In the competition for the best technologies and products, the following applies: the provider with the highest quality and the fastest product launch times (time-to-market) has a clear advantage. Telefónica Deutschland / O2 wants to significantly accelerate this process in the future and more than halve the time needed to launch new applications and products. To achieve this, the company is focusing on a fundamental transformation of its IT landscape by 2023. A leaner IT architecture with more efficient processes based on state-of-the-art technologies such as cloud solutions will enable the provider to drive innovation even faster in the future and reduce operating costs.
“We are focusing on a radical, Digital Transformation of our IT architecture and state-of-the-art technology to become one of the leading technology providers in the German telecommunications market,” said Mallik Rao, Chief Technology and Information Officer at Telefónica / O2. “With our new IT landscape, we are bringing innovations to market even faster, increasing the reliability of our systems and significantly improving customer satisfaction. Increased efficiency will reduce the cost of running our IT applications by up to 30% from 2025 compared to today.”
IT is the engine that drives business operations: every day, more than 46 million customers of Telefónica / O2‘s numerous own and partner brands access the IT solutions – from the billing systems for prepaid and post-paid customers to the online customer portals, apps and shop systems. Every day, the company’s customers generate over 5 billion data points in the systems. Telefónica / O2‘s approximately 8,500 employees also use the IT applications for their daily work – from network expansion to customer support.
New, leaner IT architecture: Less complexity, more efficient digital processes
Telefónica / O2‘s IT architecture has grown and expanded organically and inorganically throughout the company’s 25-year history and is correspondingly complex. The company currently operates over 100 applications, some of which are redundant, many of which were programmed independently and must be maintained individually. Around two-thirds of the IT investment and operating costs are therefore accounted for by the operation and maintenance of the previous IT landscape alone. Telefónica / O2 will now set up its IT architecture much more efficiently: the company is reducing the number of IT service providers from 10 to two central partners in the future, who will accompany the entire IT transformation and product development process. The number of core IT platforms is being reduced from six to two – one each for the company’s private and business customers. This division will enable optimum alignment with the different market requirements and needs of the two customer segments. Instead of its own developed systems, which require a great deal of individual coding, the company will in future rely much more heavily on standardised systems such as those from Salesforce, where changes can be easily incorporated across multiple brands via one user interface. Taken together, these factors ensure that Telefónica / O2 will be able to save up to 30% of the costs of operating its IT applications from 2025 compared to today.
All consumer applications of the company’s own and partner brands will run on a common, modern IT platform in the future. In addition to mobile communications applications, this also includes the fixed-network connections of Telefónica / O2 customers – including VDSL, cable and fibre-optic applications. Convergence products from mobile communications, fixed network and other services such as TV products can be better managed and optimised via the joint platform. With these smart bundled products, the company aims to strengthen customer loyalty and sustainably increase revenue per household. The new IT architecture will also enable the provider to launch product innovations on the market even faster than before. Product launch times – from the idea to development and market launch – should be accelerated by over 50% in many cases. In the future, suppliers will be able to make new products available to their customers twice as quickly. The costs for these implementation processes will even be reduced by up to 90% as a result.
The new, standalone IT platform for business and industrial customers combines the tariff world of O2 business customers and modern industrial and networking solutions such as 5G campus networks, network slicing, SD-WAN and cloud. This also enables the company to drive digital innovations for industry and SMEs faster.
Data centre in the cloud: Greater efficiency through cutting-edge cloud technologies
Telefónica / O2 is relying on the latest future-proof technologies for its IT transformation. In the future, up to 80% of all applications will run via the cloud. This improves scalability and accelerates the development process: instead of extensive server configurations, the company can add new applications and additional computing capacity in the cloud at the click of a mouse.
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