Creating a culture that fosters growth and meets customer expectations as a result
Today, we talk to Jonathan Abrahamson, Senior Vice President, Product and Digital, who admits: “There are people who are better than me at their job.” Thus, how he accepts this fact and how people can grow as a result and meet the customer’s expectations are the focus topics of this episode.
So, what did they discuss?
Hanne Lindbæk
Okay, so Senior VP, Jonathan Abrahamson, just kind of graced our studio with his presence as a nice fit. What are the main findings from today’s episode?
Svitlana Bielushkina
He definitely did Hanne and we talk a lot about digital. He really managed to demystify what digital means for us at Deutsche Telekom. What it means for the leadership skill set of experts, for every single one of us, and for the mindsets And we talked a bit about what we actually meant by the word “experts” these days, didn’t we?
Hanne Lindbæk
Yes, I finally feel as though I’m getting to understand what it actually means. You know, everyone’s saying that the future will be digital. But here’s a guy who demystifies it and also makes it possible to assume that even if you’re working at Deutsche Telekom already and have been for many years, you will be part of the digital future. Such important messages are in here. Go and listen, people listen up. important one, this one.
Svitlana Bielushkina
And here we are. Welcome to the next episode of human-centric podcasts. And I’m super excited to have Jonathan Abrahamson here with us. Jon is Senior Vice President digital experience and delivery in Europe segments of Deutsche Telekom. And I’m quite excited for two reasons. The first one because John is one of the first faces I’ve seen in dt when I joined you were the first one in the zone, like goes back. Yeah. And the second one, because the moment they told people that we are recording a podcast with you, my whatsapp fans mad. So many questions about what is this digital and what you actually are doing here? So welcome.
Jonathan Abrahamson
Thank you. It’s great to be here.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yeah. Like Susanna was saying, Jon, we actually had this experience of people sending us so many questions when they heard you were coming on, and I’m guessing you guys can fill me in on that. But I was really curious, like, what is it that’s being aroused here? What is it that we are expecting to find in this episode? And I think part of it is to try and pick apart this whole topic of the digital experts of the future, like, what is it we’re going to be needing? And what does it actually going to be like to be us in the future where the digitalization is like coming in so dramatically, in a way. But to start us off, John, we do want you to explain a little bit about yourself. And tell us a little bit about your story. And to start us off, I was very curious about something you said when we were doing the research. When you said, “You are so happy about the job you have right now,” it sounded a bit like you were willing to kind of fight to keep it somehow. And so here’s my question number one for you. Tell us what is so exciting about the work that you get to do these days.
Jonathan Abrahamson
Thank you. I think it’s true. I mean, I would put down a bit and fight anyone who told me that they their job was better than mine, or more or exciting than mine? I think you know that the role that we have in the context of telco is so broad but so massive, and I think you know that between where we are as an industry and where we need to be, there is still so much work to be done. But the wonderful thing about working at a place like DT or telco more broadly is that we’re very established businesses, we have huge scale, and we have millions of customers across the group. And those customers are expecting a certain level of experience and interaction with us. And these are areas where, with the right skill sets, the right people, and the right investment, we can make huge progress, so that’s really why I love the job. It’s the scope. It’s the scale, and it’s the ability to work with really smart people.
Hanne Lindbæk
It sounds like you’re not afraid to really get your hands dirty and do some work here. Is that what you’re saying?
Jonathan Abrahamson
Absolutely. There’s so much to do, and so much opportunity. And I think, you know, telcos are going through a bit of a sort of renaissance. Now, I think through this Corona pandemic, where people are starting to realize the value that we can bring to customers’ lives, but with that realization comes an expectation about how they want to interact with us. And you know, they don’t compare us to other telcos; they compare us to Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, or Uber. And we really need to be making investments now to catch up with the sort of expectations that customers have. Our customers have of us rather, when they compare a digital experience for the companies that they deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Hanne Lindbæk
So if I take a comparison, like from the outside world, and look at it from a general perspective, part of what you’re saying is that we are all being a bit reborn by this pandemic, aren’t we? We’re having to reinvent ourselves always in one. Yeah, yeah. And for sure, telcos are definitely a place where you see that happening. So there was this one place where I wanted to take you because you spoke to me about being a leader, of course, but in this field, was there so much work to be done? Not so much. It sounds like there’s a need for real courage, ha, when there’s so much new stuff happening and so much evolving to do, and yet you’re telling me as a leader that you really thrive on employing people who are, in your eyes anyway, better than you at what you do? Am I right? Did I get that right?
Jonathan Abrahamson
It’s not that I’ve made an incredibly blessed career out of hiring people who are smarter than me; I love doing that. And I like to surround myself with those people. I think, you know, this is such a broad field. And there are so many nuances; it’s moving so fast. But I think, you know, product people in general, of which I would consider myself one, love building things; I love being around things being built. And there’s always going to be someone in this field who knows that better, has done it before, or has done it in a different way. I think the scope that we have within the team to sort of bring these people together and unleash them on a task is so broad. And I think that’s, you know, a major part of the fun that we’re having at the moment.
Hanne Lindbæk
Okay, thanks for saying that. And now I want to kind of try and dig beneath, because I would imagine that just in my life as the consultant that I am, I would dare to say yes, on my team, there are people who I would say are better at stuff than me. But I would still say somewhere along the line, “Won’t your ego get a little bit hurt by, like, employing or being frightened by employing people you think are better than you?” Or is that just me?
Jonathan Abrahamson
I think it’s just, you know like I said, this is such a broad area. And it would be actually impossible to be an expert in all the fields that we cover. Digital is one of these topics, which means so many different things to so many different people. And it can be everything from solving world peace to world hunger, and everything in between. So actually, it would be impossible to be an expert in everything. And because it’s becoming so specialized now. And the technology that we use now is becoming so specialized, and so specific to different parts of the interaction that we have, actually, you can specialize and we can bring in experts from these individual fields. The magic happens when we bring these people together and let them you know, go at a task. And that’s really where, you know, we see we have the most fun.
Hanne Lindbæk
So when you’re bringing experts together to be co-creative. That’s when the fun starts.
Jonathan Abrahamson
Absolutely. And seeing the app that they have, and again, building on it in a telco context, where we’re not saying startup mode, but where we’re looking to start from scratch for customers, I mean, Deutsche Telekom has millions of customers across the globe now, and these customers are all interacting with us on a day-to-day basis; they all rely on us for their livelihoods now and for the interactions. So that hard part in digital, which quite often in other industries, people find and trying to get scale, we don’t have that problem. We have scale from day one; we already have it for an incumbent business, and we have all these customers waiting to interact with us. So, you know, building platforms and capabilities on top of that immediately gives you scale, and we don’t have to try for that. So that’s another big task that makes it much more fun to work.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yeah. It sounds like you’re messing about with really huge, like, very powerful forces, like in so many ways, things are easy and exploitable, in a way.
Jonathan Abrahamson
Yeah, I think you get immediate feedback because, you know, people have certain expectations, and the ability for us to test something, try it out, and expose it to a million customers is something that we can do very easily. And you know, very quickly as well. If they’re happy with it or if they’re not, again, given that we’re able to move quite quickly in digital, you can always increment and improve the services as we go.
Hanne Lindbæk
So in the middle of this pandemic, with all its negative connotations and moods, I guess, there’s a little bit of, like, an upper, a bit of inspiration and curiosity and possibility.
Jonathan Abrahamson
Absolutely. I mean, I think the current situation is very challenging for society. But in the digital space, it’s been an absolute boon. So you know, we have to sort of weigh that when we will be able to abusive bit about the fund that we’re having at the moment, but certainly, it made our jobs and our tasks much more important.
Hanne Lindbæk
So, back to this job that you have now and the way you feel about it. Congratulations on being so happy about the job that you have. Tell us a little bit in a few minutes, in your own words. Tell us your story. How did you get to where you are today?
Jonathan Abrahamson
Well, you probably realized that’s not a German accent. So I was born in Australia and grew up there. I did an economics and marketing degree, but I joined that graduate program at a company called Optus, which is a telco in the Australian market. I was there for a number of years doing a series of sales and marketing roles, but took an opportunity to move overseas with my family. So I should mention, probably most importantly, that she is married with two daughters who basically run the family and the household. So I live to serve. But we took the opportunity to leave Australia and move to Singapore to work at SingTel, where we were for a few years. Optus was part of the SingTel group as well as AirTel in India. So we thought we got to know the Singapore market and SingTel and we thought, what better opportunity then to explore further in the group so we moved to India, which couldn’t be more different from Singapore. And we were there for a couple of years. And I would have to say that was probably the most formative and exciting part of my career and my personal life to date. I think both myself and my family probably learned more from those few years in India than at any other point in my career before that, but I wanted to stay married so I could move on, and I had the opportunity to join DT and move to Germany. So that’s how I came to be here.
Hanne Lindbæk
So just take me back to India for a second; can you say just telegram style? What was the learning? What is it you’re picking up there?
Jonathan Abrahamson
So I think, and we were talking before about scale, that India is a country of 1.31 x 4 billion people. You know, we moved from Singapore, where it’s a population of about 5 million to Gurgaon, where we lived, which is a suburb just outside of Delhi, which has 40 million people, you know, so then coming to bond with 300,000, it’s sort of a, it’s a different end of the spectrum. But that whole country is just amazing. I think anybody who hasn’t visited needs to visit at least once. It’s very difficult to explain in the amount of time that we have today. But I think it’s a country that is growing immensely. It’s full of intensely smart people who work incredibly hard. And, you know, I watch it with great interest as it grows through this growth phase in the economy, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what their country becomes, because it’s an amazing place.
Hanne Lindbæk
They sure do have work ethics, don’t they? Incredible.
Jonathan Abrahamson
Unlike anything I’ve seen, so it’s been it was great to I learned a lot there. And again, from a personal point of view, I think my wife and my kids also learned a huge amount from living there.
Hanne Lindbæk
I was about to say something because I can understand from a professional point of view that moving around like this is going to have to be educational somehow, and you’re meeting different cultures, but just for a second, let’s talk about the kids. They must have been so flexible to go along with you.
Jonathan Abrahamson
I think my children are very confused. Um, you know, if you ask them where they’re from, they never quite know; they speak with American accents because they go to American schools, which bothers me a little bit. You know, I think for them, it’s very normal, at least my kids, they’ve lived outside of Australia longer than they ever lived in Australia, I grew up, you know, formative years in Singapore, in that market, very different to, you know, going to school in India, where you’re, it’s quite often to see monkeys and pigs on the side of the road, you know, on the way to school or, or in the school yard, to coming to Germany, which were so different again, but I think, you know, that’s a nice thing that were sort of, you know, inculcating into them that they’re very international, this concept of living internationally and meeting and growing that way. And living in countries where English is not their first language, I think it’s been quite good for them. So I wish I had the same when I was a kid, you know, they miss the grandparents a little bit, or at least the grandparents miss them a little bit. But I think the benefits far outweigh that.
Hanne Lindbæk
So if we take that to be a kind of recipe for broadening your comfort zones, there isn’t one here. And what you’re saying is that you have to realize that you will miss some things. But you on the other hand, you do benefit from what however you travel, whether it’s from one department to another, whether it’s from one country to another in a way. And so you should really thank your kids and your wife, which I guess you do, for being so flexible and going along with you. You’re actually promoting this, aren’t you, as a kind of recipe for expanding your work horizons?
Jonathan Abrahamson
Am I right? Absolutely. I don’t think I would be where I am today without the opportunity to work across these different markets. You know, I follow the telco industry, and the telco is similar between the different markets. But there is the opportunity to essentially start from scratch again, from a networking point of view, from a market understanding point of view, from an industry understanding point of view, and from a regulatory point of view. Each of these is different in every market. So having to start again every few years really forces you out of your comfort zone. It doesn’t let you get comfortable. And I think that’s, you know, the biggest fear: mediocrity. So, you know, forcing yourself to always start again, I think, is very healthy. And it really forces you to sort of push yourself, and I think that’s been great.
Hanne Lindbæk
I love that. Yeah, I love that. They’re gonna stop you there when you’re saying the biggest fear is actually mediocrity. So the biggest fear isn’t being super, super bad at something, but actually mediocracy in itself. That’s really interesting. When I was thinking about this topic and thinking about myself, having seen what travel does to people and having coached in the corporate world at large, I would so agree with you. I’ve seen so many, many examples of people who actually like visiting different cultures. And I think when we visit a culture that’s not our own, we realize something about our own culture. So you start becoming aware of things like, “Oh, that’s why I do this,” or “My culture is full of that.” And you become more capable of making wiser decisions. I was thinking, Svetlana, maybe I could throw this one to you, Mrs. Ukraine? Yes, it’s been like that for you.
Svitlana Bielushkina
I think I’m listening. to join, and I’m saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, inside myself because my kids, who never lived in Ukraine, are Ukrainians, and I have to explain to them why you’re not Norwegians and why you are Ukrainians, even though you have never been in that country. But I wonder if I will go back to myself, who was the younger one in her 20s. And I would give advice to myself, I would say never even doubt going internationally, because I would also not become who I am today without having experience of now living in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Norway, traveling to Asia, working there for a number of countries. So the changes you, I think you’ve become much more open to diversity, and to diversity, not just in the cultural perspective, diversity of opinions, backgrounds, education. And diversity, as we had been discussing with Jonathan, is not easy. It actually comes with certain blondes; it really makes the most of it. But that gives you more potential to uncover that diversity.
Hanne Lindbæk
Training your diversity muscles Yes. And, like I said, this perspective has been so important, for me at least, to see that when you come from a culture and live long enough in a different culture, you actually start seeing what your own culture is about. And thereby you get conscious about the choices you’ve made. Because at the end of the day, we are the sum of the cultures that we are brought up in, aren’t we, unless we kind of make conscious shifts? What are we saying here? Guys? We’re saying, “Move around.” Is that what we’re saying to people?
Jonathan Abrahamson
If at all possible, I think, yeah, it’s not possible to get the kind of learning without international experience. I think if there’s ever an opportunity to go for that, it’s something you should jump on; it shouldn’t be seen as an imposition, it should be seen as a huge opportunity.
Hanne Lindbæk
So even if it’s scary, it’s kind of going there.
Svitlana Bielushkina
And also, I would say that, take the opportunity, if you have the opportunity to go rounds, I also would say to the CEOs to open up the opportunities, because that also creates a lot of momentum and opportunity, not just for individuals, but for a company per seven, you bring diverse talents, and run teams projects business together with a diverse talents international as well, as sounds.
Hanne Lindbæk
So true; it does show we go into the digital stuff.
Svitlana Bielushkina
I know, Jon, you started saying the digital was so diverse, you know, from hunger to world peace. So I don’t think that’s one of the reasons why so many questions are popping up in my WhatsApp. So what is digital in telecom? What are those digital experts that you’re hiring and bringing inside the company?
Jonathan Abrahamson
But again, I think as we mentioned before, there is no one specific type for these platforms, which are so central to the work that we do. We now look to work less through vendors, which is, you know, I think, you know, we seem to in this industry always go through these sort of big swings from insourcing to outsourcing; we’re definitely on the insourcing swing now, specifically, when it comes to these core platforms, which are so important for us. So it’s everything from software engineering, architecture, analytics, and product marketing, through CVM. You know, it really runs the full gamut of capabilities we’re looking to bring into the company now.
Svitlana Bielushkina
And CVM stands for just the listeners.
Jonathan Abrahamson
Customer Value Marketing. So it’s how we value and interact with customers and continue to sell and upsell to those customers.
Svitlana Bielushkina
So digital is our this is basically profession in different domains. So you have to be experts in different domains and work in the digital space, more or less, in the domains that you mentioned: CDM, data, product development, and so on and so forth. Can you develop those experts inside the company? Or is it more that we have to bring in new blood to the company to have this different type of thinking?
Jonathan Abrahamson
I think it’s definitely a mix; I think it has to be a mix, because certainly for the hardcore experts, are people that tend to have devoted their careers up until this date to that specific topic, so they are likely not coming from the telco market, where, you know, they would have potentially worked on other topics up until that point. So bringing in some of those anchors to take on some of the deeper topics is important for us. But we also—I mean, the telco is a very specific industry, and we need telco knowledge and telco understanding, and that sort of commercial understanding as well. And blending the two is where the value comes in. So essentially, what we need is the new blood coming in, bringing the high-end tech talent, mixed with really strong core telco people who need to learn some of the digital technology to develop themselves. But I think between those two outcomes, we end up where we need to be.
Svitlana Bielushkina
How would you develop inside the company, John? I’m having right now scouting for talents. I’m talking to a number of people, and sometimes fascinating stories come across. You can have people in sales who have been selling and having high numbers and who really want to move to digital product development. or people who are working with social media and who want to go into product development, but they don’t necessarily know how young, so they know they want to make a shift. It’s a bit scary. But they also understand that’s what they desire. They want to. So what would be your advice? You know how to develop that competence?
Jonathan Abrahamson
Drop me an email? Chat? I think it’s—I mean, it’s true. I think the good thing about this part of the industry is that it’s not like maybe other disciplines, which have been around for 20 or 30 years, and you need 15 years’ worth of experience to enter this field because these capabilities and these tasks are not that old. and they’re constantly developing now. so you can pick it up. I think, ultimately, you need to have a knack for and understanding of technology. Understanding how things work, I think that’s going to be important. There’s no, there’s no getting away from that part. But if you have that self-motivation about being interested, then, to be honest, you know, maybe it’s a big secret we shouldn’t tell. But what we’re doing is not rocket science. And you know that it can be learned, and you can develop in that space. So yeah, I’m absolutely happy to chat with people who are interested in joining the team.
Svitlana Bielushkina
That’s super cool. But tell us a bit more about how do you learn. Is it kind of falling into projects? Or is it kind of trainings online? Or shadowing into how can I, you know.
Jonathan Abrahamson
I think you mentioned three very good approaches; I think there’s a mixture of all of the above; and I think there’s tons of stuff you can learn online. And there are tons of white papers that talk about the really awesome product companies, how they operate, and how they approach product development and product management. Self-learning is always important to sort of augment the learning, but, to be honest, I think the best way is always on the job. So if you can find a way of being, you know, attached to a product team, pick up some topics, learn on the job, and develop them, you can see how much you like it. And obviously, that can be expanded with online learning in the UK as well. But to be honest, on the job, supplemented by self-learning, is the best way to get into it.
Svitlana Bielushkina
So join us in saying Hanne is just starting; you have a desire; just start. There are multiple ways to get there. If you remember some time ago, we had a conversation with you about digital also being a mindset. And that digital expertise is not something that only experts should have; it should also be demanded from the management teams as well to really understand the impact. So how does digitization, which is happening right now, impact our management teams and our leadership? How do we have to change and adapt to that?
Jonathan Abrahamson
I think we are changing and adopting. I think if we look at the progress that’s been made in Europe, over the last couple of years, there’s been huge progress. Our app two years ago was in 20% of customers hands now it’s in 62% of customers hands every month in Europe 62 Out of every 100 customers, one opens our app and has an interaction that wasn’t driven by me or my team but was driven by the management teams in the netcode. We’ve just passed a billion euros in payments via the app. In the last month, we have had countries like Slovakia make upwards of 60% of their tariff changes via the app. So these changes are happening now. And we’ve made, or at least the team has made, huge progress in this space. So I feel that momentum growing, which is again another reason why I love the job so much. And I think looking forward, what we see is more doubling down in this space. I think—and this is where I think, you know, the crux comes—we’ve made good progress in measuring and understanding how we interact with customers through digital channels. But we still have customers who interact with us through offline channels to a huge degree as well. So this year, now that we start to bring in digital measurement of offline interactions and really sort of get very deep insights into how customers are interacting with us in offline channels, we can marry that with our online digital understanding of the customer, and really get a very holistic view of how we measure our customers’ experiences, which then lets us intervene as well. So sorry for the long answer to the short question, but yeah, I think there’s progress there. And I can see further progress coming in this space.
Svitlana Bielushkina
And it becomes like, you know, when John describes this business as usual, so now digital field business as usual.
Jonathan Abrahamson
I mean, again, this has meant a long way in three years. Absolutely.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yeah. I just wouldn’t call my job that, but you make it sound so easy and simple. It makes it sound so simple. Like it’s just gonna happen. You know, it’s really inspiring in and of itself. I think. If we then reframe the question because what you’re saying about the management teams across Europe and in the NOC codes actually not co actually being of course, your local operations actually different countries. Yes. You are saying they are doing something right. So rather than saying what should they do more of or less of you’re saying they are doing something which is leading to very good results. Can you pinpoint what kind of leadership behavior really drives digital success these days? Is it like loose or tight Is it hard or mild? What is it?
Jonathan Abrahamson
I think you need to break it down into two components. I think there’s a component around the technology that’s available to solve these things. And there was an investment that was required over the first couple of years of our journey here to address some of that technology. That’s not a job that’s ever finished. But it’s difficult to make too much progress without some level of hygiene around the sort of technology and tools that we’re using. So that’s really where we invested the time over the first couple of years. But it was, you know, if you build it, they will come and they came right now that we’re able to see the value that digital and digitalization can bring, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And as you start to measure things, and that’s one wonderful thing about digital: measurement is very, very easy, very scalable, and very, very insightful, much more so than potentially traditional channels, you start seeing the insights and interventions that you can take on those insights, which, you know, paints a very, very simple picture for a management team to understand how they balance their time. I think, you know, we hire very smart people into management positions in the company. And if they can see the value, it makes sense to make progress there.
Hanne Lindbæk
So hiring the right people, even for those positions, is really important. I am hearing about their agile way of working. And I am for sure hearing “growth mindset. If I imagine that some of those managers have been around at least for a decade or maybe two, then actually being on top of the tempo that things are happening in right now. It must be a challenge, surely, or am I wrong?
Jonathan Abrahamson
I think Yeah. Challenge? Yes, without a doubt. But you know, if you’re having fun at work, then it’s good, right? And this is fun stuff to do. Because the input versus the output, when you get it right, is so multiplicative. I think people are enjoying the progress that we’re making. So that’s been a core driver.
Hanne Lindbæk
Enjoyment as a means of success. That’s interesting.
Svitlana Bielushkina
And passion Hanne, I can also feel passion here.
Hanne Lindbæk
Jon every person who has been on the show so far has talked about talent, talent development, talent maintenance, talent search, or whatever it is; we ended up discussing the word passion. It’s very interesting. And without passion, maybe we’re not really able to kind of bring our talents to the table somehow, unless we have the desire to do so we can be as talented as we want, somehow. So as a tourist looking in since I’m not actually employed by a telecom company, I travel across loads of fields of expertise within a kind of working month. I am so curious about like, what are the hotshot first visible results that we’re going to be seeing in the next few years of digitalization? What’s it going to be like to be an end user and also an employee at Deutsche Telekom just a few years from now? What are the biggest differences? We’re gonna see.
Jonathan Abrahamson
I’m not a futurist. I think that’s always a tough question to answer. But if we follow the breadcrumbs of what’s happened, I think we’ll see more and more digital tools and more and more digital ways of working. Again, as we mentioned before, the Corona crisis has changed the fundamental way we work and how we interact with each other. The fact that our development center—we have an in-house development center in India now—does all the development for all our central platforms across broadband, television, and digital, you know, they had to go into lockdown and grid down, and, you know, have been closed down for coming up on a year. Now, if you had told me before that we could close the center for a year and have absolutely zero impact on output, I would not have believed Yeah, but ultimately, it just works. People have found a way, and it just works. I used to travel one to two countries per week, in my role in Europe, that was the way that we just operated. Now, that doesn’t happen who haven’t haven’t haven’t been on a plane for, you know, six or seven months. So we interact in that fashion. So the usage of digital tools, and digital insights is going to be a core component of how our jobs change, but not just in the digital space. Across the business, whether it’s commercial teams, finance teams, or HR teams, everybody now sees the value of interacting in this way. And while you’re at it, it’s nice to be in the room and give someone a hug. It’s not always possible. So at least we get the next best thing. And we can actually get some efficiency out of this process as well. So a careful meeting between the two would be nice.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yeah. So right now you’re not being a futurist. You’re being realistic. This is what it’s like already, isn’t it?
Jonathan Abrahamson
I think what we’ve learned is that it was almost forced upon us. And I think if things had returned to normal after a month, we probably would have gone back to how things were before. I don’t think they will now. I think even once, you know, once we’re through this current crisis, I think, fundamentally, the way that we work, and the way that we interact with our customers and how our customers interact with us has fundamentally changed and won’t return to the way it was before. And I think that’s great for this part of the industry, at least.
Hanne Lindbæk
I guess the corona It’s so obvious, isn’t it? It has been a bit of a disrupter, hasn’t it? It’s just good old-fashioned disruption, with a positive effect as well. I think what I get curious about there, of course, is the human angle to that and what it actually does to us over time not to be able to interact in the same room, not to be able to read body language or read the mood in the same way, or to have chitchats and small talk. There are so many things that people say they’re missing out on these days. And I’ll be very curious to see what research says about that a few years from now. Absolutely. But you, my friend, are telling us that your job is pretty goddamn exciting right now. And I’m just curious to kind of start taking us towards a finishing off if I was a young talent out there in the world looking to see where I would want to be employed. What exactly would make me want to come to Deutsche Telekom? What would be the attraction right there?
Jonathan Abrahamson
Well, I mean, I think there are a few components to this. I think, firstly, that the scale at which we operate, which I spoke about before, is massive, and you start on day one with that. But the progress that we’ve made in digital versus other industries is not the same. We’re not anywhere near as digital as companies that were born in a digital environment. So the scope of the roles that we have here is much broader than what you would find in some of the traditional guilds of the world, where they’re so big, and you’re, you know, product manager X, looking at this pattern on this page four, at the fourth level of our business, and you’re not quite at that level yet. So the opportunity for super broad rolls, looking across super broad areas, working on the technology stacks, and building things from scratch, I think that’s specifically in the engineering space, that’s an area which really sort of gets engineers blood going, the fact that they can build something from scratch and have that on a resume is something which hasn’t existed before, rather than incrementing. I think the minutia, which potentially happens in other parts of the industry, is really where the excitement comes in this industry. So the scale, the breadth of the roles, and the fact that DT ultimately, in telco more broadly, is a wealthy industry, right? So there’s money to spend and investments to make. And there’s a mandate to grow, which is why we’re hiring. And while we’re making all these investments now, I think, you know, from a young talent point of view, that ticks all the boxes from my point of view.
Hanne Lindbæk
So, do we see any similar gender issues moving forward in the world of digitalization? How do you see it? Now? I know the the movement of like the girl geeks, and everything being an important one in the decade gone by? Do you see that popping up anywhere in terms of attracting talent?
Jonathan Abrahamson
Gonna have anything to do with it? Both my girls are doing coding lessons, and I think, yeah, the idea that this is one of these skill sets, which I think was a little bit more, that’s more of a function of the time 15 to 20 years ago when maybe the people who now have 10 to 15 years of experience were going through university and learning some of these skills. But now this stuff can be done online, and we see women coming through in these fields across the board. So yeah, I’m quite hopeful that that corrects itself organically over time; it doesn’t need to be forced, because, you know, we’re seeing it happen already.
Hanne Lindbæk
I love it. So as a parent, you’re actually like, did you have to force your daughters? Did they want to do it by themselves?
Jonathan Abrahamson
No, specifically, the younger one has a natural knack for this stuff. And I think that’s a good way of pulling her off Roblox. And Minecraft is actually showing her how it’s built underneath that. And I think, you know, there’s no doubt we need more women coders. So if I can help him in my small way, I’ll definitely do that.
Svitlana Bielushkina
I know this for my kids as well.
Jonathan Abrahamson
So they also did that in school, right? I mean, that was not something that existed when I went to school. So now, you know, they can pick electives and do coding. It’s amazing.
Svitlana Bielushkina
But I think there’s no more basic coding, and the basic data stuff now impacts every single one of us. So no matter what position, the role, yeah, having that the skills are important going forward into the future. So whether you are in HR, or in finance, or in commercial technology, you have to understand right now data and make your decisions, much more data driven, you have to understand the basics of closing and having your website or Instagram page or whatever is so much more digital. So that skill set is also important for all of us.
Hanne Lindbæk
I am very aware of the thing that you said earlier on, John, where you said, you know, you have to at least be a little bit technically minded. You have to have an interest in the thing. Yes. And there’s this point of entry that I don’t think curious is the right word for. But I guess it’s really important. I think that we keep thinking, even as age appears before us, that we can learn new things and that we don’t plateau. And then we don’t start settling, saying, “Oh, well, that’s not going to be me or my generation. You know, I don’t use that platform. I don’t use that app. I think there’s some kind of courage. It’s nearly bordering on social shame if you don’t know the latest stuff these days, right? So I’m following through on that idea of yours. I don’t know where I’m going with this. So help me out if I don’t land correctly. But following through on that idea of yours, John has noted how some of it is going to have to come from the inside of Deutsche Telekom. And it should be beautifully blended and mixed with high end talent coming from the outside. If I were sitting on the inside and feeling a bit insecure about my own technical ability, What is the best piece of advice you could give me?
Jonathan Abrahamson
Reach out to us I mean, we love talking about this topic, as I think you can see. And the team does. And I think, you know, when you’ve got a team that as passionate as this one, working on topics is, you know, as interesting as these, you know, it’s not hard to grab us, maybe not in the cafeteria anymore, but maybe over WebEx and interact. And I think in the day-to-day work, you know, there’s always an opportunity for digital; we spend as much time now talking to the finance guys or the HR guys about the work that they’re doing over there as well. So it doesn’t just need to be app development or website development; there are opportunities to learn in this space. And that will serve you well, no matter which career you’re taking. But certainly in this industry.
Hanne Lindbæk
I bet you 10 years from now, the podcasts are actually led by robots. Hmm. Because they’ve discovered that robots are better leaders.
Svitlana Bielushkina
If you allow me actually, as I mentioned, in the very beginning, I have a number of questions. So if I can just go one by one and read them as they come, So John, one question was, we have one app, it was a big development for Europe in Deutsche Telekom. What is the next big thing? What is the next big technology coming for free Europe?
Jonathan Abrahamson
After one app. So I think that was a step in the direction of seeing whether we could develop something centrally and deploy it across many countries. I think developing products centrally and deploying them across multiple countries has its own risks and challenges. So we wanted to put our toe in the water to check, and you know how that would work. And I think the proof is that it did work. And with support from the napkins, we could find, you know, for certain use cases or certain challenges, we could make that work. I think we’ll do more of the same now that it won’t just be across digital space; it’ll be, you know, across, as you know, the new team has been brought together between telco products. So broadband and television, along with the engineering and IT teams, and the digital team That’s all on one team now. So we all sort of operated together before that; I think, you know, we had lots of interactions and lots of overlaps. But now it’s much more formalized and sort of brought together. So over the next 12 to 18 months, we’ll be making steps into deploying Android television, again, by the same team across the group launching RTK for broadband, which will sort of really greatly improve the customers experience with their broadband router topics, I think we’ll be definitely moving into into the home into customer interactions, and expanding our capabilities. There.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Sounds like a lot of potentials in there, Hanne. This is interesting. Okay, next one, future of digital marketing skills required? And what interesting use cases from not because can you share in the area of digital marketing?
Jonathan Abrahamson
I might answer that question slightly differently. So I think digital marketing is an area where you can do any sort of insight and reading on it, I think there’s lots of schools of thought about where that’s going. I think maybe what’s more interesting for us is how that relates to our context. So a traditional brand will have to use traditional digital marketing tools to interact with customers. As a telco, I don’t think we have to do that. We already have 60% of our customers growing on the app, which means we don’t have to pay Google and Facebook for that marketing. We already run an Android operating system for television, which means we can communicate with our customers directly without having to pay third parties to do that. Now, that’s a luxury that we have that we need to be more of, I keep telling my team, the end outcome, ideally, would be where we spend zero money on performance marketing brand would always be there. But with performance marketing, those budgets could eventually become zero. Because why would you ever have to use a traditional digital marketing tool if you can make contact with customers directly through the channels that we already have today that customers are interacting with? Those are the areas where I think we’re doubling down on and focusing on.
Svitlana Bielushkina
And that’s the skill you mentioned so many times for this. And last one from my side, in order to become digital experts this age comes into play. Age, there have to be a certain age to be an expert?
Jonathan Abrahamson
Absolutely not. I think, again, as mentioned before, this is a part of the business that is not so old. And there’s no such thing as a 20- or 30-year veteran in digital; it doesn’t exist. If you knew a lot about the industry four years ago, and then you went into a black box and came out again today, you’d basically be starting again from scratch. It’s moving so quickly now. So I think with the right mindset, the right interest, and the right ability to churn and learn, You know, you can you can do it at any age. I think there are no restrictions there.
Hanne Lindbæk
I love that point so much. I want to say it out loud again, because I think it is just so important that the idea of an expert isn’t as a matter of fact changing because being an expert at something for 20 or 30 years, which is actually maybe combined with the expertise role of OLED, right. That’s no longer the way for any one of us because it’s changing so quickly. Correct. So actually now that that changes for me that the definition of an expert is no longer someone who’s like been at something for 20 or 30 years, but it is someone who has a certain mindset about being able to take on board the new thing, going with the flow, is that correct?
Jonathan Abrahamson
Absolutely. Again, an expert is someone who understands the field deeply and potentially better than their peers, not someone who’s been doing it for 20 years, because that’s not relevant in this context.
Hanne Lindbæk
So in a way, I’m being daring now, but expertise has changed from being about having the experience to having a mindset.
Jonathan Abrahamson
Yeah, that’s a good way of describing it. I like that I might use that one.
Hanne Lindbæk
I find that so inspiring. Does that mean it’s true? What we’re saying, you know, is that we’re trying to go beneath the surface of the corporate lingo here. And saying that anyone of any age can apply, would be like, “blah, blah, blah” to me. But if you’re telling me that mindset has nothing to do with 2030 years of expertise, it has to do with a mindset. That actually would help me even at an older age. Dare you think that I could have a talent?
Jonathan Abrahamson
Absolutely. There’s no such thing as a 20 or 30-year expert in digital, they don’t exist.
Hanne Lindbæk
Exactly. Oh, thank you for landing that for me. That is so cool. I think that is so cool.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Jon, would you like to say anything at the end of the podcast? Anything to share with the listeners and employees in DT?
Jonathan Abrahamson
No, I think, you know, again, thanks for the opportunity to come and chat; I think you can tell we love talking about the topic. Looking forward to continuing to interact with the narcos, I think, you know, nothing happens without the last mile being delivered and developed by the teams that work across the countries. I love this job. I love this opportunity. And I love working with these guys. So I feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity. I’m looking forward to having a big 2021.
Hanne Lindbæk
And like you said, we’ll just keep that invitation open, right? You’re saying to pick up the phone and call the team or send you guys a text send I’m happy to take a WhatsApp I think it was a pleasure. Thank you very much. If you don’t mean it, okay, thank you, John. It’s nice to meet you. Take care, take care.
