Dutch telecoms supplier KPN took two years to hold out a fancy transformation, redesigning inside operations for the long run and shifting from utilizing about 80 purposes from third-party suppliers to Oracle Fusion Cloud.
KPN is the most important telco organisation within the Netherlands, with greater than 12,000 staff, some 10 million prospects and annual revenues of greater than $5bn. The corporate goals to make the Netherlands the best-connected nation on the earth, in addition to supply its prospects probably the most environmentally pleasant network and providers.
“With the arrival of WhatsApp in 2009, KPN’s income from cellular providers started to say no,” mentioned Hamza Tedik, government vice-president for group enterprise providers at KPN, throughout a buyer session at Oracle CloudWorld 2023 in Las Vegas in September. “12 months over 12 months, income was falling. As of final 12 months, the corporate is rising once more due to our clear technique that’s all about connectivity.”
KPN was operating on a legacy enterprise enterprise providers setting and numerous third-social gathering purposes – some 15 years previous with greater than 370 integrations and greater than 1,000 customisations, in accordance with Michael Bell, vice-president for enterprise IT at KPN, in one other CloudWorld session. “Our ambition is to attach everybody within the Netherlands, and likewise present a sustainable future,” he mentioned. “We need to develop as an organization and supply prospects a digitised expertise.”
This, nonetheless, requires additional digitisation of the corporate itself. “As a know-how firm, we wish to the long run,” mentioned Tatiana Sumina, government vice-president and program director for Oracle Cloud at KPN, throughout a keynote. “If you try this, it rapidly turns into clear that complexity and legacy will maintain you again. We needed to change to remain forward.”
The corporate appeared for a platform on which it might home a number of processes, with standardisation and simplification main the best way.
“Beforehand, we have been operating quite a few completely different purposes that have been upgraded solely sporadically, leaving little room for innovation in between,” mentioned Sumina. “We wished to maneuver in direction of one built-in platform that dynamically evolves frequently and affords extra prospects for innovation.”
Maintain repeating your imaginative and prescient
To form the advanced cloud transformation, KPN enlisted the assistance of Deloitte. “That shut collaboration stored us on our toes,” mentioned KPN IT head Bell. “In such a giant mission, it’s essential to offer construction, and ensure all elements of the enterprise are on board and linked to the technique of the corporate.”
That is additionally endorsed by Tedik. “One of many issues we discovered is how vital it’s in such a journey to have a transparent imaginative and prescient and to maintain repeating it,” he mentioned. “Individuals are likely to overlook the why; they get drained over time. It’s paramount to maintain reminding everybody why you might be doing this and what it can ship.”
The scope of the mission was big, and revolved round 5 streams: finance, procurement, tasks, provide chain administration and HR.
The transformation began in November 2020, and had three deployments. “In January 2022, we migrated to Oracle HCM,” mentioned Tedik.
“Then, in Might of that 12 months, we migrated our fibre enterprise to Oracle Cloud for finance, procurement, and tasks,” he continued. “Our fibre enterprise is our large subsidiary, driving roll-out of community, and this turned out to be a very good resolution; to mainly strive a brand new means of labor in actual operations and help this area with superior instruments. In April of this 12 months, we migrated all of the Oracle modules and different purposes in scope to Oracle Cloud.”
One of many challenges KPN confronted within the course of was that providers needed to proceed as ordinary, regardless that there was heavy rebuilding happening within the background.
“That’s why it was so vital to work in a structured means by a confirmed mission methodology, governance and rules,” mentioned Bell. “Each transformation is rocky and has its ups and downs. However sticking to a set of agreed guidelines offers you floor to cowl to make sure you keep on the best path.”
For instance, we had two guiding rules, which have been important for the mission: keep on with the usual as a lot as attainable – “Oracle to the max” – and redesign practical processes by implementing greatest practices.
After the migration, KPN has three customisations and quite a lot of greatest follow processes. “I’m actually happy with that,” mentioned Bell. “If you happen to had advised me that firstly of the mission, I’d have thought that was far too formidable.”
Furthermore, the corporate has managed to scale back the variety of integrations by roughly 50%. “Previously, we had about 370 integrations, and in our present state of affairs, we solely have 170,” he mentioned. “That could be a big profit from a price perspective and an operational perspective, as a result of it’s simpler to take care of and reduces the complexity within the organisation.”
Information high quality is success issue
Change administration proved essential within the course of, mentioned Sumina. “This transformation required a change of mindset of our folks, for them to be open to new know-how,” she mentioned. “Now we have been attempting to leverage a most of normal performance, as any customisation creates complexity. That required for some folks to be open to alter the best way they labored.”
The telecoms supplier has simplified its IT panorama, lowered the variety of integrations and retired nearly 80 purposes. “Consequently, we now have higher perception not solely into processes, but in addition into the Euros we spend,” added Sumina. “The transformation pressured KPN to look critically not solely at which purposes have been operating, but in addition at what was operating in these apps. We needed to clear up datasets from 15 years, which was fairly a problem.”
That was one of many the explanation why one out of three go-live moments was delayed by six months. “Initially, we have been purported to go stay with the final piece of transition in October 2022, however we wished to ensure the whole lot was proper,” she mentioned. “Information high quality defines how briskly you’ll be able to stabilise processes and ship correct help to the enterprise. As a result of we delayed the migration, we have been in a position to obtain a better automated migration price and went stay with an enormous quantity of operations in a easy method.”
KPN shared key classes from the cloud transformation in a number of periods at Oracle CloudWorld 2023. Apart from change administration and construction and methodology, Bell identified the significance of help from the board members.
“You’ll run into conditions the place customers need to keep on with their very own customisations,” mentioned Sumina. “Three of our six board members have been actually proudly owning the transformation programme, driving choices and securing the path we took. That help is required to maneuver ahead in difficult moments.”
In a migration of this magnitude, the whole lot is interlinked, and making sturdy cross-string alignment can be needed. “We concerned particular practical customers, in addition to technical specialists, that sat collectively to determine what was logical and what adjustments wanted to be applied,” she mentioned. “There have been fierce discussions at that desk, however you must cater for that in your governance.”
However maybe an important lesson for KPN is that these sorts of transformations are nearly not possible to do alone. “The success can’t be attributed to KPN, or to Oracle, or to Deloitte; it was the collaboration and synergy that made this a profitable enterprise transformation,” mentioned Bell. “At one level, you couldn’t even inform who was Oracle, who was KPN and who was Deloitte. Everybody shared the identical view and aim. It was very onerous work to get to that time, nevertheless it proved paramount for fulfillment.”
Exploring synthetic intelligence
Now that KPN’s IT panorama has been modernised and the corporate has technologically prepped for the long run, there may be room to consider the following steps.
“We’re exploring the following stage of automation for particular processes and the event of superior fashions of forecasting,” mentioned Sumina. “And regardless that AI isn’t new to us, we’re conscious that our transformation has drastically elevated prospects, which we will leverage additional in time.”
