Becoming the Uncarrier network through digital transformation
02
Customer centricity at the heart of digital transformation WRIT TEN BY
M ARCUS L AWRENCE
03
w w w.t- mo b ile. com
T-Mobile, the Uncarrier network, has incorporated disruptive technologies to overhaul its internal operations and online presence to maximise customer centricity
B
ased in Bellevue, Washington, T-Mobile US has undergone a significant digital transformation process over the past
five years, in tandem with a drastic overhaul of 04
its business model. CEO John Legere, who took office in 2012, has reenvisoned the company’s operations by focusing on customer centricity. Now known as the ‘Uncarrier’ network, T-Mobile has become wholly concentrated on maximising customer freedom, rewarding customers for choosing T-Mobile and showing appreciation for their continued loyalty through ongoing offers. The move has seen a series of departures from standard industry practice, with a level of success that has gradually molded the sector around T-Mobile’s vision. Mandatory fixed-term contracts, limited early upgrade options, international usage fees, contract termination fees and more have been upended at T-Mobile, both to the benefit of its customers and the growth of its subscriber base.
05
w w w.t- mo b ile. com
The feeling you get following your vendor’s ERP roadmap… Sometimes, it’s hard to see how IT teams can deliver game-changing initiatives when a significant amount of their budget and resources are spent on a vendor-dictated roadmap … a never-ending journey with costly software maintenance, mandatory updates and upgrades and ultimately a rip-andreplace move to the cloud.
In the end, funding their roadmap could mean not funding yours. Don’t lose sight of your options. Learn how Rimini Street can help.
Get your free software support assessment today.
It’s Your Roadmap.
Powering digital transformation with a Business-Driven Roadmap By Glenn Cahaly
I spend most of my time talking to Oracle and SAP customers and the conversation is essentially the same these days: “To change the game, our company needs to put users first and technology second. The good news: Our leadership team has identified what we need to compete and grow the business, and we understand the IT initiatives required. The bad news: we have very little capacity for innovation because we spend the majority of our budget and time on vendordictated ERP roadmaps, which can include risky updates, costly upgrades and rip-and-replace projects to move to their cloud solutions prematurely.” Whether you are a CFO, a CIO, an IT leader, Procurement or IT Asset Manager, these words probably sound familiar. The vendor’s product roadmap should be an input into your strategy; it shouldn’t be your strategy. Yet ERP applications are such an important component of the IT you use to run your business that it can be easy to fall into the pattern of letting your vendor call the shots. If you don’t upgrade, you can fall out of compliance. And regardless of how much you pay, you get progressively less value from each upgrade. All the while, the vendor is shifting its R&D investments away from the products it sold you and giving you seemingly no option but to continue to move. Unlike a vendor-dictated approach, a Business-Driven Roadmap starts with an organization's 3-to-5 year business strategy and then defines the game-changing IT initiatives that will support it. Rimini Street accelerates clients' to adopt a Business-Driven Roadmap strategy by providing capacity that accelerates their ability to innovate and reduces vendor lock-in, allows them the flexibility to design a roadmap based on their unique requirements, and provides the agility to take an orchestrated approach to their technology strategy. When clients move to a Business-Driven Roadmap approach powered by Rimini Street, they are liberated from the vendor-dictated roadmap and enabled to take control of their IT destiny and future-proof their investment to accommodate continuous change.
Get your free roadmap assessment today
1
Learn More
Gartner - “IT Key Metrics Data 2018: Executive Summary” December 11, 2017
Free up IT capacity: According to Gartner1, as much as 90percent of the IT budget goes to ongoing operations (“keeping the lights on”). That leaves a measly 10percent to invest in game- changing initiatives. Organizations becoming trapped in an endless cycle of enterprise software upgrades is a big reason why. If you’ve customized your ERP and integrated it with other software, you don’t dare upgrade without extensive testing. Free yourself from this busywork, and you can get back to making technology investments that make a difference. Extend the lifespan of existing investments: Most enterprises have spent years implementing, integrating and customizing their ERP to meet business needs — only to have their vendors tell them it’s time to abandon all that in favor of a “new and improved” but immature platform. Vendors want to establish new revenue streams and reposition themselves for the cloud. That roadmap serves vendors’ needs, not those of enterprises seeking to build on investments they have already made. That’s why you need a Business-Driven Roadmap approach that includes third-party support for your ERP. Innovate with flexibility: Cloud computing should give you more options, not fewer. Your ERP vendor has a roadmap to take you to the cloud — specifically, to its proprietary corner of the cloud. Fortunately for those wary of even deeper vendor lock-in, open cloud options exist to improve the cost and performance of your ERP operations while keeping you in control. You won’t find many on the vendor’s technology roadmap; you need to follow your own and we can help you get there. Design with your future enterprise in mind: How are you rationalizing your software decisions? You won’t find the answer exclusively on one vendor’s roadmap, unless you’re convinced it has the best product in every category. Born-in-the cloud software represents some of the greatest innovations in enterprise technology. The best of them come with APIs that allow you to connect them to other APIs and to your installed base of software. Rather than struggling with laborious integrations, you have the opportunity to orchestrate software around the use cases that matter most to your business. Learn why over 2,600 clients chose Rimini Street’s ultraresponsive service, breaking free from the burden of vendor support so they can focus IT resources on initiatives that support their Business-Driven Roadmap strategy.
07
Drive digital strategies. Deliver competitive advantage. The future of procurement awaits.
Turn disruption into opportunity by innovating procurement with digital capabilities, advanced analytics, agile operations, and optimal experiences for customers, suppliers and employees. Learn more at read.kpmg.us/FutureProcurement
Anticipate tomorrow. Deliver today.
©2019 KPMG LLP, a Delaware limited liability partnership and the U.S. member firm of the KPMG network of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”), a Swiss entity. Some of the services or offerings provided by KPMG LLP are not permissible for its audit clients or affiliates or related entities. 181205
CLICK TO WATCH : ‘T-MOBILE – HOW WILL 5G CHANGE EVERYTHING?’
Nielsen Mobile Insights reported in
subscriber base continues to boom.
early 2017 that T-Mobile had ranked
In January 2019, T-Mobile’s Q4 2018
first in customer service satisfaction
report highlighted the net addition of
through the entirety of 2016. In the
2.4mn subscribers to its network, mak-
company’s press release at the time,
ing the quarter its best ever for acquir-
Legere said: “We have the best care
ing new customers. Since 2013, at
team in the business – at this point,
the advent of the Uncarrier marketing
that’s not even up for debate. But, like
strategy, T-Mobile’s customer base has
everyone else at this company, our
rocketed upwards by 46mn, bringing
care team takes ‘we won’t stop’ pretty
the total to 79.7mn at the end of 2018.
literally. They’ve got their sights on
In the same report, T-Mobile noted:
being the #1 care team in any industry,
“Not only are customers coming to
anywhere – not just wireless.” T-Mobile
T-Mobile, but they are also staying
has made good on this promise as its
longer. T-Mobile posted its bestw w w.t- mo b ile. com
09
Reimagine the impossible
Bring together people, data, and processes to transform your organization. With the latest in AI technologies, you can engage your customers in new ways, empower your employees more than ever before, and optimize operations to become an industry leader. Start your digital transformation today.
Get started
11
ever fourth quarter branded post-
past five years, with its Lightning and
paid phone churn result this quarter
Pardot platforms aiding significantly in
showing the power of the company’s
the automation and personalisation of
value proposition.”
the online customer experience. In a
The digital transformation that has
Dreamforce 2017 interview with John
accompanied and facilitated this
Carney, SVP of Communications and
drastic change of operations, and
Media at Salesforce, T-Mobile’s EVP of
subsequent success, has seen the
Marketing and Experience, Nick Drake,
incorporation of a host of exciting,
described the firm’s use of the Sales-
disruptive technologies that focus on
force platforms in driving the innova-
maximising the quality of T-Mobile’s
tive operations from an internal base.
service offering. Salesforce has been
“We are now incredibly excited about
a key partner for T-Mobile over the
the implementation of Lightning that’s w w w.t- mo b ile. com
Rewiring the T-Mobile Supply Chain with Digital Technology platform
Whilst the idea was to shatter the architectural monolith, the efforts were centered around “ Small and RoI-driven” bets among the others which include Inventory serialization, reverse logistics serialization, IMEI tracking, and applications that were delivered successfully through 100% agile mode of execution.
T-Mobile is known for its resolute pursuits and unwavering focus on customer experience. Digital Transformation was the preferred strategy and supply chain was one of the chosen areas for transformation in order to build foundational capabilities. The tenets of the Digital Supply chain transformation included Customer Centricity, Real-time Inventory visibility and Asset traceability, Time to market and integration with other partner ecosystems.
The resulting KPI’s were higher NPS, reduced time to market, reduced inventory cycle time and better control over operating costs. The next time a customer connects with any T-Mobile touch point and is able to access real-time inventory, check product availability, trade-off an old phone for a new one in a frictionless manner, it is the Digital transformation in action, enabled by a robust T-Mobile - Tech Mahindra partnership.
Tech Mahindra, #15 in the Forbes Digital 100 ranking 2018, collaborated with T-Mobile to take up the challenge of going beyond the brief through architectural simplifications and automation through a co-created framework for transformation.
Tech Mahindra’s ability to deliver value to the business with a state-of-the-art digital platform and transforming the culture of the operations has helped T-Mobile achieve digital maturity in a record time.
To learn more visit us at, https://www.techmahindra.com/cwce.html
13
just occurred, as we’re seeing radical
“ We have the best damn care team in the business – at this point, that’s not even up for debate” — John Legere, CEO at T-Mobile
efficiency appearing in our business,” Drake said. “From a lead generation perspective, we’re using Pardot to prioritise who we should be contacting, Einstein is going in in the near future to help us become more intuitive and predictive about who we should be calling and what our most qualified leads are,” he continued. “It’s enabling our teams to put the next natural customer experience step into place.” Lightning has enabled T-Mobile to personalise the w w w.t- mo b ile. com
14
T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray, second left, and executives including Executive Vice President of Communications and Community Engagement Janice Kapner President Mike Sievert, center, CEO John Legere, second from left, and CFO Braxton Carter
C O M PA N Y FACT S
• T-Mobile’s customer base has increased by 46mn since 2013, reaching 79.7mn at the end of 2018
Salesforce CRM platform to its brand, as well as significantly increasing the efficiency with which its representatives can manage pipelines through a deeply intuitive user interface. Pardot,
• T-Mobile added 2.4mn subscribers to its network in Q4 2018, its best quarter ever
Salesforce’s CRM-integrated B2B
• T-Mobile has tripled its 4G LTE coverage since 2015
launch, and manage campaigns and
• Revolutionary CEO John Legere took office in 2012
marketing automation solution, enables T-Mobile’s marketers to create, initiatives with ease, ramping up their lead generation rates. This technological focus on the customer, coupled with T-Mobile’s
15
pioneering subscription strategies and offers, is further strengthened by its asynchronous messaging capabilities launched in 2016. Provided by LivePerson, a market leader in conversational commerce solutions, T-Mobile’s Team of Experts service enables its customers to continue through each stage of their digital journey with the same representative, providing a continuity of service that is often sorely lacking across other live chat services. In a September 2018 press release from
$40bn+ Approximate revenue
2002
Year founded
44,000
Approximate number of employees w w w.t- mo b ile. com
LivePerson, Drake said: “The frustration of endless robotic phone menus and transfers from rep to rep can ruin a customer’s experience – so we ended it. Now with T-Mobile’s Team of Experts, our customers can get assistance when and how they want to – including via messaging.” In Drake’s interview with John Carney, he noted that the decision to introduce this service was driven by an understanding of modern smartphone usage, particularly the focus on messaging 16
and video streaming. Today, the commitment to T-Mobile customers’ love for watching video on their smartphones has seen the firm launch a free Netflix subscription with its T-Mobile ONE family package. This attention to detail can be traced back to John Legere’s influence as CEO, who has reportedly instructed each of the company’s executives to speak to customers every day, thereby instilling the laudable culture of customer-centricity through consulting with those customers about what they want from their network provider. T-Mobile’s next major step in its digital journey is no secret: the much-
anticipated leap to 5G. Not only has the firm tripled its 4G LTE coverage since 2015, it has been working hard to ensure it is one of the first to market with its own 5G network. The firm has laid out its 5G Vision, promising the gigabit-speed network standard for everyone, everywhere. Industry experts anticipate that 5G will be one of the most transformative leaps in wireless technology’s history, and T-Mobile says it is the only carrier in the US capable of establishing a strong and well-distributed 5G network in the early years of its release. With T-Mobile set to launch its 5G coverage this year, it says that the network will not only offer significantly faster download and upload speeds but that it will also enable it to offer lower prices per gigabyte for its customers. Highlighting this promise of bringing down its prices is emblematic of T-Mobile’s bold strategy since Legere took the reins, knowing and proving that investing in customers will continue to draw subscribers like never before.
w w w.t- mo b ile. com
17
T-Mobile 12920 Se 38th Street Bellevue Washington 98006 USA T +001 (425) 378-4000 www.t-mobile.com