco, but you can apply this maybe to any other technology driven industry, which everyone is technology driven in the end of the day. So I think that's, that's one approach. I don't believe in that approach because many reasons, but one of them is simply I will have a internal resistance of the organization against the new.
So I will not be able to really make this happen because practically speaking, [00:22:00] the new will be considered as the antibody and there's going to be a resistance against. And so the approach that I've always promoted in technology driven industries that are at the heart technology driven, I have to transform from within.
I have to make sure that I, drive the transformation from the leadership and from throughout the organization in the end, everyone, which is the core principle, how we in Telia have started the transformation and have transformed the last four years, engaging the entire 20, 000 people, not just engaging a few smart people at the sideline, trying to do something great.
It will not work. I think I'm very convinced about it and at least what I've seen. So I think the, the, the idea to have A greenfield as the solution will not work. In my opinion, the idea is I need to take where I am. I need to recognize that I am not a startup, maybe, but I have the power to transform and [00:23:00] I need to engage my people to understand where we're heading to and give the right tools and processes to do so.
I think that's the core success, I think, that will help us, especially for those who are technology driven. Wonderful. Let's take the conversation forward then and actually talk about some of the experiences that you've had in organizations driving simplicity. I think one of the models that you talked about when we were when we were discussing what we're going to talk about on the show was something I think you referred to as the three S's.
Framework. So do you just want to set that framework out for us and maybe apply that to a real world situation that you sort of had first hand in? Yes. So, so what I, what I think applies to at least industries that have certain synergy and scale benefits. And I think like the telecommunication industry obviously is one where arguably There is a benefit of having a certain scale because we are infrastructure heavy and we are basically replicating a [00:24:00] certain model over and over again for our customers as we have millions and hundreds of millions in the case of the Reliance Geo case, it's 480 million customers, right?
So you have a lot of customers on your network. So there's a certain scale benefit. So I think the model that I was thinking is It's helpful to just have in the back of your mind, if you drive change is first of all, we need to continuously see how we can simplify our products, our processes, our platforms, the way how we work with our people and also our partners in such a telco environment.
And, uh, we can talk about each of those five, you know, asset classes, I would say, but it's about questioning what is the value of each of them and how can we remove the long tail. And then I think the, the second element in the, in this, uh, simplification, standardization, and scale part is. We have an industry, at least in the telecommunication, which has been growing so [00:25:00] strong because of the fact that we have global standards and we are able to plug and play.
I mean, you can use your phone anywhere in the world. And the reason why you can do that is because we have a global standard. And as a, which is a different discussion, there's a viable risk right now that we actually are going to be seeing a decoupling, even in the telecommunication industry, when it comes to standards, that's a huge risk in that.
But anyway, so today, at least we have benefited as societies that the industry is highly standardized, and this is not a. Telco only, it's also an IT, an increasing IT standardization with things like the TM Forum API standardization, which helps us to become further plug and playable. So I think what we need to drive to is that we are using and fostering those standards.
So we become more resilient and we don't depend on any specific vendor or any specific technology. We want to be resilient in respect to that. And then the third element is, is coming to the point of being then scalable because once I have simplified [00:26:00] and once I've standardized my technologies and my interfaces, I'll, I'll be able to just copy paste, right?
And then that's, that's the thing that then where the cost for doing that is a lot less. So the variable cost for scaling will help me in my overall value generation and my profitability. And I don't have to reinvent every single time when I'm plugging in more customers, when I'm potentially plugging in a new market that I've acquired, when I'm plugging in a new partner that I've acquired.
And, um, I think this, this is helping me to then unlock that value that I think is still hidden in the industry. In many of the telcos today, we really simplify, standardize, and then scale it out. And Rob, that must appeal to you from an architectural background. Come on. I was just, as you were talking there, reflecting on, if an organization decide, decides to go non standard, I would say you'd have to have a really good reason to do it because the, the, as we build on ever increasing [00:27:00] complexity, relying on standards means that plug and play point, which means I can bring a layer in, bring a layer in, bring a layer in, etc.
And I get value. Moving away from that just creates confusion in the plumbing. And when you do that, you're on a load of toil and you're not thinking about. value delivered. So this continuous abstraction by using standards is a perfect way to get how do you get better business outcomes. I just reflect on an organization diverging from that and thinking that's really not the way to do it unless you've got what would be the killer reason to do it and there must be some differentiation through it that is so strong that it allows you to do it.
Are you saying that there might be some elegance in a clean and clear closed ecosystem? Yeah, well, I'm not going there, David, because we know where you're going to go. Android for the win. But I just feel that when you have, when you rely on so much inter operation, and that's what the telecoms industry needs, like the ability to roam, the ability from everything to talk, we've got a mixed ecosystem.
You need standards, otherwise it just won't [00:28:00] work. And people have to, you almost, it gets to the point where I would consider that you legislate, that you must legislate. deliver to a particular set of standards, like the regulators say, et cetera, to be open. We saw that with the open banking APIs, where the banking industry was forced to standardize, and that's created a new set of consumer benefit if you choose to engage with it.
And I think once you've, once you're there, stick with it. The one that really resonates with me, and I'm not just saying this because it's the sort of big theme of the episode is the, is the simplified piece. And the reason it resonates so hard with me at this layer is because it's the, it's the one that.
everybody tends to try and ignore and skip into doing something else, or they don't, they don't go hard enough and courageously enough at simplification. I was talking to somebody that the other day who had done like some really great pieces of work trying to understand their organization and try and understand how their organizations like interacting with each other and, and creating very [00:29:00] interesting views on that situation.
But I just couldn't see how you were going to get from that. to a simplified environment. It seemed to me that the level of abstraction might need taking up a little bit to be able to get a clean and clear enough view to drive simplification. And Rainer, I wonder what, what lens do you put on something when you're looking to simplify something?
Do you see what I'm getting at? It's like, if you're too low in the weeds, it's actually hard to see what you're trying to do. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I think it's, uh, and that's a little bit to your earlier point of, of Ellen Musk and envision maybe spend too much time talking about Ellen. But I think one of the things that he's definitely, uh, on, on, uh, at least in my view on, on the right track is that there is a natural inclination from everyone to just do new stuff.
It's just so exciting to launch a new product. It's so exciting to hire some more people. It is so exciting to write new [00:30:00] requirements. Right. It is much less sexy to challenge the old stuff and to deal with the legacy. It is just a fact. And so there's, there's an issue in general. I think that's when it comes to public administration, that is when it comes to the private companies and especially the telcos for sure, there's just much less natural I think thrive behind looking at the existing products in, in, in a very specific term.
And now let's talk a bit specific. So, so when you're asking simplification, I think it's, it's obviously going across many, many dimensions. And I mentioned five, like the products, processes, platforms, our people, and our partners. And there's, there's certainly more like non functional requirements and so on.
But I mean, I would start at the product portfolio. You are, you're seeing that any company sells. a few products, but actually in the database, there's going to be so many more because all of the products that have been there in the past and they were [00:31:00] launched and then maybe discontinued, you still have them, right?
You still probably charge for them. And so somebody got to just go through this database. And question how many of those products actually we still need and, um, how many of those products cause a lot of downstream complexity cost and also pain, not only for the own organization, but even for the customer, because the journeys associated to his old legacy products may be very, very bad.
You just hardly can, you know, manage anymore. And so. In the case of Intelia, I mean, when we started in 2020, we came in with this mindset of, um, you know, great company, amazing history, huge responsibility for the societies and, and, and our customers. But we got to simplify the company and we stood on stage, Alison, my CFO and then myself, and we said, we are going to be checking out in the next three years half.
of our products, of our legacy products. And the reality is, [00:32:00] and that's, uh, less known, we, we actually did not exactly know how many products we even had at the time. It's a little embarrassing, but probably if everyone would ask himself, I mean, do you actually know all your products? Uh, the answer may not be always that you do because many product catalogs, many legacies, different systems, holding different things, many different customer segments and so on.
So obviously what, what we do is we What we did is we, you know, did a whole exercise and again, less exciting, but very important to just understand where are you. Very much aligned to what the Jobs did when he took back over Apple, right at the end of the Pepsi chief executives reign, he stripped the product line, but back to like a handful of products.
Exactly. And that's exactly the thing. So, so it is, uh, you know, just understand we, we understood, okay, we have north of a thousand products in our, in our systems and we sell just a handful and how many of the products should be really maintained. And we defined that. And then of course, there's a, there's a [00:33:00] whole process, which is It's quite tough to manage to say, okay, I got to stop selling some of the legacy products that are defined.
I've got to be migrating some of the customers on this legacy products to new products. And maybe some of the customers I can't migrate because I will not have a replacement product. And that costs money that maybe even costs some, some customers and the sales people don't like it. It's, it's a very courage to make that decision.
It's exactly, it's, it's very unpopular. And, and, and if you try to do the business case also, I mean, you could argue, okay, there must be a business case for everything. Yeah. It is a very tough business case to make because the complexity cost, which sometimes we call complexity cost, is so hard to quantify.
I think there needs to be a mindset. Yes, I want to quantify. I want to take out in the end of the day, complexity from systems and from processes, from the customer care and so on. But there needs to be a fundamental CEO and executive management conviction that we have to do this, even if I don't exactly know the full [00:34:00] business case.
And it pays off. I can say it pays off and we have half the products. We are now much less than half. And we see that customer satisfaction and we see that the cost is actually trading and it's, it's coming down. I
think the point you make there about leadership conviction and, and knowing that instinctively it's the right thing to do, even if actually it's very hard to see through it at this point. But, but, you know, having the courage to go on that aspect of journey, I think is something that Even some of the largest organizations miss and they try to plan their way out of it the whole time and you know, constant cycles of planning that actually you can see is not relieving any kind of log jam and it's not taking the complexity down.
So, but, but it [00:35:00] creates an illusion of certainty that that doesn't actually then resolve the problem. It's that classic. In any business case, there's always tangible business benefits, and that's what the CFO loves, because there's P times Q type world. We do X, we get Y. But what you're talking about there is the intangible benefits, which are very difficult to quantify.
And again, you know it's the right thing to do. But when you try and put it down on paper, you know, there's the sort of accountancy brains that kick in and go, ah, you know, you're calm. prove that we shan't do it. But actually the companies that do do it, like you're saying they've done, get huge benefit.
And it's not a leap of faith, but it's that, as you say, Dave, that leadership mindset that says, we know it's the right thing to do. This is the direction we want to go. Let's just proceed. And you don't need some sort of balance sheet to be able to justify it other than the conviction of the leadership to say, You know, others who have done this have won.
So let's do the same. I think that culture is like we haven't touched upon that, you know, and that's [00:36:00] also combined with leadership, obviously, but how many or at least I've seen a lot of teams that wanted to go into DevOps and you had the exactly same thing that you were saying as well, Rainer, you know, innovation, that's all the fun that Get some stage that's got all the publicity.
But if you look into the, the core of operations, you know, they, they always feel like the ones, uh, you know, set behind and, and not that valuable. So I think even also in the culture of, we want to do new things and, Oh yeah, I know they're simplifying and they're doing products, but this is for this segment and these are my customers, or I've written this code, I want to keep it as life, you know, maybe even in secret.
How do you see that? Is there a relationship with culture as well, Rainer? Yeah. So, so two points to this one, one is I think what you say is definitely something very true where when we have legacy, it's not only about systems and so on. It's also about a mindset and being invested, having maybe built and launched a product.[00:37:00]
I mean, obviously the team shall be proud about it and will defend the product. So I think the. The cultural change that we need to have is that this behavior of cleaning out the kitty has to become the norm. It has to become something where we can be proud of getting legacy out needs to be something that we want and want to be proud of.
And it has to be measurable. So even if we don't know exactly the dollar value. Of the so called complexity cost, having many, many products or platforms in the systems I can measure. I mean, obviously I can measure number of products. Um, I can measure my profitability. I can measure legacy systems. I can measure these KPIs and it is going to be.
Very delightful. If we can uplift those, and that's what we did. We uplift those KPIs to the level that everyone sees them. We even in the case of my latest engagement here in Telia, we even put it out to the analysts. We, in the first [00:38:00] moment, like I said, proclaimed that we are going to be reducing the products and platforms year by year, quarter by quarter, and we reported those numbers out not only internally, but also externally.
So it starts to become something to be proud of. The other one I wanted to also say is on the customer experience side, it's a very similar uh, Transcribed by https: otter. ai thing where I think there's a tendency that we want to launch new products and major, major releases. But I think the issue that we sometimes have in our customer processes is that the process itself is very complex.
So how can I actually sign up to a fiber and how do, how do I get my, my fiber at home? How can I change a tariff? And, and so. What we need to do here is also that we are looking at the little things that are happening at, uh, at every point for the customer. And we encourage our people to go after those little things in a very programmatic way.
So part, practically speaking, part of the capacity that we are, the, the in deploying in the, it should not only be for the large releases, it has to be a continuous improvement [00:39:00] capacity, and that helps the organization. To your point, esmi that, you know, we become mentally. Gear towards not only launching the big things, but also solving the small things.
And both needs to be the case. I think the final point I would want to touch on around the 5Ps model, I think you touched on it just very briefly, is partner ecosystem. So there's a tangent in the way that there is a relationship to products, the platform and process and simplification. There must be a very direct correlation to Partners and partner relationships.
Yeah. So I think that P is hugely important. Also, maybe sometimes underestimated. I've seen organizations treating their ecosystem partners more as vendors whereby I have a requirement. I look for the, let's say, cheapest Out of, out of all that fulfills those requirements exactly as I wanted and they go with it.
And this I don't think is the right way of doing it because I want my [00:40:00] ecosystem partners to be part of my success. I want the ecosystem partners to be having a joint incentive. to go with me and also partly challenge if I have a certain requirement and somebody tells me maybe your requirement isn't actually, uh, you know, something that is the way forward.
I want to listen and I want to learn. And I think the way how we have developed in, at least in Telia also is that we, we kind of revamped the entire partner ecosystem. Which was hugely complex to the point of simplicity. Uh, so many, so many partners for the same domain product partners, system integrator partners and so on.
So we slimmed down dramatically and a number of different partners that we had, but we re reinforced Uh, and strengthen the relationship with the few that we selected to a much more strategic level whereby we would have a joint incentive to make, in this case, Telia successful. And I think this was one of the key success factors in the [00:41:00] last three, four years to really engage with a few partners.
And, and, and in that reset. The relationship aspect, presumably you had to reboot as well. I liked what you said very much about, um, that within the old ecosystem, you were almost treating partners like vendors and, and, and there is a tangible difference, isn't there, between a vendor and supplier type of relationship versus a versus true partnership in terms of how you set it up and in terms of the relationship you construct around it.
So, so I think, um, I want to have a, I want to have a strategic engagement where my partners contribute to the kind of the definition of the future and implementation of the future. I think that's the, that's the important part. And this requires, I think, Quality, but also it acquires people, I mean, having the right personal relationship with some of the leaders on each side can, [00:42:00] can, can make wonders happen.
And, um, so therefore it, it requires time and I'm looking at, uh, at Praveen here sitting, uh, and reflecting, I think I can just say that the partnership and, and I'm very open about it, uh, that we have developed in the last four years is one of those examples where we can be very proud about. Because we have come, we have gone through.
Very, very tough times together. We have tackled some of those simplification issues that we have seen in the beginning together. We have taken on some of the legacy together, taken on the cloud, the cloud migration together. And this is something that I don't think would have happened the same way if we were just sitting there writing requirements and waiting for somebody to implement it.
It's a very different conversation, isn't it? It's like, it feels like being. It's these overused phrases that people write on whiteboards that don't actually then live out, things like one team and bachelors and all those sorts of things, but when that really works, it actually [00:43:00] legitimately really works.
Praveen, do you have a reflection on it? I think regarding the partnership, the most important thing is the mindset part, the mindset that we are in this together. Your success is my success, and it is our success. And I think that's what, when we were working with you Rainer, we were thinking about, and that worked.
Absolutely, absolutely spot on. And it's, it's so crystal clear that, that it amazes me that so many organizations still don't quite get their, get their head around that point. And, and often it can be a difficult thing to get to, because it means some hard conversations. It's not all kind of, You know, dinners and being friends, sometimes actually you have to have, you know, very truthful and honest conversations and it can be, and it can be difficult, but very well worth the effort.
I think right. And can I say one more word to this one? So, so I was talking about the alignment on the leadership level, about Praveen and I and, and even Olivier and so on, we were having those strategic and very tough conversations, but it goes all the [00:44:00] way down. To everyone in the team where I was very clear always to my team that our partner colleagues are part of the team, there is not any difference between somebody that is formerly on a payroll and somebody that is formerly on a.
On a contract relationship with a partner, we need to make sure that all the way we are considering the team as an integrated team. And I can say just those war stories when we were doing large, large legacy replacements or large cloud upgrades where the team was locked in. Uh, you know, 48 hours in a room on site, physically fighting together with all rollback in place, everything ready and managed to go through that transition and migration.
I mean, this, this will be relationships that will last for a lifetime. I can sure, I can for sure say that. Those people that have been working together, going through very tough times, and then finally succeed, they will be connected forever. [00:45:00] And I think this, this is what, what is the fun part that such a relationship has such a 360 degree breadth from the leadership, the joint vision, all the way down to the execution with everyone on the team.
Absolutely, Deiner, well said. I think that is, I think that is very well said, and also within that is the rub, and you talked about the challenges in execution there, so I wonder if you've got a few reflections on the types of challenges that you've seen as you've gone through these sorts of journeys, and you know, what advice would you have in terms of In terms of dealing with them.
Yeah, I think the there needs to be again, it's not a simple answer, but I think what always has to be clear is where we are heading to. I think the direction of the journey has to be very clear. What do we want to achieve? So in the case of in the case of I mean, when we talk about simplification, we have been very clear Yeah.
that we want to simplify the product portfolio, we will go after the processes [00:46:00] that need to be simplified for the customer. Also, the internal processes. We were very clear what systems are we going to be checking out and what are going to be the target few systems that we are betting on based on standards, as we discussed before.
And we were also very clear. I mean, what are the partners that we are working with in the sense that we just discussed? So I think there needs to be a clear sense of direction. But then We are going to be stumbling on the way across unexpected things. And again, those migrations, whoever has done large IT migrations and swap outs knows that, you know, you can test for months and months and you can do all sorts of variations of plan A, B, C, D.
I think we had probably in plan. F and G and, and, you know, even that was not enough because still something unexpected happens. So isn't there a Churchill comment about like any plan, no matter how good never survives the first battle or something along those lines. So, so, and then, then, and then comes the moment when, when we really have to rely on the team on the ground and we have to rely on the team to deal with the information that is there at hand and [00:47:00] then goes through it.
And that requires That team spirit that we talked about before. So I have to have a clear direction. I have to have a sense of, you know, um, a plan with multiple, uh, fallbacks because things are not going to be as expected, but even if I have that, and now I still need a team that is resilient and has that kind of agility.
to go through the unexpected and deliver the end result. I think that this is a little bit what I've seen work and it's not easy, but it is doable.
Very good. Now, maybe to bring our conversation today to a bit of a close, maybe just go full circle and go back to your personal journey a little bit. And, and, and what you've talked about is, uh, you know, a journey. Through an incredibly complex organization having taken on greenfield situations and brownfield [00:48:00] situations and driven forward organization sometimes making some very hard decisions and sometimes working partners and needing to deal with obviously all of the human element that's that's through that.
You don't start day one of your career being able to lead that situation so I, I wonder what that journey has been like for you and maybe what some of the harder moments were on a personal level.
So back to my earliest point, uh, where Where I mentioned, I think it's about what, at least what I'm excited about is to use technology for the better of our businesses and customers and to make this happen through our people. So how do we, how do we merge and amalgamate technology and people, right? So that's, that's really, so how to empower our organization.
I think that that's one of the things that I'm so excited about. And, um, it requires, uh, I [00:49:00] think the. The learning mindset, I think that's one of the things we, we, we must not forget that, uh, you know, it's increasingly fast in terms of how new technologies come about and we need to create an organization that has that appetite to continuously learn, uh, and improve.
And so in the, in terms of leadership, for me, one of the things, and there's many things to say about leadership. I don't think we have the time to, to, to, to spend in this format now, but one of the things is really to encourage, uh, people to try out also maybe fail. And that requires maybe also a bit of a pragmatic approach.
So for example, how do you look at the continuous training offers that you have in the organization? We launched a massive training program for cloud what we call cloud fluency and analytics fluency We went through thousands and thousands of all employees to even go as far as a certification so that they, they have something in their [00:50:00] hand, even if they want to progress their career, um, maybe in, in, in even outside of the current company, it's, it's just, uh, something that is required for, for everyone's future and will benefit.
So that curiosity and willingness to learn and apply is something that I feel is very important for us as an industry, which is technology driven.
Ez, tell me about what you've been looking at. Yeah, we're talking about communications here. So obviously I. Dove back into that topic, going back to the 19th century, the phone, the phonograph, we had electricity, uh, but even fast forward to 20, 002. So that's about 22 years ago. I saw this video of Kevin Warwick.
I don't know if you've seen it, probably it was all about cyborgs in, uh, in those days. He had an implant and his [00:51:00] wife also had an implant. And they communicated through these implants back in the days. And I remember that still to the day that I was like, Oh, this is absurd, you know, and I thought they call that divorce on a chip.
Oh, well, maybe I, I, I dove into it and I cannot see any recent studies or results of that. you know, what he did back then with his wife. So I don't know if they're still together or maybe that he's even alive. Has anybody turned that into a film? I mean, it writes itself, surely. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does.
So obviously that got me thinking like telecommunications and you've got all that data and now Neuralink, uh, uh, the same Elon Musk, uh, we can say a lot about it, but, well, he's on top of things. Uh, now also announced the, the first initial cases of promising this neuron spike detection, but. Obviously also for inclusivity.
So to make sure that everyone who maybe people are disabled or that need some help through technology, also touching on Reiner's, I, I absolutely have the same, if we can be helped by technology and it brings [00:52:00] value, I think that is really great, but I'm curious if you see anything, if you're talking about telecommunications and if we have chips implanted, do we need, what would telecoms industries?
You know, are you gonna. have doctors as, as mechanics, you know, are they going to put those implants in us or? So you go to, he's saying you go to like your local Vodafone store. Get chipped. And it will have a sort of. Go down the high street and get chipped. Digital, digital doctor, yeah. You know what though, there is an advantage to say we're all connected.
I know you can get into the whole dystopian Borg like future, let's not go there. But there is also a massive security concern around that as well. So what information you might be able to take in, information people take out. Rob, I dread to think. You wouldn't want to download any of our brains, that's for sure.
But the, um, there's a bit about that, about societal acceptance of that. So we saw the reaction to Google Glasses, yeah? And we saw that it created fights on the street and things like that. So just [00:53:00] because we Can does that mean that we should? And there's all for every advantage we see, there's always some disadvantage that comes around and maybe you can't stop it because it's like the march of technology and the merger of carbon and silicon coming together.
Yeah, that's that's been talked about when you got the singularity event to say, you know, will we merge before? you know, that occurs. But there is this bit about this, it opens up a massive moral mace and you're like, society, I don't think that was going to be a long conversation. So Ryan, you said in your past, you've, unbeknownst to us, while we were looking at this bit of research that you've been involved in the world of neural and neural connections.
What do you, what's your perspective on all of this? I love this question. And, and how much time do we have? So this is, this is one of the most exciting things. The fundamental problem or one of the fundamental problems we have is the interface [00:54:00] between the humans and the machines today. I mean, we are basically mega narrow band, right?
I mean, the kind of the communication in voice. And even the communication and visual is just super, super slow. And obviously this is the core problem statement that Elon Musk is Taking on with the Neuralink to say that I need to at least, you know, open up that interface and make it a bit more broadband I have very humbly done this kind of technology actually myself I was Talking about the neuromorphic, uh, engineering chips, uh, that was actually only one of the things that I've done.
The other one was actually the neuron silicon coupling, uh, as a young, young student, uh, and, and, and, and a project in university where I've seen how difficult it is to bring living tissue or neuron actually on a silicon dioxide to be able to measure the action potential of the neuron in the underlying, uh, field effect transistor, right?
So, [00:55:00] So I've done this and I'm just hugely, hugely impressed by the undertaking that Ellen is, is, is doing, because in the end it certainly is one of the things that we will need to broaden the interface and to get the data between the two systems flowing as a. I think as a fundamental question, uh, you're relating to the telecommunication industry for us as an industry, we are enabling communication, right?
Fundamentally, this is one of the big things where we have seen growth between people. I mean, growth of communication, enabling communication between people and the, you know, X growth. Obviously, this is not going to be the next big thing. I think the next thing is, big thing. If it's about communication is between everything.
And, um, so we will need to open up those interfaces and we will need to be able to transmit the information at low latency security, high speed, high bandwidth between the different entities. And those will be a combination [00:56:00] of living. And non living, uh, uh, things and, and, and more super exciting. And then connecting that back to the main conversation we've had today.
What's your view on the impact that may or may not have on the telecoms industry? You know, like surely that's going to have impacts. It's like the next version of the impact mobile phones have had almost presumably. Yeah. So I think we will, we will ever more need secure, reliable communication. I mean, that is just a fundamental value proposition that we have as an industry.
that will go in large spaces that will go in very small spaces. We will need the different frequencies that we have between the very long wavelength and the very short wavelength. Technically speaking, we will need a trust because obviously the data that we transmit is highly, highly sensitive in many, many respects.
So we will need to have that in place and we will Do, of course, everything, but coming back to the very early point, we will only be able to do that and invest into enabling those new [00:57:00] technologies if we are a valuable and growing industry. So we have to make sure that we unlock the value, we take out the complexity and the cost, and we can, you know, unlock that kind of investment potential into enabling those communication technologies of the future.
Very good. So, Rainer, thank you so much for your time today and sharing all of your insight. It was a delight to talk to you this morning. Very much my pleasure. Now, we end every episode of this podcast by asking our guests what they're excited about doing next, and that could be going to play with your new super folding Android phone that I hear is, when you fold it together, is as thin as an iPhone, Rob.
This is correct, David. Android for the win. Or it might be something you're excited about in your professional life. So, Rainer, what are you excited about doing next? I'm excited about many, many things, uh, but if I pick one, just very specifically, I have a couple of kids, five actually, and, um, I can say it is just amazing [00:58:00] to see the world and specifically the world of technology through their eyes.
Wonderful. I have a young, a younger son and he is just starting to discover YouTube and, uh, you know, creating content and it's just so much fun to see how he's creating his YouTube channel. And I'm not advertising for this now to, to, but what's his subject? He is basically co creating video content with chat GPT.
It is just outstanding. So he's, he's sparing, he's using chat GPT to create ideas. He's using the different, you know, means to create, you know, still and video, uh, you know, content, uh, through the, uh, large language models and he is publishing that, uh, in his channel and he, and the point is he, the kids are discovering those tools, they are able to publish and they are able to immediately get the it.
Feedback from the audience. And that is to the point of continuous learning on [00:59:00] improving what I talked about before. We need in our organizations to have that same speed and agility to just try it out, get feedback and improve. And that's exactly what I see with the kids and my son specifically, because he, he, he publishes the video and he immediately within the next 24 hours sees if it works or not.
And he sees what does it mean, the different content, the different formats and everything. It's just sort of naturally, naturally sense and respond in terms of the way that he's creating and communicating because he's unencumbered by any technology lead time and of course so many organizations have got so used to having to do waterfall because there was lead times on things and they can't break that habit.
There's an immediacy. There's no entry hurdle. It's just like an 80 year old can do it these days. It's just amazing. So that's what I'm excited about, to just see what he's doing and sparring a little bit with him. So that's, that's my, uh, my thing. [01:00:00] Gosh, we've covered so many exciting stuff in this episode.
If you would like to discuss it with us and tell us how it may impact you and your business, please get in touch with us via [e-mail]. We're all on X, we're all on LinkedIn, so please DM us. We'd like to hear from you. And of course, please rate and subscribe to our podcast. It really helps us improve the show.
A huge thanks to Rainer and Praveen, our sound and editing wizards, Ben and Louis, our producer, Marcel, and of course you, all our listeners. See you in another reality next [01:01:00] week.