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The Permanent (R)evolution

Every large organisation has been through a major transformation, and most through several. The word transformation is misleading because it suggests a beginning and an end. But organisations that do well are the ones that have given up on the idea of arriving and realise that constant change has become the new norm, and missing a single cycle leaves you permanently behind. This evening, two leaders will share how they think about this, coming from opposite directions. John Porter led Telenet through a sustained period of reinvention spanning the pandemic, a full reorganisation into tribes, M&A, and a shift to a performance driven culture. Along the way, the IT department was dissolved and technology was embedded inside autonomous tribes that run as small businesses. There is no CIO at Telenet. It is Telenet Group’s purpose to become a digital-first, customer-centric organisation. To deliver on this ambition, it has embarked on a transformation journey built on three pillars: (i) the implementation of a scaled-agile operating model (organisation), (ii) the acceleration of digitisation and automation underpinned by optimised IT systems, platforms, and strategic technology partnerships (digitisation), and (iii) a performance leadership culture focused on accountability, ownership, and a change mindset (culture). Kris Vervaet, on the other hand, has just become CIO at KBC, the bank whose mobile app has been ranked best in the world three times and whose AI assistant Kate now handles 70% of customer queries on its own. But Kris is no ordinary CIO: he ran DPG Media Belgium as CEO, and KBC went looking for someone who has led transformation rather than someone who manages technology. So while one organisation got rid of the CIO role, the other reinvented it, and both are thriving. The conversation will range across organisational and IT redesign, the rise of digital-first customer experience, the impact of AI on how every business is run, and the harder questions of culture, talent and leadership. The question for every leader in the room is what that tells you about your own role, your own operating model, and the pace at which you are prepared to keep evolving.

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Adoption success. New voice solution for a media company

Moving to a unified communications platform to accelerate digital transformation and boost productivity.

Overview
Technology is changing the world as we know it.
It’s a huge challenge for organisations looking to accelerate their digital transformation. Including one of our longstanding customers, a mass media company who needed to move to a unified communications platform to help their teams work smarter and improve customer and user experience. But when you’re a global organisation with 30,000 staff across 170 locations in 84 countries, it’s not so straightforward.

The challenge
Changing user behaviour
The rise in remote working meant a number of their employees were using their own phones, laptops and unsupported collaboration apps. Lack of visibility and control of BYOD not only posed a real risk to their network, but also user experience.

Having everyone use a single solution across chat, phone and meetings would not only simplify end user experience but improve collaboration, increase productivity, and strengthen security. But due to their size, this wouldn’t be an easy task.

It wasn’t just about rolling out a new communications platform across the organisation but changing its culture too. The customer needed to educate its people before, after and during the migration to ensure they fully embraced the new technology and got the most out of it.

And that’s where our user adoption service came in.

In addition to adding great business value, the BT user adoption team worked as collaborative partners and were a true pleasure to work with.”

Chief People Officer

The solution
User adoption made simple
The customer was using multiple collaboration tools – this wasn’t cost-effective or scalable. Migrating to Microsoft Teams Direct Routing would give them a workspace for real-time collaboration, communication and meetings, all in one place. Along with a choice of calling plans over our global SIP network allowing them to make and receive calls within the platform.

Our proven methodology has helped organisations achieve faster business results and ongoing value from their cloud technology investment. So, we were best placed to deliver a user adoption programme to support the upgrade of 27,000 users to the new cloud-based platform.

A big part of our user adoption service is taking the time to understand our customers’ business challenges. Our dedicated specialist spent time with them to understand their users’ current behaviour and identify the change required.

The plan was to deliver an “early adopter” programme to 420 employees. The customer would then take the learnings from the programme to further improve the overall roll out of Microsoft Teams Direct Routing to its wider organisation.

To support the early adopters through the change and drive engagement, we created a detailed launch communication plan, including training and assets, and personalised email communications inviting them to attend tailored online training sessions. We also launched a user content library for online video tutorials, quick start guides and FAQs. We created additional help and advice for hearing impaired users, guiding them through the platform's accessibility features, like live captions. Users were asked to complete a small survey four weeks after the early adopter launch, to provide valuable insight to help improve the wider roll out.

In addition to our comprehensive early adoption programme, we also set up our Genius Desk, a ‘go to’ specialist team who became a part of the customer’s organisation for six months. The team offered users specific help and support on each phase of the Teams migration to drive maximum adoption.

The result
A better user experience
We successfully helped the customer change user behaviour and get everyone on board. The early adopters programme achieved 100% take-up as a result of our detailed launch plan - avoiding any disruption to business activity.

Our user adoption team received high praise from the customer, calling out their amazing support for what was “a very complex series of inter-related projects” and how they were a “true pleasure to work with”.

Users also got a lot from our training, with one saying: “It was fast paced, insightful, and will help me be more efficient day-to-day.”

Six months since the roll out of Teams the customer has seen call volumes increase 15 times over.

The training was fast paced, insightful, and will help me be more efficient day-to-day.”

Early adoption programme user

Technologies

Microsoft Teams

Partners

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