Customer-centric digitisation keeps telcos relevant

INTERVIEW Customer-centric digitisation keeps telcos relevant

Catering to customer demands with the latest tech gives telcos an edge in the New Economy.

Joongshik Wang is a Managing Partner of

EY-Parthenon and Technology, Media &

Entertainment and Telecommunications (TMT) market segment for ASEAN. With over 25 years of experience as a management consultant at leading global strategy consulting firms in Southeast Asia, China, and Korea, Wang has served a wide variety of clients within the technologies, digital media, and telecom industries.

His experience spans across corporate strategy, M&A, portfolio optimisation, innovation and digital customer experience. Wang has worked with Private Equity (PE) clients to develop investment hypotheses, advise transactions, and improve their portfolio companies’ performance. Most recently, Wang helped telecom companies to restructure their businesses with the ‘rightasset-model’ approach and rebuild their portfolio to adapt to the New Economy.

Beyond his corporate roles, Wang is a well-known, trusted commercial tech advisor through his engagements on emerging Southeast Asian technology unicorns. Prior to joining EY-Parthenon, his professional career included a stint as a partner of Kearney Singapore, focusing on strategy, TMT, and PE practice. Now based in Singapore, he previously served as a Managing Partner of Kearney Korea.

Wang’s extensive professional experience and expertise have brought him to the judging panel of the 2022 Asian Telecom Awards. Asian Business Review sat with the Yonsei University and University of Chicago Booth School of Business alum to talk about his guiding principles as an advisor in the telecom sector, as well as insights into the industry, its challenges and opportunities.

In your role as a commercial tech advisor, how do you build trust with your clients? What values do you live by that guides you in your work?

Building trust demands perfect execution every single time. It also requires absolute fact-based objectivity and an uncompromising commitment to safeguarding stakeholders’ interests – both present and future.

Successfully grappling with this duality dilemma – whether to optimise for today’s success or plan for tomorrow’s disruption – is increasingly moving up as a critical boardroom agenda. To help organisations successfully navigate the heightened pressures to balance both current and future needs, business leaders need to move beyond short- and mid-term thinking. I work with clients to help them to reframe perspectives and adopt a future-back strategy approach – where we challenge current paradigms and identify the many potential futures and implications, and work backwards to understand the strategic and tactical issues of today that have long-term implications.

Our clients value the deep sector knowledge and technical experience that our worldwide team of TMT industryfocused professionals possess to help them address these myriad changes. Our geographic hub structure, including a strong team based in Asia-Pacific, enables us to quickly mobilise teams to meet the needs of clients in this region.

What challenges do you typically foresee amongst telecommunication companies that undergo digital transformation and what do you advise for them to resolve those challenges?

A future-back approach that is tuned in to the megatrends in the environment will help organisations to avoid being inward-looking. According to an EY survey of global TMT executives on their capital investment strategies, companies that are preoccupied with housekeeping issues such as data consistency or legacy system problems are struggling to generate returns. On the other hand, leading companies are prioritising investments in digital capabilities in areas that will enable them to monetise existing assets, for example by strengthening their data analytics capabilities for customer insights. These leading companies understand that digital transformation goes beyond exploring the latest technological opportunities. Organisations with the ability to identify new revenue-generating opportunities in the new economy, particularly in innovative services for B2B enterprises, will gain an edge.

Building trust demands perfect execution every single time (Photo: Joongshik Wang, Managing Partner, ASEAN EY-Parthenon)

Business leaders need to move beyond short- and midterm thinking