CGI delivers innovative omni-channel platform to German telco mobilcom-debitel
As more and more people embrace mobile devices as a way of life, the worldwide mobile services market has become increasingly saturated, with tight competition to win customers and meet their rising expectations. Leading providers are responding by exploring new ways of doing business to differentiate themselves, including new business models, products and services driven by emerging digital technologies.
One of those leading providers is Germany’s mobilcom-debitel—the largest provider in the country, now known as Freenet AG, with its 12 million customers. With a large portion of its business made up of roughly 600 brick-and-mortar stores, the company is embracing digitalization to transform its business model. Ultimately, its vision is to become a “digital lifestyle provider”—creating from mobile solutions, such as smart watches, VR glasses and drones, a digital lifestyle for its customers that improves their quality and enjoyment of life.
As a first step toward achieving its vision, mobilcom-debitel recognized the need to transition to an omni-channel business model—one that seamlessly integrates brick-and-mortar, online and call center channels, creating a consistent customer experience across all touchpoints.
“In a sense, our customers are leading us into a new world, and the change is irresistible,” said Florian Wolf, former Head of IT Customer & Commerce Systems at mobilcom-debitel. “Clearly, they are ready for an omni-channel environment, and transformation is not a matter of choice, but a necessity.”
Finding the right partner
Before beginning its omni-channel journey, mobilcom-debitel had to find the right partner. Due to the complexity of its business and the scale of the transformation involved, the company sought an experienced, trustworthy partner that could offer the following:
- Significant omni-channel capabilities and experience, with a solid track record of success
- Extensive telecom expertise
- High-end business and technology consulting skills
- In-depth understanding of mobilcom-debitel’s business and challenges
- End-to-end services—from strategy development to design and development, to implementation
To demonstrate it had these qualifications, CGI sent a small team to mobilcom-debitel's Hamburg office to meet with key stakeholders and, through these meetings, conveyed a thorough understanding of the provider’s current situation and how CGI could help the organization achieve its digital roadmap. As a result, CGI was chosen to lead their digitalization project which launched at the end of 2014.
Starting the journey
From the start, CGI worked with upper management to formulate the future vision of mobilcom-debitel and develop an effective roadmap for achieving it. The CGI team did a lot of listening, holding workshops with the company’s most important stakeholders to learn their biggest issues from a customer perspective. With this input, CGI designed omni-channel user journeys and conducted future state planning for numerous key functional areas, including receiving product information, sharing a cart, delivering to a store, booking an appointment, returning a product, redeeming a voucher, receiving payments and more.
Based on this work, CGI prioritized the critical steps in the omni-channel journey of mobilcom-debitel, laying out, for example, the first 10 priorities to be achieved in the first 10 months. To validate its approach, CGI met with journey testers to get their buy-in and feedback.
CGI also invested substantial time in educating the mobilcom-debitel staff on the importance of evolving to an omni-channel business model. One challenge, for example, was the concern among store staff about how the new model would impact their sales commissions by redirecting business online. CGI helped to develop new omni-channel commission schemes to ensure fairness and motivate store staff to continue delivering the same level of customer care.
Taking an Agile approach
CGI began the development of a new cross-channel e-commerce platform for mobilcom-debitel in May of 2015 using Agile development. While the Agile methodology was on the rise in Europe at the time, it was still considered more of a trend than an established approach, and mobilcom-debitel had yet to use it.
To “sell” the company’s developers on the concept, CGI conducted training, making the case for Agile’s shorter development and refining cycles in light of the project’s aggressive goals and deadlines. CGI demonstrated how these shorter cycles sped up execution while ensuring quality.
While newer developers were open to the idea, veteran developers hesitated, having used only the traditional Waterfall method. CGI, however, brought everyone on board, demonstrating the benefits of Agile to developers and its business value to the company.
CGI completed development of the cross-channel e-commerce platform in just six months.
Exceeding project expectations
CGI completed development of the cross-channel e-commerce platform in just six months. The platform offered a wide range of cross-channel features, enabling customers to order the same products from each channel and even initiate a sale in one channel while completing it in another. For example, a customer’s online shopping cart can be shared with a call center representative who then completes the sale and orders in-store pickup. From a technical perspective, the platform’s SAP Hybris Commerce architecture supports mobilcom-debitel’s highly complex products, which involve network tariffs and third-party contracts, as well as its entire retail product line. It can be accessed via desktops, as well as on any mobile device, using an identical code base. In addition, CGI integrated mobilcom-debitel’s highly complex legacy systems with the new platform. CGI continues to maintain and evolve the platform, integrating new features based on customer demand, and has met every quality goal and project milestone over the past two-plus years. “The pace of the project has been phenomenal. What’s taken place within a short time is remarkable, especially considering the fact that, just a few years ago, our company was still hesitant about embarking on a transformation journey. CGI’s role in our liftoff has been crucial,” said Florian.
Delivering the value of omni-channel
“Presently, everyone in mobilcom-debitel is convinced of the project’s value,” added Florian. “We have achieved more than anyone expected, and, technically, I would say we are now a state-of-the-art company. As an integration partner, CGI steered us through all of the challenges of our project, accomplishing in six months more than any other project in the company’s 25-year history.”
Customers began using the new platform immediately. Within the first three months, for example, on average 1,000 sales appointments were booked online per month, without the use of any advertising or other types of promotion. "Since implementation, our business has developed very well so far, and we expect a significant rise in sales and customer satisfaction this year,” shared Florian.
“While our retail shops will continue to play an important role in the future, our digital transformation continues,” he continued. “Besides we expect growing digital sales, we are going to renew our platform for customer self-service with an omni-channel approach. Our digital journey is well underway, and we look forward to continuing to partner with CGI to shape and drive our digital future.”
"The decision to collaborate with CGI was made swiftly. CGI offered not only omni-channel experience but also experience within our business area. The timing and launch of the project was impeccable. Our wishes, which are essentially our customers’ wishes, were listened to and taken into account. Particularly useful was CGI’s skill in bringing together IT and business staff, convincing them of the project’s importance and getting them on board," added Florian.
To learn more about CGI's digital and omni-channel experience, ideas and end-to-end capabilities, contact us at info@cgi.com.
