September 22, 2020

My Tele2 IoT journey: The First 90 Days at the Helm

Managing Director Cyril Deschanel

I joined Tele2 IoT as Chief Commercial Officer in 2018, and earlier this year was named Managing Director. During the past 2 years we have initiated a transformation from a start-up focused purely on revenue growth, to a scale-up focused on profitable growth and operational excellence, which simply means we now have strong processes in place, excellent customer service, and we generate profit.

During 2020 the world has changed a great deal. We have been facing a global pandemic, and this has impacted our working lives and our businesses in many ways. However, I am both humbled and pleased to say that our business has not been impacted by this crisis because the customers that are growing faster during the crisis are compensating for the ones facing struggles. And like many others in our industry, we are doing our best to help those customers who are struggling.

This year also sees us concluding the legal entity of Tele2 IoT to become a Business Unit reporting to the B2B Division of Tele2 Sweden operating company. While this move puts the full weight and power of Tele2 behind us it is still business as usual for Tele2 IoT. We retain our autonomy as a Business Unit, meaning we continue being responsible for product design, operations, sales, and customer services – and we will continue to invest in our international business, while also accelerating synergies with Tele2 B2B in Sweden and the Nordics.

Our transformation during 2020 means Tele2 IoT is now a much leaner organization, with a lot less bureaucratic nonsense, which brings us closer to our customers, while allowing us to have a faster decision-making process and improved internal collaboration.

Cyril Deschanel Managing Director Tele2 IoT

My goal is to use this improved efficiency to build on our well-established position in the IoT marketplace. We recently passed a major milestone – 100 thousand new active SIMs per month – and we are enjoying 30% year-on-year revenue growth. Most analysts say the IoT market grows on average around 11-14% percent so we’re outperforming the market, something which makes not just our employees and shareholders happy, but also our customers, because everyone wants to work with a solid, sustainable company.

In a previous blog I said you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs and I wasn’t joking. We broke more than a few eggs on our way to growth and profitability and I can say that it is our deep pool of talent at Tele2 IoT that has made these things possible.

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90 days in and I know where I’m taking the company, I have my management team in place, we are performing very well, and we have a best-in-class customer service.

The IoT market has vast potential, and it will be even vaster with 5G, Cat M, and eUICC enabling immense numbers of new IoT applications. In order to seize this opportunity, we are focused, and we will continue to evolve in order to create even more value for our customers going forward. If you’d like to learn more about how IoT can help your business, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

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