DEPLOYING NEW TECHNOLOGY
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FULL STEAM AHEAD KPN is the leading Dutch telecommunications provider. We spoke to the Executive Vice President Networks and IT, and CIO of the Year Award winner, Bouke Hoving, about the company’s most recent developments. Written by Anna McMahon • Produced by Danielle Harris
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ith this in mind, Executive Vice President Networks and IT, Bouke Hoving, is determined to up the ante by leading the business into the next stage of its transformation. Bouke said, “We sell telecommunication services to Dutch consumers as well as business customers. We try to do that in such a way that we combine our fixed and mobile networks into one proposition, so we can position ourselves as a leading telecommunications provider, where we deliver a package of internet, television and mobile. That’s what the company stands for, while also bringing IT components into the telecom package.”
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I asked Bouke if he could provide a little further information about this latest digital transformation. “It is called simplification in the outside world – what I used to phrase a technologyled business transformation. We are really looking for ways to improve the customer experience by deploying new technology.” Bouke was awarded CIO of the Year Award 2017 (CIO Day) for his forward thinking. The award aims to give recognition to the best performing CIO in that year, focusing on leadership aspects and business and boardroom credibility, as well as such performance aspects as IT performance, IT agility and project performance/
“KPN’s next step sees the company strengthen its partnership with telecom software, solutions and service provider ZTEsoft”
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attractiveness. Motivated jury chairman, Bernhard van Oranje, explained, “With Bouke Hoving, we have chosen a leader who can put his vision into words and does everything he can to help his organisation move forward. He has proven that as well. He really made the difference for his company.” Bouke believes his win is due to the transformation of KPN into a customerdriven organisation with an integrated and user-friendly range of products and services. His fellow nominees included Arthur Govaert (Radboudumc), Jaco van Goudswaard (Kadaster), Leo Brand (Vopak), Olli Hyyppä (NXP) and Ton van Rhijn (CZ). Bouke said, “It was tough competition. I was hoping to win but it was
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This partnership is basically covering what we see as the next phase of our transformation Bouke Hoving on ZTEsoft
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a surprise. For me, this award was about comparing ourselves cross-sector in a Dutch context against competitors and companies in a digital transformation programme. It was recognition that we have come quite far in the transformation of KPN towards a digital telecom company.” Celebrating with a glass of wine with his nearest and dearest, Bouke added, “Being with my family and the team on the evening of the award ceremony was really nice.” KPN’s next step sees the company strengthen its partnership with telecom
software, solutions and service provider ZTEsoft. Bouke explains, “This partnership is basically covering what we see as the next phase of our transformation. If you’re attending a summit or a digital transformation these days, the theme is how to move from digitising your customer interaction towards becoming digital. If you look at what we have done so far, we have transformed our operating model, built around products, into a more customer-centric business model. For example, previously, we were building our IT around individual products. If you then start to combine those products, customers get confused because the IT is
“Our future sees us look into those p IT to help us to implement this c
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processes that require more modern concept of instant gratification� not built around the customers, but the products. You therefore need to redo your IT, built around the customer.� ZTEsoft specialises in providing business support system and operations support system products and services to telecom operators and other customers. The company is at the forefront of the digital transformation process, something that KPN will be exploring as it ventures into its next phase. According to Bouke, “Customers come first at KPN. After the first phase, we
have seen customer satisfaction levels going up by more than 20 points. Now that we are entering this next phase, we need to look deeper into the core of our operating model, check all the processes, and determine whether they are still fit for the digital age. If you take the customer perspective, our customers demand instant gratification these days. Customers expect to walk out of a store and for their new mobile contract to be working before they leave. Similarly, when they are buying broadband, before they arrive home, they want it to be working. That bar for customer expectation is a very high bar. 11
Digital Transformation is about Customer First Digital Transformation Offerings Customer experience is the key differentiator to compete in digital economy. ZTEsoft partnership with KPN focuses on creating the best customer experience by providing the technology and solutions to streamline business and operational processes and to get the most from network investments. For the future we will continue powering KPN’s digital transformation where customer is first!
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For mobile, we are living up to those expectations, but for fixed, we are not. We have been improving our delivery times and brought them down from 15 to seven days in the last few years, but we really need to have a very hard look at those processes.” The automated processes in use date back to the sixties when the business was about disconnecting and reconnecting phone numbers. Bouke added, “Looking at the customer expectations in the digital world, nobody is asking a telecom company to disconnect a broadband internet line. Quite the opposite. So we really need to rethink those processes which were automated in the sixties for
“KPN remains at the forefront of the European telecommunications industry” telephone services and copied over for broadband internet connectivity, as they are inadequate.” That’s all part of this next phase, ensuring that the processes can be reengineered. Bouke concluded, “Customers are rewarding us with positive feedback. Our future sees us look into those processes that require more modern IT to help us to implement this concept of instant gratification.” And as the network becomes more software-defined, we will be able to see new business models emerging. The future is very bright at KPN, and we would like to wish Bouke and all his team great success. It will be exciting to watch the company’s plans come to fruition, enabling it to enjoy unrivalled levels of customer satisfaction.
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Koninklijke KPN N.V Maanplein 55 2516 CK The Hague infodesk@kpn.com www.kpn.com 16