To keep up with consumers’ rising expectations for convenience and personalisation online, companies must undergo their own transformations—not only using the latest digital tools but also reevaluating long-held beliefs about what customers want and how to best serve them.
Embracing a customer-centric business transformation is important everywhere, but particularly so in Sweden, where digital adoption among consumers is among the highest in the world. As companies compete for business, the race is on to set new standards for customer experiences. Conventional wisdom might pick out early adopters as having a distinct advantage, but that’s not necessarily the case. In fact, one company is building a winning strategy as a late mover.
Telenor Sweden is the country’s third-largest mobile operator and fixed broadband provider for consumers, and it recognised it lagged behind consumer expectations for digital experiences. But two years ago, the company set out to turn that latency into an advantage.
“As a late-mover in our digital transformation we gain the advantage of being able to choose more mature, proven technologies and hire people with great experience,” says Christian Barrou Thrane, CMO at Telenor Sweden. “We’re setting the bar very high because we know consumers compare us to all leaders in digital experience, not just to our direct competitors.”
The company is already seeing impressive results, doubling its digital sales and increasing cross-selling and upselling by a factor of five. Christian and other members of his team, including Patricia Eng, MarTech and AdTech owner, view two advantages as key to making Telenor Sweden’s digital transformation stick and succeed.
Advantage #1: Choosing mature technologies to personalise experiences at scale
Technology is essential to any digital transformation, and Telenor is in an ideal position to make the most of it. Being relatively late to the game, the company has the luxury of selecting powerful, integrated tools proven to deliver on the customer experience mandate.
As Telenor engages with customers online, the marketing team uses Adobe Analytics, Adobe Experience Platform Launch, and Adobe Target to continuously refine the experiences it delivers. That includes testing against different audience segments through Adobe Audience Manager and bringing its search marketing in-house with Adobe Advertising Cloud Search.
“We’ve gone from delivering a few ad hoc digital experiences a year ago to delivering more than 30 experiences on our website at any given time,” explains Patricia. “Customer insights enable us to provide each visitor with the best experience, whatever their intentions.”
Advantage #2: Learning from people who have led digital transformations
Telenor’s transformation meant restructuring into cross-functional, agile marketing teams focused on customer value and breaking down barriers between marketing and IT. With help from Adobe Customer Solutions, Telenor created role-specific training plans for everyone on the team, spanning from product owners and digital marketers to data analysts and media buyers.
“One of the most valuable things we gained by working closely with Adobe is giving teams a more data-driven mindset,” Patricia says. “The Adobe team taught us how to measure against KPIs, evaluate the data, and come up with strategies to execute and gauge returns.”
From latecomer to leader in Customer Experience Management
The customer-centric business transformation has brought new energy to Telenor Sweden, inspiring teams to reach higher.
“We’re viewed as a leader and we need to offer premium experiences to match,” explains Christian. “By undergoing a broad transformation, we’re not limiting ourselves and instead can re-imagine experiences that exceed our customers’ high expectations.”