A millennial view on the telco industry

Telecommunications is, and has pretty much always been, one of the fastest developing industries in the field of scientific innovation. Distant memories of expensive international phone calls, renting video tapes, playing ‘snake’ on a mobile phone and exchanging information on floppy disk are gradually fading away. Working for a company that owns one of the most connected networks globally to deliver critical communication services to businesses, households and individuals gives real meaning to day-to-day tasks, because ultimately, we are enabling societies and innovation to thrive.

Not only have our own personal day-to-day lives changed. Company networks have been evolving as well. As internet connectivity has improved, more people than ever are working remotely (even before the coronavirus pandemic). Applications are moving from the data centre to the cloud and the expectations that customers have from Service Providers are continuously changing.

My personal view is that one of the best ways to differentiate in a largely commoditized market is by offering a premium customer experience. Being flexible and responsive is important, for example by making network changes instantly, as soon as they are requested by our customers. The focus on differentiation through customer experience means that there are a lot of interesting projects to work on within the product organisation.

For example, recent projects that my team and I have been working on include auto-provisioning of services from the moment an order is placed, developing smartphone and browser based portals, launching software-driven features to optimize the orchestration of the network, and constantly improving the standard of the services across the entire portfolio.

The great thing about working in product management is that it allows you to be a central point within the organisation, and to work across different functions with many other great teams, including IT development, service delivery, marketing, procurement, service assurance and finance. Working in a company that delivers the critical infrastructure for people and business communicate is more exciting than ever, not only due to an ever-increasing demand for new services, but also for smarter (software-driven) and more cost-effective telecommunications solutions.

Are you curious to learn more about working in the telecoms industry? Check out our career page.