In September 2012, T-Mobile Czech, the country’s largest operator by subscriber number, jumped on the managed services bandwagon by awarding Huawei a contract for network build services and field operations. At MWC 2013, CTIO Frank Meywerk summarized the challenges they overcame and progress so far.
Meywerk has two primary concerns about managed services. “The first concern was to really find a suitable partner, which is willing and able to build a long-term sustainable business model. What we wanted to avoid is there is an overpromising and somebody doesn’t understand the risk and going into an area for short-term wins.” He then adds, “We have to avoid operational risks, making sure that our essential processes today are not being destroyed. During the transition phase of outsourcing, people do not ‘drop the ball’ and we have a different performance.”
Meywerk summarized four key challenges. The first one was that the Huawei team initially focused on quick wins on efficiency instead of on performance stabilization, mainly in the network deployment area. So both parties discussed the situation and took a step back and concentrated on stability first. Another operational challenge was that both parties underestimated the IT processes that would go into it. As a result, more resources were allocated on both sides to keep the original time plan. The last two challenges related to mental changes and leadership culture challenges.
Meywerk was generally positive on the cooperation with Huawei, “The partnership is improving. We see Huawei as a strong company with a strong localization in the Czech Republic. This is essential for this kind of business. We think that for the future, if would be strong linkage between T-Mobile and Huawei also as a basis for more businesses.”
