IOT LOVE: THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS
COMPANY DRIVEN BY PASSION, ENERGY AND DEDICATION
IOT LOVE: THE TELECOMMUNICA COMPANY DRIVEN BY PASSION, ENERGY AND DEDICATION
Tele2 IoT connects more than 10 million customer assets, putting it in the top 10 Internet of Things (IoT) providers in Europe. The company’s mission is to help enterprises transform their business through connectivity. Here to tell us more about their services, strategy and success is Cyril Deschanel, the Managing Director at Tele2 IoT.
BUSINESS INTERVIEW
TELECOMMUNICATIONS PASSION,
TELE2 IOT PRIDES ITSELF ON BEING A COMPANY FILLED WITH FRIENDLY AND DEDICATED IOT EXPERTS, WHO ARE THERE TO HELP ENTERPRISES AND THEIR PEOPLE, REGARDLESS OF THE INDUSTRY THEY WORK IN, THE CHALLENGES THEY FACE OR WHERE THEY ARE IN THEIR IOT JOURNEY.
t is the global IoT division for Tele2, a leading telecom operator in the Nordic countries. Connectivity is at the heart of what they do, alongside enabling services that help their IoT partners manage and analyse solutions in an intelligent, secure, costeffective and efficient way.
Cyril Deschanel, Managing Director at Tele2 IoT explains, “The present and the future is to connect assets and transform them from simple assets into intelligent assets. Our mission is to help our customers to connect everything they need to connect.”
SERVICES
But what do they bring to the European market?
Cyril highlights four main services that define Tele2 IoT’s market offering.
First, they bring the full suite of IoT technologies to their customers. “We offer solutions from 2G to 5G, and we were one of the first IoT providers to launch 5G more than a year ago,” answers Cyril.
“We also provide dedicated IoT technologies called narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) and long-term evolution (LTE-M) machine-to-machine
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communication solutions. These two technologies, NB-IoT and LTE-M, are dedicated to IoT and can reach devices that were not reachable in the past, for example underground, or that are batterypowered, such as an asset in your school bag, car or luggage like a tracker.”
Second, Tele2 IoT customer solutions are powered by CISCO IoT Control Center, its connectivity management platform (CMP) known as 2CONTROL at Tele2 IoT.
“It is the leading platform recognised by seven out of eight analysts as the best one in the market. Having the best platform powering our connectivity solutions while other providers struggle puts us in a strong position to support and reassure our customers,” says Cyril.
Third, Tele2 IoT’s service brings global coverage to support the international deployment of IoT projects by their customers with one SIM only to simplify their customers´ IoT deployments.
countries, which translates to more or less three operators per country on average, so our platform can help customers to deploy their solutions worldwide.”
Lastly, Tele2 IoT offers advanced SIM technology solutions to their IoT partners.
“We have the full suite of SIM technologies,” elaborates Cyril. “You can have a plastic SIM, a ruggedised SIM, a SIM chip or a virtual SIM, the iSIM and the eSIM.” These SIM technologies mean customers can deploy IoT solutions in a broad range of scenarios and devices and they are not locked in with us as an operator forever as they can switch to another profile through eSIM technology. I wish all operators would do the same as us to help democratise the IoT.”
EXPANSION
By industry standards, Tele2 IoT is currently enjoying unprecedented growth.
“We have a core network that covers the world, but we don't have a radio network in all countries around the world,” says Cyril. “But we have roaming agreements with more than 450 operators in more than 180
“We are one of the fastest-growing IoT providers with 22 per cent yearon-year revenue growth. To put that in perspective, if you look at the top three IoT analysts, the average market growth is around 10-11 per cent. So we are growing twice faster than other operators in IoT,” says Cyril.
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What is the expansion strategy underpinning this burgeoning growth?
Cyril explains that the company has focused itself geographically for the last decade which has helped secure its market position without overstretching itself.
“We have been focusing our growth on the northern Europe region for the last nine years: the UK and Netherlands, obviously Sweden where we have headquarters, and the Baltics,” says Cyril.
“We have also been growing a bit in USA and the rest of Europe, but
this has not been the focus because we want to be successful first in the main northern Europe region before we think about further expansion.”
Since this strategy has been successful for almost a decade, now Tele2 IoT is looking to move closer to the rest of Europe – France, Italy, Spain and Germany in particular.
“We are going to bring value and replicate our success stories in these larger countries that are very mature in terms of IoT adoption and have a need for a more digital, flexible, competitive and customeroriented connectivity provider,” summarises Cyril.
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To explore these new markets, Tele2 IoT has recruited remote sales teams for these countries to gauge demand before contemplating where and how to expand.
But the goal is not merely to expand their services or reach, but also to
bring Scandinavian core values to the rest of Europe in the process.
“Scandinavia is famous for reliability, transparency and elegance. We want to share these strong skills from the Nordics,” says Cyril.
PARTNERSHIPS
At Tele2 IoT these Scandinavian values permeate their B2B relationships and service provision for customers.
“In general we do not want to be just a supplier for our customers
“We count CSL as a core partner to test or validate new services and the innovation we are working on”
– we want to be a supplier-partner,” says Cyril.
One such relationship Cyril highlights is Tele2 IoT’s work with the CSL Group.
“CSL is a UK-headquartered company that is a European leader in the security and health industries that require mission-critical connectivity solutions,” says Cyril. “So we not only provide them with our connectivity services but trial new offerings that we will bring to market. We count them as a core partner to test or validate new services and the innovation we are working on. That's the first thing we do with them.”
“But more than that we help them to address and attack new markets with their solution, powered with our connectivity services. We introduced them to our colleagues in the Baltic countries so that they can offer their IoT solutions to our local market. We help them to grow their business, which in turn helps us to grow together with them. So that's a winwin situation. That's why we call it a real partnership because many people talk about partnership, but it only goes in one direction. In this case, it goes both directions to help each other.”
INNOVATION
Tele2 IoT embraces this supplierpartner approach no matter what
industry or vertical they are working in or the size of the enterprise using their services. But to operate their horizontal strategy across diverse projects requires a comprehensive innovation roadmap to meet their customers’ requirements.
Cyril emphasises three main drivers of their innovation roadmap and strategy.
Firstly the company leans into the notion of adapting to feedback by hosting its Customer Innovation Forum, where all customers can provide insights into the challenges they face as an enterprise or request new features from Tele2 IoT.
Second, Tele2 IoT prioritises market awareness – they analyse the multifaceted elements of the IoT sector and make sure they remain at the leading edge of the industry.
Finally, they host Innovation Days within the company where colleagues take a few days to explore new ideas.
Cyril lauds the Innovation Days, “Even if just 10 or 20 per cent of the ideas bring value to our customers and to our company, we think it's the best way to take to encourage creativity from our people.”
Besides the strategic drivers for innovation at Tele2 IoT, technological and process
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innovation are also vital to the company.
Expanding on their technological innovation, Cyril says, “We have implemented predictive maintenance mechanisms in our network. Imagine you have connected 2,000 drones in seven countries. You need to remotely control your drone across great distances but also keep in mind preventive or better predictive maintenance of the devices.
“So what we do is check the behaviour of the drones through our monitoring tools. We assess if there has been device misbehaviour in the last six weeks. Then we analyse the error and inform the customer in advance so that they know they have to look for a solution because something is going wrong. So we try to be the first alarm bell, even before the customer detects a problem.”
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“We are the first and only IoT connectivity provider to give our customers access to our network monitoring tools”
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Tele2 IoT strengthens this proactive approach to predictive maintenance with transparency by sharing its network tools with its largest customers as well.
“We are connected to 500 networks, and we are monitoring them 24/7,” explains Cyril. “But we are the first and only IoT connectivity provider to give our customers access to our network monitoring tools so they know in almost real-time what's happening in the network that our systems are connected to through our platform.”
Tele2 IoT takes these insights from the customer experience, learns from them and uses the insights to guide their internal process innovation and digitalisation approaches.
CHANGING NEEDS
Cyril shares how the company’s innovation strategies help meet the changing priorities of its customers.
“With new IoT applications emerging all the time, the needs and expectations of our partners are always changing. Fortunately, the new technology and solutions we develop help us satisfy these shifting demands and adapt our offerings.”
But what are some of the ways IoT customer priorities are changing?
Cyril highlights the growing demand for low power wide area (LPWA) networks, “We have launched LPWA technology but it's not only in our network – it’s also rolling out to operators who offer LPWA and with whom we already have roaming agreements around the world in 2G to 5G.
“We've also seen a shift in the needs of our customers related to cellular technology that can reach more devices, connectivity solutions that consume less energy when devices are battery powered and
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lower overall costs of deploying IoT solutions.
“Now the next shift of technology that we anticipate from our customers in the coming years is the alignment with the technological development around AI and blockchain. We are closely monitoring the evolution of these technologies and the benefits they could bring in combination with IoT.”
PRINCIPAL AMBITIONS
Discussing the company’s principal ambitions for the coming years, Cyril describes how Tele2 IoT wants to be the most digitalised and
democratised IoT provider in the next three years.
Describing the company’s goals in the near future, Cyril says, “First it is to maintain our profitable growth journey. We have to be profitable as an organisation to reinvest to innovate and meet our customers’ needs.
“But if you look beyond 2023, our ambition is to democratise IoT. We want to make it as simple and as fast as possible for our customers to deploy their IoT solution and to progress in the maturity of their IoT journey.”
Cyril explains that Tele2 IoT will continue its democratising efforts by staying close to its customers and increasing the flexibility of its offerings based on the insights emerging from these relationships.
“We are already close to our customers with our forums, local presence and predictive and
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“We have to be profitable as an organisation to reinvest to innovate and meet our customers’ needs”
transparent systems. But as we work with these partners to deploy more IoT solutions, we see the complexity of their needs increase. As more connections and assets emerge, the more data we can learn from. So we strive to increase our own flexibility to thrive in even the most complex situations in terms of pricing, support and technology provision.”
Sustainability will also remain a core component of Tele2 IoT’s strategies in the coming years.
“95 per cent of IoT solutions contribute to a more sustainable world,” states Cyril. “We want to focus on the ways we can have the most impact and Tele2 Group is a leading organisation and operator in terms of its sustainability agenda.”
IoT Love
In Autumn 2023, Tele2 IoT will celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Reflecting on this important milestone and the organisation’s growth in the past decade, Cyril describes the pride he feels for the company culture he and his colleagues enjoy.
“It is difficult to describe but it is part of our DNA. It is the passion we have for IoT and that is stronger than just engagement with IoT. We have high levels of expertise in the industry, we are passionate about our customers’ IoT applications and this translates to a passion – we want to transmit that energy and knowledge to our customers. We strive to be trusted advisers and friendly experts.”
Often IoT Love spurs Tele2 IoT employees above and beyond the call of duty. Recently, one of their customers had issues on their side and the Tele2 IoT team worked day and night to resolve the problems, even though they weren’t directly connected to their services. After working together to resolve it, the happy customer brought three cakes to Tele2 IoT offices as a sign of their appreciation, which Cyril recalls fondly as a goosebumpinducing moment.
“Company culture is one of the pillars in our organisation and part of that is the values we embrace as employees. At Tele2 IoT we live the values of the Tele2 Group, and we also embrace another value on top of them, which we call ‘IoT Love.’
“IoT Love is not only externally focused for customers or the market, but it goes between employees as well,” summarises Cyril. “We have high levels of collaboration and communication to enhance our internal relationships and work-life satisfaction.”
For more information, visit the Tele2 IoT website at tele2iot.com
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ADDED VALUE
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
by Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund and Ola Rosling
On why he has purchased this book for colleagues, friends and family, Cyril explains, “It gives readers an optimistic outlook on the reality and the future of our world on all kinds of topics such as the economy, wars and education. Of course this doesn’t deny the tragedy of events like pandemics or the war in Ukraine. But it shows readers that if you listen only to certain sources, you might have a rather negative outlook on what's going on in the world.
“The Factfulness authors gathered 2,000 documents to build the book and it really demonstrates how the world is better than we think. This book is important because it inspires me first and makes me want to inspire others. But it also relates to the purpose of IoT. We have a positive mindset and want to make a better world, whether this is to make businesses more efficient and sustainable or to make people happier and safer.”
UPCOMING EVENTS
Cyril is looking forward to hosting and attending IoT Talks in Stockholm in November 2023, Tele2 IoT’s premier annual event.
“It’s the largest IoT event in the Nordics which we organise as a thought leadership event around the market in general. We invite our customers, partners, prospects, analysts, journalists and strategic suppliers. So the whole ecosystem of IoT is represented and it's around 200 people in a beautiful location.”
For the latest updates on Tele2 IoT events such as IoT Talks, head over to the company’s events website www.tele2iot.com/ events
Connect
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with Cyril
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