With the help of our team, Telia started a pilot with the aim of breaking silos between departments in order to improve customer experience and increase campaign velocity. As a result, Telia has accelerated sales growth, campaign speed and knowledge-sharing.

Client: Telia, Sweden's largest telecom company
Duration: 5 months
Services: Agile Methodologies, Scrum framework, Marketing Strategy, Marketing technology evaluation, Agency In-Housing

Starting Point

Telia, Sweden's largest telecom company, faced challenges within their digital marketing, highly prompted by complexity between business horizontals and sync between functions. As a result of this way of working, the time-to-market from initial idea to an ad ready to go live was long and cumbersome. In a competitive digital landscape where customers are constantly bombarded with multiple messages, companies need to continuously personalize and optimize ads to cut through the noise. Therefore, with the help of our team, Telia started a pilot project with the aim of breaking silos between departments in order to improve customer experience and increase campaign velocity.

“The team helped us in implementing Agile practices such as Sprints and Kanban which means we are able to time-box the execution, while quickly adapting to changing market demand. This allows for a more iterative approach where campaigns are continuously being evaluated and new versions of communication tested in each Sprint. They prioritized getting the pilot and way of working up and running quickly and instead honed the process along the way. This allowed us to see results fast and include the operative group early in tailoring the process towards Telia’s specific needs.”

Lena Lindgren
Marketing Transformation Manager, Telia Sverige

Solution

Internally branded as the “Three Star” Way-of-Working, several functions in Telia were tied together in a tight-knit semi-autonomous group that worked towards unified sales goals. This means that representatives from all areas (inhouse and external) web editors, web developers, ux, CRM, marketing, offering, digital sales, media execution/buying - work together towards shared goals with the ability to maintain speed in execution. Coupled with utilizing technology platforms for ad production, collaboration, and Agile frameworks the team saw a drastic improvement in goal-driven speed. All ad production was moved from external production agencies to being created in house. This shift saw great results in efficiency, transparency and possibility of adjusting ads continuously once they are live. 

The main focus of the “Three Star” group is to increase sales, where the Sprints allows the team to make sure to prioritize what is deemed most relevant right now and then iteratively build on learnings from previous Sprints and A/B-tests to further improve results. Kanban increases transparency between functions - when working towards a single customer story a more congruent customer journey can be maintained. Having unified KPI:s and goals makes sure that the entire team is on board with the prioritized deliverables chosen during the current Sprint being the ones with highest likelihood to drive sales.

Results

23% Sales growth YoY in chosen product area while maintaining media spend

50 % Decreased cost of production by bringing it in-house

80 % Decreased time to market

40 % decreased CPA in chosen product area

Employee satisfaction in the team is also higher since the operative group feel they have greater insight into all communication and an improved ability to affect their work to a higher degree.

“The 3-star pilot breaks new ground for us in terms of how we work together in practice. It’s a way where we combine the speed of a startup with the power and scale of the market leader. It’s impressive to see what can be achieved when we allow the team to be both cross-functional and semi-autonomous. Combining that setup with shared goals and tight iterations you really see a powerful effect on the results. Several organizations talk about doing ‘Agile Marketing’ but struggle with implementing it all the way. The 3-star group puts processes and tools in place which makes the team truly agile - and Telia more relevant for our customers. The team members tell me they love this new way of working.”

Anne Gro Gulla
CMO, Telia Sverige